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Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Euan Macdonald
Scotland-born, LA-based artist Euan Macdonald presents A Little Ramble, a solo exhibition at Western Bridge. The exhibition features video, drawings, photographs, and new two newly commissioned works. "The idea of landscape is a thread that runs through all the work," says Macdonald, not as a scene but as "a changing space to move through in time."
The show's centerpiece, A Little Ramble (2010), brings a full scale replica of a mountaintop into Western Bridge. Realistically rendered by a local scene shop, the mountain is surmounted by a pair of taxidermied mountain goats, frozen in circulation on a looped path around the summit. The work takes its title from a short prose piece by Robert Walser (1878-1956) recounting a trek in the mountains, most likely in Switzerland but unspecified, easily projected onto the landscape around Seattle. "I walked through the mountains today," the account begins. "The weather was damp, and the entire region was gray." The narrator limits himself to the observable, giving little indication of his interior state. The ending asserts the power of the mundane: "We don't need to see anything out of the ordinary. We already see so much."
A mountain encountered inside a gallery is clearly out of the ordinary, but the piece asserts itself as a commonplace despite its uncanniness. The extraordinary is expressed as if ordinary.
Upstairs, in Western Bridge's connected apartment, a smaller sculptural work gives a long view of the same scene. In 98134, (2009) Western Bridge itself is set, as a scale model, atop a large mountain. Drawing from a trope of science fiction, the work shows the building "at the mercy of geological change," in the artist's words, a vision out of J.G. Ballard or Planet of the Apes.
Landscape appears in both the imagery and structure of Selected Standards (2007), an installation of 84 diptychs pairing found sheet music covers with drawings and photographs made or appropriated by the artist. Macdonald came across a box of sheet music for pop standards in a second-hand shop in Los Angeles. The song titles, arranged more or less in the order in which the artist found them, read as a loose narrative. "The narrative is about someone moving to a new place, finding enchantment and then disillusion," says Macdonald. "It's also a narrative about someone falling in love, but it's ambiguous whether it's with a person or with a city."
This narrative connects to the journey taken by the sheet music, mostly published in New York and dispersed around the nation via commerce or migration before arriving in Los Angeles. The titles' narrative connects to the artist's own life in direct ways, and the drawings and photographs draw on a range of themes and subjects that have been significant in his practice, but the work is not autobiographical. Instead, it operates as a pop standard does, as a subjective experience that a mass audience can experience personally, relating to the song's tale (verse) and its emotions (chorus), identifying with the singer or protagonist. "Any of those songs can relate to any number of people," says Macdonald. "Not only are the songs standard but the experience can be standard as well."
The exhibition offers the viewer a series of little rambles, encounters with the familiar--reminders of how much we already see.
The show's centerpiece, A Little Ramble (2010), brings a full scale replica of a mountaintop into Western Bridge. Realistically rendered by a local scene shop, the mountain is surmounted by a pair of taxidermied mountain goats, frozen in circulation on a looped path around the summit. The work takes its title from a short prose piece by Robert Walser (1878-1956) recounting a trek in the mountains, most likely in Switzerland but unspecified, easily projected onto the landscape around Seattle. "I walked through the mountains today," the account begins. "The weather was damp, and the entire region was gray." The narrator limits himself to the observable, giving little indication of his interior state. The ending asserts the power of the mundane: "We don't need to see anything out of the ordinary. We already see so much."
A mountain encountered inside a gallery is clearly out of the ordinary, but the piece asserts itself as a commonplace despite its uncanniness. The extraordinary is expressed as if ordinary.
Upstairs, in Western Bridge's connected apartment, a smaller sculptural work gives a long view of the same scene. In 98134, (2009) Western Bridge itself is set, as a scale model, atop a large mountain. Drawing from a trope of science fiction, the work shows the building "at the mercy of geological change," in the artist's words, a vision out of J.G. Ballard or Planet of the Apes.
Landscape appears in both the imagery and structure of Selected Standards (2007), an installation of 84 diptychs pairing found sheet music covers with drawings and photographs made or appropriated by the artist. Macdonald came across a box of sheet music for pop standards in a second-hand shop in Los Angeles. The song titles, arranged more or less in the order in which the artist found them, read as a loose narrative. "The narrative is about someone moving to a new place, finding enchantment and then disillusion," says Macdonald. "It's also a narrative about someone falling in love, but it's ambiguous whether it's with a person or with a city."
This narrative connects to the journey taken by the sheet music, mostly published in New York and dispersed around the nation via commerce or migration before arriving in Los Angeles. The titles' narrative connects to the artist's own life in direct ways, and the drawings and photographs draw on a range of themes and subjects that have been significant in his practice, but the work is not autobiographical. Instead, it operates as a pop standard does, as a subjective experience that a mass audience can experience personally, relating to the song's tale (verse) and its emotions (chorus), identifying with the singer or protagonist. "Any of those songs can relate to any number of people," says Macdonald. "Not only are the songs standard but the experience can be standard as well."
The exhibition offers the viewer a series of little rambles, encounters with the familiar--reminders of how much we already see.
FotoFest 2010 Biennial
FotoFest 2010 Biennial
Program and Special Events Announced
FotoFest announces the programs for the United States' largest citywide celebration of photography, the FotoFest 2010 Biennial. Focusing for the first time on the theme ofContemporary U.S. Photography, the Biennial highlights four exhibitions on Contemporary U.S. Photography by invited curators from different regions of the country. These principal exhibitions feature the work of 45 U.S. artists, and are accompanied by a fifth, non-thematic exhibition, Discoveries of the Meeting Place, spotlighting ten artists who presented work in the previous Biennial's portfolio review. FotoFest's exhibitions are joined by more than 80 independently organized photographic exhibitions citywide; forums on contemporary curating; the world's largest portfolio review for artists; an International Fine Print Auction; programs for art collectors; Workshops on online multimedia and social media technologies; films; and public Evenings with the Artists. The full program is available online at http://www.fotofest.org/biennial2010.
FOTOFEST 2010 BIENNIAL GRAND OPENING
The FotoFest 2010 Biennial Grand Opening is a free public celebration Friday, March 12, 2010 at FotoFest headquarters and gallery – the site of Whatever was Splendid, one of the four principal exhibitions on Contemporary U.S. Photography at the FotoFest 2010 Biennial. Guests at the Grand Opening will include the FotoFest 2010 Biennial curators: Natasha Egan, Aaron Schuman, Edward Robinson and Gilbert Vicario; many of the 45 exhibiting artists; refreshments and music. Opening Receptions for the other three principal FotoFest Biennial exhibitions occur over the course of the following weeks and will be attended by featured artists and curators.
FOTOFEST CURATORIAL DIALOGUES
Examining the role of the art curator is an important part of FotoFest 2010 Biennial programming. The professionals commissioned to conceive the principal exhibitions for the 2010 Biennial are part of a new generation of curators redefining the role of museums and art spaces in terms of their relationship to art audiences, the general public, and other social institutions. FotoFest presents four of the Biennial curators in a series of free Curatorial Dialogues about their roles as interlocutors between art makers and the public, how they see the future of art in institutions, what influences their curatorial choices, who they see as their audiences, and how they and their institutions are using online platforms.
In addition to the four Curatorial Dialogues, FotoFest is sponsoring a Symposium on Contemporary Curatorial Practice with Anne Wilkes Tucker, Charlotte Cotton, Gilbert Vicario and Daniel Joseph Martinez at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 28, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010 - Aaron Schuman, curator of the Whatever was Splendid exhibition at Vine Street Studios, with Madeline Yale, Adjunct Curator, Houston Center for Photography
Friday, March 19, 2010 - Edward Robinson, curator of the Assembly: Eight Emerging Photographers from Southern California exhibition at Williams Tower, with Anne Wilkes Tucker, Curator of Photography, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Friday, March 26, 2010 - Natasha Egan, curator of the Road to Nowhere? exhibition at Winter Street Studios, with Clint Willour, Curator, Galveston Arts Center
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - Gilbert Vicario, curator of the Medianation exhibition at various locations, with Fernando Castro, Independent Curator and Collector
The Curatorial Dialogues are scheduled to connect with the four Evenings with the Artists Open Portfolio Nights.
FOTOFEST EVENINGS WITH THE ARTISTS
FotoFest's Evenings with the Artists Open Portfolio Nights connect the public with the hundreds of artists, curators, and other art professionals visiting Houston for the acclaimed Meeting Place Portfolio Review. The Evenings with the Artists Open Portfolio Nights invite the public to see the work of artists in a festive atmosphere that fosters discussion, exchange and sales.
FOTOFEST FINE PRINT AUCTION
Prints from eighty contemporary international and U.S. artists are featured in the FotoFest Fine Print Auction, Tuesday March 23, 2010 at the Doubletree Hotel Houston Downtown. Conducted byDenise Bethel, Sotheby's Senior Vice President and Director of Photographs Department, the auction provides a rare opportunity to encounter and acquire high quality contemporary fine art photography from five continents. The Preview Exhibition is March 3-20, 2010 at Gremillion & Co. Fine Art Inc. and is free and open to the public. There are two additional days of previews at the Auction site, Doubletree Hotel Houston Downtown, March 21-22, 2010. Images, artist biographies and information about the works will be posted on the FotoFest 2010 website athttp://www.fotofest.org/biennial2010/auction. Absentee bid forms are available.
FOTOFEST 2010 BIENNIAL WORKSHOPS
FotoFest is sponsoring two Workshops on online multimedia, social media and web-based technologies. The workshops, at the Doubletree Hotel Houston Downtown, bring media and art marketing experts, artists, curators and editors together to share their expertise and experience in art, the internet, social media networks, and multimedia platforms.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 | BEYOND PRINT: Creative Communication in the Digital Age
Presenters Mary Virginia Swanson and artist Katrina d'Autremont
Focusing on how the use of interactive, online marketing tools, and technologies is changing the way artists and arts professionals present their work to the world.
Sunday, March 21, 2010 | MEDIASTORM: Building Multimedia Platforms
Presenter Brian Storm, MediaStorm (http://www.mediastorm.com)
Shows how top photographers are redefining their work to incorporate audio, animation, and video for distribution across new marketing and art platforms, including broadcast, internet, and mobile media.
FotoFest Workshops connect with the Meeting Place Portfolio Reviews at the Doubletree Hotel Downtown Houston. Forms are available for download athttp://www.fotofest.org/biennial2010/workshops.
FOTOFEST 2010 BIENNIAL CATALOGUE
FotoFest is co-publishing the 2010 Biennial Catalogue, with European publisher Schilt Publishing (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). The 500 page, two-volume 2010 Biennial catalogue features more than 300 full-color images and five essays by Biennial curators on Contemporary U.S. Photography. The FotoFest 2010 Biennial Catalogue is available late February 2010 at http://www.fotofest.org.
INSTITUTIONAL SPONSORS (as of January 14, 2010)
The Houston Endowment, Inc; Roma; The Brown Foundation, Inc; National Endowment for the Arts; JPMorgan Chase; The Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation; City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance; Doubletree Hotel Houston Downtown; Texas Commission on the Arts; The Clayton Fund; Trust for Mutual Understanding; Continental Airlines The Official Airline of the FotoFest 2010 Biennial; The Wortham Foundation; American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP); Iland Internet Solutions; HexaGroup; Vine Street Studios; The Anchorage Foundation.
Program and Special Events Announced
FotoFest announces the programs for the United States' largest citywide celebration of photography, the FotoFest 2010 Biennial. Focusing for the first time on the theme ofContemporary U.S. Photography, the Biennial highlights four exhibitions on Contemporary U.S. Photography by invited curators from different regions of the country. These principal exhibitions feature the work of 45 U.S. artists, and are accompanied by a fifth, non-thematic exhibition, Discoveries of the Meeting Place, spotlighting ten artists who presented work in the previous Biennial's portfolio review. FotoFest's exhibitions are joined by more than 80 independently organized photographic exhibitions citywide; forums on contemporary curating; the world's largest portfolio review for artists; an International Fine Print Auction; programs for art collectors; Workshops on online multimedia and social media technologies; films; and public Evenings with the Artists. The full program is available online at http://www.fotofest.org/biennial2010.
FOTOFEST 2010 BIENNIAL GRAND OPENING
The FotoFest 2010 Biennial Grand Opening is a free public celebration Friday, March 12, 2010 at FotoFest headquarters and gallery – the site of Whatever was Splendid, one of the four principal exhibitions on Contemporary U.S. Photography at the FotoFest 2010 Biennial. Guests at the Grand Opening will include the FotoFest 2010 Biennial curators: Natasha Egan, Aaron Schuman, Edward Robinson and Gilbert Vicario; many of the 45 exhibiting artists; refreshments and music. Opening Receptions for the other three principal FotoFest Biennial exhibitions occur over the course of the following weeks and will be attended by featured artists and curators.
FOTOFEST CURATORIAL DIALOGUES
Examining the role of the art curator is an important part of FotoFest 2010 Biennial programming. The professionals commissioned to conceive the principal exhibitions for the 2010 Biennial are part of a new generation of curators redefining the role of museums and art spaces in terms of their relationship to art audiences, the general public, and other social institutions. FotoFest presents four of the Biennial curators in a series of free Curatorial Dialogues about their roles as interlocutors between art makers and the public, how they see the future of art in institutions, what influences their curatorial choices, who they see as their audiences, and how they and their institutions are using online platforms.
In addition to the four Curatorial Dialogues, FotoFest is sponsoring a Symposium on Contemporary Curatorial Practice with Anne Wilkes Tucker, Charlotte Cotton, Gilbert Vicario and Daniel Joseph Martinez at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 28, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010 - Aaron Schuman, curator of the Whatever was Splendid exhibition at Vine Street Studios, with Madeline Yale, Adjunct Curator, Houston Center for Photography
Friday, March 19, 2010 - Edward Robinson, curator of the Assembly: Eight Emerging Photographers from Southern California exhibition at Williams Tower, with Anne Wilkes Tucker, Curator of Photography, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Friday, March 26, 2010 - Natasha Egan, curator of the Road to Nowhere? exhibition at Winter Street Studios, with Clint Willour, Curator, Galveston Arts Center
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - Gilbert Vicario, curator of the Medianation exhibition at various locations, with Fernando Castro, Independent Curator and Collector
The Curatorial Dialogues are scheduled to connect with the four Evenings with the Artists Open Portfolio Nights.
FOTOFEST EVENINGS WITH THE ARTISTS
FotoFest's Evenings with the Artists Open Portfolio Nights connect the public with the hundreds of artists, curators, and other art professionals visiting Houston for the acclaimed Meeting Place Portfolio Review. The Evenings with the Artists Open Portfolio Nights invite the public to see the work of artists in a festive atmosphere that fosters discussion, exchange and sales.
FOTOFEST FINE PRINT AUCTION
Prints from eighty contemporary international and U.S. artists are featured in the FotoFest Fine Print Auction, Tuesday March 23, 2010 at the Doubletree Hotel Houston Downtown. Conducted byDenise Bethel, Sotheby's Senior Vice President and Director of Photographs Department, the auction provides a rare opportunity to encounter and acquire high quality contemporary fine art photography from five continents. The Preview Exhibition is March 3-20, 2010 at Gremillion & Co. Fine Art Inc. and is free and open to the public. There are two additional days of previews at the Auction site, Doubletree Hotel Houston Downtown, March 21-22, 2010. Images, artist biographies and information about the works will be posted on the FotoFest 2010 website athttp://www.fotofest.org/biennial2010/auction. Absentee bid forms are available.
FOTOFEST 2010 BIENNIAL WORKSHOPS
FotoFest is sponsoring two Workshops on online multimedia, social media and web-based technologies. The workshops, at the Doubletree Hotel Houston Downtown, bring media and art marketing experts, artists, curators and editors together to share their expertise and experience in art, the internet, social media networks, and multimedia platforms.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 | BEYOND PRINT: Creative Communication in the Digital Age
Presenters Mary Virginia Swanson and artist Katrina d'Autremont
Focusing on how the use of interactive, online marketing tools, and technologies is changing the way artists and arts professionals present their work to the world.
Sunday, March 21, 2010 | MEDIASTORM: Building Multimedia Platforms
Presenter Brian Storm, MediaStorm (http://www.mediastorm.com)
Shows how top photographers are redefining their work to incorporate audio, animation, and video for distribution across new marketing and art platforms, including broadcast, internet, and mobile media.
FotoFest Workshops connect with the Meeting Place Portfolio Reviews at the Doubletree Hotel Downtown Houston. Forms are available for download athttp://www.fotofest.org/biennial2010/workshops.
FOTOFEST 2010 BIENNIAL CATALOGUE
FotoFest is co-publishing the 2010 Biennial Catalogue, with European publisher Schilt Publishing (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). The 500 page, two-volume 2010 Biennial catalogue features more than 300 full-color images and five essays by Biennial curators on Contemporary U.S. Photography. The FotoFest 2010 Biennial Catalogue is available late February 2010 at http://www.fotofest.org.
INSTITUTIONAL SPONSORS (as of January 14, 2010)
The Houston Endowment, Inc; Roma; The Brown Foundation, Inc; National Endowment for the Arts; JPMorgan Chase; The Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation; City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance; Doubletree Hotel Houston Downtown; Texas Commission on the Arts; The Clayton Fund; Trust for Mutual Understanding; Continental Airlines The Official Airline of the FotoFest 2010 Biennial; The Wortham Foundation; American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP); Iland Internet Solutions; HexaGroup; Vine Street Studios; The Anchorage Foundation.
Yayoi Kusama site-specific public artwork
Dots for Love and Peace (2009), one of only three temporary public art projects worldwide designed by iconic Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama, is currently installed on the exterior architecture of City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand.
While City Gallery Wellington regularly showcases contemporary artworks by some of New Zealand and the world's leading artists, this is the first time the Gallery's art deco heritage listed building has become the site for a temporary site-specific public artwork.
Yayoi Kusama is widely respected as an extraordinarily innovative and singular artist, one whose prolific work over the last five decades has influenced generations of artists and designers worldwide. Her signature dots are forever inscribed on the face of contemporary art.
"Dots for Love and Peace (2009) is an intense and unexpected public artwork, and reflects Kusama's obsessive interest in repetition, pattern and colour" says Gallery director Paula Savage. "Blue, yellow, orange, pink, red and green dots in a range of different sizes animate the facade of the building, adding a sense of drama and playfulness to Civic Square. Wellingtonians and visitors to the city alike are intrigued by this joyful work, and each day many passing through the city's public Square stop to capture photographs of themselves posing against the dots."
The scale of the work is immense, covering the entire 52 metre frontage of City Gallery Wellington. Working from the 1930's architectural drawings of the Gallery façade, Ms Kusama created a detailed plan for the public artwork, with exact specifications of colour, size and placement of each individual dot.
"This work has provided a remarkable opportunity for City Gallery Wellington to reach out and connect with a general public beyond the usual Gallery going public," said Gallery director Paula Savage. "I first met with Ms Kusama at Kusama Studio, Tokyo in 2004, beginning the process of negotiating to present her work in New Zealand. We were very excited when the artist agreed to design a new public artwork specifically for the Gallery as well as two new site-specific installations Dots Obsession Day 2009 andDots Obsession Night 2009.
While Ms Savage's relationship with Ms Kusama was the genesis of the work, it was the generous investment and support of sponsors in New Zealand that enabled the Gallery to realize Dots for Love and Peace (2009). Paula Savage says, "The final artwork continues to amaze and captivate all who pass by. Kusama's signature dots will be sorely missed at the close of the exhibition."
The public artwork coincides with the major three-venue exhibition Yayoi Kusama: Mirrored Years which closes at City Gallery Wellington on 7 February 2010. Instigated by the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam and Le Consortium, Dijon, it has travelled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and City Gallery Wellington, and has been shaped and augmented for each venue. For City Gallery Wellington three new works have been added, thanks to the generosity of the artist and Yayoi Kusama Studio, Tokyo and Ota Fine Art Tokyo.
The exhibition has been curated by Jaap Guldemond (MBvB), Franck Gautherot and Seungduk Kim (Le Consortium), with additional works added for Australasia by Judith Blackall (Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney) and Paula Savage (City Gallery Wellington).
While City Gallery Wellington regularly showcases contemporary artworks by some of New Zealand and the world's leading artists, this is the first time the Gallery's art deco heritage listed building has become the site for a temporary site-specific public artwork.
Yayoi Kusama is widely respected as an extraordinarily innovative and singular artist, one whose prolific work over the last five decades has influenced generations of artists and designers worldwide. Her signature dots are forever inscribed on the face of contemporary art.
"Dots for Love and Peace (2009) is an intense and unexpected public artwork, and reflects Kusama's obsessive interest in repetition, pattern and colour" says Gallery director Paula Savage. "Blue, yellow, orange, pink, red and green dots in a range of different sizes animate the facade of the building, adding a sense of drama and playfulness to Civic Square. Wellingtonians and visitors to the city alike are intrigued by this joyful work, and each day many passing through the city's public Square stop to capture photographs of themselves posing against the dots."
The scale of the work is immense, covering the entire 52 metre frontage of City Gallery Wellington. Working from the 1930's architectural drawings of the Gallery façade, Ms Kusama created a detailed plan for the public artwork, with exact specifications of colour, size and placement of each individual dot.
"This work has provided a remarkable opportunity for City Gallery Wellington to reach out and connect with a general public beyond the usual Gallery going public," said Gallery director Paula Savage. "I first met with Ms Kusama at Kusama Studio, Tokyo in 2004, beginning the process of negotiating to present her work in New Zealand. We were very excited when the artist agreed to design a new public artwork specifically for the Gallery as well as two new site-specific installations Dots Obsession Day 2009 andDots Obsession Night 2009.
While Ms Savage's relationship with Ms Kusama was the genesis of the work, it was the generous investment and support of sponsors in New Zealand that enabled the Gallery to realize Dots for Love and Peace (2009). Paula Savage says, "The final artwork continues to amaze and captivate all who pass by. Kusama's signature dots will be sorely missed at the close of the exhibition."
The public artwork coincides with the major three-venue exhibition Yayoi Kusama: Mirrored Years which closes at City Gallery Wellington on 7 February 2010. Instigated by the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam and Le Consortium, Dijon, it has travelled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and City Gallery Wellington, and has been shaped and augmented for each venue. For City Gallery Wellington three new works have been added, thanks to the generosity of the artist and Yayoi Kusama Studio, Tokyo and Ota Fine Art Tokyo.
The exhibition has been curated by Jaap Guldemond (MBvB), Franck Gautherot and Seungduk Kim (Le Consortium), with additional works added for Australasia by Judith Blackall (Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney) and Paula Savage (City Gallery Wellington).
James Turrell
In collaboration with the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, the American light artist James Turrell has created his largest-ever walk-in light installation in a museum context: an 11-metre-high, "space within a space" structure that covers a floor area of 700 square metres and reaches up to the glass roof of the museum. One of Turrell's Ganzfeld Pieces, it is a hollow construction divided into two parts. The two interconnecting chambers – the Viewing Space and the Sensing Space – are both completely empty and – a new feature of this type of work – flooded with slowly changing coloured light. The Kunstmuseum is showing The Wolfsburg Project along with a number of Turrell's other works in the most extensive exhibition by the artist in Germany to date.
Visitors can enter the piece via a steep ramp that leads down from the upper floor into the Viewing Space; immersing themselves in a "sublime bath of light", they can experience with all their senses how the architectural elements of the space dissolve in this homogeneous visual field, creating a sense of perceptual disorientation. While the light reveals and refers to nothing beyond itself, surface qualities interact with those of colour and space to create an atmosphere that completely envelops the spectator and stimulates the senses. Viewers become submerged in a mysterious, painterly world of pure light. Turrell describes this as "feeling with your eyes", an experience he regards as not just aesthetic but also spiritual.
This exhibition is supported by Volkswagen Financial Services. Zumtobel's innovative lighting solutions enable James Turrell's artistic vision to become reality.
Visitors can enter the piece via a steep ramp that leads down from the upper floor into the Viewing Space; immersing themselves in a "sublime bath of light", they can experience with all their senses how the architectural elements of the space dissolve in this homogeneous visual field, creating a sense of perceptual disorientation. While the light reveals and refers to nothing beyond itself, surface qualities interact with those of colour and space to create an atmosphere that completely envelops the spectator and stimulates the senses. Viewers become submerged in a mysterious, painterly world of pure light. Turrell describes this as "feeling with your eyes", an experience he regards as not just aesthetic but also spiritual.
This exhibition is supported by Volkswagen Financial Services. Zumtobel's innovative lighting solutions enable James Turrell's artistic vision to become reality.
Gordon Matta-Clark
The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts announces the exhibition, Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark, on view October 30, 2009 - June 5, 2010.
The artist Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978) used neglected structures slated for demolition as his raw material. He carved out sections of buildings with a power saw in order to reveal their hidden construction, to provide new ways of perceiving space, and to create metaphors for the human condition. He spoke of his work as an activity that attempted "to transform place into a state of mind by opening walls." When wrecking balls knocked down his sculpted buildings, little remained. He took photographs and films of his interventions and kept a few of the building segments, known as "cuts." They include a section of an apartment floor (Bronx Floors: Double Doors), three parts of a house near Love Canal (Bingo), a window from an abandoned warehouse on a pier in New York City (Pier In/Out), and the rooftop corners of a house in New Jersey (Splitting: Four Corners). For this exhibition, the Pulitzer has borrowed these very cuts from The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and from the private collection of Thomas and John Solomon. The Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark and David Zwirner, New York, also lent nearly fifty photographs, while the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, provided numerous works on paper, including eleven drawings. Two of Matta-Clark's films, Fire Child and Conical Intersect, are also on view, offering a means to understand better the performance aspect of his art.
The placement of Matta-Clark's work in the exhibition spaces designed by Tadao Ando at the Pulitzer encourages new ways of looking at art, architecture, and the urban environment. Ando's pristine building not only heightens the roughness of Matta-Clark's cuts, but it will also recall the artist's lost interventions. Both he and Ando sought to break the visual and metaphorical boundaries normally associated with the architectural "box" by allowing light to penetrate spaces in unexpected ways.
A web catalogue featuring installation views of the exhibition will be located athttp://mattaclark.pulitzerarts.org
Reminiscent of an alchemist, Matta-Clark pursued the transmutation of a discarded object into something filled with "hope and fantasy." He was deeply concerned with the abandonment of buildings and the fate of urban communities. He became socially and politically active during the 1970s and wrote that he focused on buildings, "for these comprise both a miniature cultural evolution and a model of prevailing social structures. Consequently, what I do to buildings is what some do with languages and others with groups of people: I organize them in order to explain and defend the need for change."
The exhibition programming, entitled Transformation, connects the artist's social activism to present-day St. Louis. The Pulitzer, in collaboration with the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, has organized programs that build upon Matta-Clark's desire to imbue abandoned objects, buildings, and parcels of land with new meaning. The Pulitzer hopes to help carry Matta-Clark's legacy into the 21st century and to inspire a new generation of social activism through creative acts. An interactive web presence will reflect this community-driven programming athttp://mattaclark.pulitzerarts.org/transformation
Through art exhibitions, programs, collaborations, and exchanges with other institutions, the Pulitzer aims to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of art and architecture and is a resource for artists, architects, scholars, students and the general public.
The artist Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978) used neglected structures slated for demolition as his raw material. He carved out sections of buildings with a power saw in order to reveal their hidden construction, to provide new ways of perceiving space, and to create metaphors for the human condition. He spoke of his work as an activity that attempted "to transform place into a state of mind by opening walls." When wrecking balls knocked down his sculpted buildings, little remained. He took photographs and films of his interventions and kept a few of the building segments, known as "cuts." They include a section of an apartment floor (Bronx Floors: Double Doors), three parts of a house near Love Canal (Bingo), a window from an abandoned warehouse on a pier in New York City (Pier In/Out), and the rooftop corners of a house in New Jersey (Splitting: Four Corners). For this exhibition, the Pulitzer has borrowed these very cuts from The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and from the private collection of Thomas and John Solomon. The Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark and David Zwirner, New York, also lent nearly fifty photographs, while the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, provided numerous works on paper, including eleven drawings. Two of Matta-Clark's films, Fire Child and Conical Intersect, are also on view, offering a means to understand better the performance aspect of his art.
The placement of Matta-Clark's work in the exhibition spaces designed by Tadao Ando at the Pulitzer encourages new ways of looking at art, architecture, and the urban environment. Ando's pristine building not only heightens the roughness of Matta-Clark's cuts, but it will also recall the artist's lost interventions. Both he and Ando sought to break the visual and metaphorical boundaries normally associated with the architectural "box" by allowing light to penetrate spaces in unexpected ways.
A web catalogue featuring installation views of the exhibition will be located athttp://mattaclark.pulitzerarts.org
Reminiscent of an alchemist, Matta-Clark pursued the transmutation of a discarded object into something filled with "hope and fantasy." He was deeply concerned with the abandonment of buildings and the fate of urban communities. He became socially and politically active during the 1970s and wrote that he focused on buildings, "for these comprise both a miniature cultural evolution and a model of prevailing social structures. Consequently, what I do to buildings is what some do with languages and others with groups of people: I organize them in order to explain and defend the need for change."
The exhibition programming, entitled Transformation, connects the artist's social activism to present-day St. Louis. The Pulitzer, in collaboration with the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, has organized programs that build upon Matta-Clark's desire to imbue abandoned objects, buildings, and parcels of land with new meaning. The Pulitzer hopes to help carry Matta-Clark's legacy into the 21st century and to inspire a new generation of social activism through creative acts. An interactive web presence will reflect this community-driven programming athttp://mattaclark.pulitzerarts.org/transformation
Through art exhibitions, programs, collaborations, and exchanges with other institutions, the Pulitzer aims to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of art and architecture and is a resource for artists, architects, scholars, students and the general public.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Teresita Fernandez and Drawn Toward Light
The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin is pleased to present Teresita Fernández: Blind Landscape, a survey of new and recent works by this internationally acclaimed artist. The exhibition is organized by and premiered at the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum (USFCAM) and was curated by David Louis Norr, chief curator, USF Institute for Research in Art, in close collaboration with the artist. Accompanying Teresita Fernández: Blind Landscape, Drawn Toward Light is an exhibition featuring works from the Blanton's collections that use light as a medium. Both exhibitions will be on view November 1, 2009 to January 3, 2010.
American artist Teresita Fernández (born in Miami, lives and works in Brooklyn) is widely known for her immersive installations and evocative large-scale sculptures that explore the cultural fabrication of nature. Characterized by her deft ability to transform common materials like steel, graphite and glass into forms and images reminiscent of the natural world, Fernández' works bring idea and experience into poetic tension. Meticulous, subtle, and always surprising, her sculptural scenarios offer viewers unique opportunities for contemplation and discovery.
"Investigating the act of looking is central to Teresita Fernández' work," says Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, the Blanton's curator of American and contemporary art and director of curatorial affairs. "Her works address our experiences of light and space as they evolve moment-to-moment and respond to sensation, memory, and the process of perception."
The Austin presentation of the exhibition includes five recent large-scale sculptures, a series of six wall works, and a new, monumental drawing made on site. Featured among the large-scale works is Vertigo (sotto en su) from 2007, comprised of layers of precision-cut, highly polished metal woven into a reflective and intricate arboreal pattern suspended high above the viewer, not unlike an immense, cascading tree branch. "The multiple planes of space through which the viewer looks become visible simultaneously, vacillating between object and optical phenomena, continuously disassembling and reassembling," writes curator Norr.
The Blanton's presentation also features Stacked Waters, 2009—a two-story, site-specific work commissioned for the museum's Rapoport Atrium earlier this year. Stacked Waters consists of 3,100 square feet of custom–cast acrylic that covers the cavernous atrium walls in a striped swirl pattern resembling water. Horizontal bands of saturated color shift and fade from deep blue to white, creating what the artist calls "a colored abstraction" from which the visitor emerges at the top of the Museum's grand stair. Titled in a nod to Donald Judd's boxes, the work suggests that the space is a container, in this case of light and communal activity. Visitors move within its volume, lured by the image yet fully aware of its fabrication.
Major support for Teresita Fernández: Blind Landscape at The Blanton is provided by Jeanne and Michael Klein and the Linda Pace Foundation. Funding also is provided by Julie and John Thornton and by Lora Reynolds and Quincy Lee in honor of Jeanne and Michael Klein.
Drawn Toward Light
Light is an essential element of visual experience and the means by which we see and begin to perceive the world around us. A special complement to Teresita Fernández: Blind Landscape, Drawn Toward Light is an exhibition of works from the Blanton's holdings that use light as a medium. Stephen Antonakos, Paul Chan, James Turrell and Leo Villarreal focus light into elemental geometric shapes to give it physical presence and sculptural form.
American artist Teresita Fernández (born in Miami, lives and works in Brooklyn) is widely known for her immersive installations and evocative large-scale sculptures that explore the cultural fabrication of nature. Characterized by her deft ability to transform common materials like steel, graphite and glass into forms and images reminiscent of the natural world, Fernández' works bring idea and experience into poetic tension. Meticulous, subtle, and always surprising, her sculptural scenarios offer viewers unique opportunities for contemplation and discovery.
"Investigating the act of looking is central to Teresita Fernández' work," says Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, the Blanton's curator of American and contemporary art and director of curatorial affairs. "Her works address our experiences of light and space as they evolve moment-to-moment and respond to sensation, memory, and the process of perception."
The Austin presentation of the exhibition includes five recent large-scale sculptures, a series of six wall works, and a new, monumental drawing made on site. Featured among the large-scale works is Vertigo (sotto en su) from 2007, comprised of layers of precision-cut, highly polished metal woven into a reflective and intricate arboreal pattern suspended high above the viewer, not unlike an immense, cascading tree branch. "The multiple planes of space through which the viewer looks become visible simultaneously, vacillating between object and optical phenomena, continuously disassembling and reassembling," writes curator Norr.
The Blanton's presentation also features Stacked Waters, 2009—a two-story, site-specific work commissioned for the museum's Rapoport Atrium earlier this year. Stacked Waters consists of 3,100 square feet of custom–cast acrylic that covers the cavernous atrium walls in a striped swirl pattern resembling water. Horizontal bands of saturated color shift and fade from deep blue to white, creating what the artist calls "a colored abstraction" from which the visitor emerges at the top of the Museum's grand stair. Titled in a nod to Donald Judd's boxes, the work suggests that the space is a container, in this case of light and communal activity. Visitors move within its volume, lured by the image yet fully aware of its fabrication.
Major support for Teresita Fernández: Blind Landscape at The Blanton is provided by Jeanne and Michael Klein and the Linda Pace Foundation. Funding also is provided by Julie and John Thornton and by Lora Reynolds and Quincy Lee in honor of Jeanne and Michael Klein.
Drawn Toward Light
Light is an essential element of visual experience and the means by which we see and begin to perceive the world around us. A special complement to Teresita Fernández: Blind Landscape, Drawn Toward Light is an exhibition of works from the Blanton's holdings that use light as a medium. Stephen Antonakos, Paul Chan, James Turrell and Leo Villarreal focus light into elemental geometric shapes to give it physical presence and sculptural form.
Adrian Ghenie
The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest presents the first survey exhibition of paintings by Adrian Ghenie (born 1977), the well-known Romanian artist who lives and works in Cluj and Berlin. The exhibition underscores the way in which Ghenie has been developing a consistent engagement with issues such as memory and history, by subjecting his artistic practice to a process of continuous renewal and experimentation.
Ghenie is an ardent researcher of the history of the 20th century, being preoccupied with unearthing forgotten narratives, marginal events and seemingly insignificant details in order to compose a visual vocabulary that is both compelling and uncanny. The subject matter does not revolve around a single set of concerns, and yet the different themes of Ghenie's paintings seem to connect. Spectral presences of Hitler and Lenin, collective bodies of anonymous, defaced people – are all there to reveal the feebleness and inconsistency of our memory. The failure of modernity brought about by the catastrophes of the Second World War is seen in conjunction with the rise of modern forms of entertainment such as cinema, another major topic for Ghenie.
From the strong effects of chiaroscuro reminiscent of Caravaggio to the frieze-like compositions that bring to mind David Hockney's alignment of disconnected elements alluding to a theatre set; from an indebtedness to the tradition of Renaissance painting, visible in the rigorous construction of the picture space, to the uninhibited handling of paint that recalls the gestural freedom of abstract expressionism – Ghenie incorporates a multitude of references and idioms that do not result in a gratuitous postmodern game, but rather evince his commitment to investigate the possibilities of painting, while at the same time problematizing it. Although his work displays a belief in the contemporary relevance of painting, Ghenie seeks to delve into the conceptual tenets that have undermined the legitimacy of the medium. The artist revisits key moments in the history of modernism that prompted the declaration of the death of painting. He invokes the figure of Duchamp – the foremost enemy of paint and colour who rendered the painting obsolete through the introduction of the readymade into the field of art – as well as the first International Dada exhibition in Berlin which exhibited signs declaring that art was dead.
Ghenie is an ardent researcher of the history of the 20th century, being preoccupied with unearthing forgotten narratives, marginal events and seemingly insignificant details in order to compose a visual vocabulary that is both compelling and uncanny. The subject matter does not revolve around a single set of concerns, and yet the different themes of Ghenie's paintings seem to connect. Spectral presences of Hitler and Lenin, collective bodies of anonymous, defaced people – are all there to reveal the feebleness and inconsistency of our memory. The failure of modernity brought about by the catastrophes of the Second World War is seen in conjunction with the rise of modern forms of entertainment such as cinema, another major topic for Ghenie.
From the strong effects of chiaroscuro reminiscent of Caravaggio to the frieze-like compositions that bring to mind David Hockney's alignment of disconnected elements alluding to a theatre set; from an indebtedness to the tradition of Renaissance painting, visible in the rigorous construction of the picture space, to the uninhibited handling of paint that recalls the gestural freedom of abstract expressionism – Ghenie incorporates a multitude of references and idioms that do not result in a gratuitous postmodern game, but rather evince his commitment to investigate the possibilities of painting, while at the same time problematizing it. Although his work displays a belief in the contemporary relevance of painting, Ghenie seeks to delve into the conceptual tenets that have undermined the legitimacy of the medium. The artist revisits key moments in the history of modernism that prompted the declaration of the death of painting. He invokes the figure of Duchamp – the foremost enemy of paint and colour who rendered the painting obsolete through the introduction of the readymade into the field of art – as well as the first International Dada exhibition in Berlin which exhibited signs declaring that art was dead.
Rebecca Horn
The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo is pleased to announce a solo exhibition this fall of the work of Rebecca Horn, a major representative of the contemporary German art world. This will be the first large-scale exhibition of her work in Japan.
Horn has been known for her performance works involving the wearing of feathers, horns, and mirrors.
Since her participation in the 1972 Documenta show in her 20s, she has energetically pursued a range of artistic activity that continues to tackle new territories of art, one after the other—beginning with kinetic sculpture as well as film, and continuing on to capture the fascination of a great number of people—audiences with an interest not only in visual art, but that include film and dance enthusiasts as well.
Her performances, which began in the late 1960s, sought to expand the functions of the human body, improve communications with others, and develop a rapport with mythical animals and nature. The devices that attached to the body and enhanced its physical perceptions were first used in performance, and then eventually developed into independent, kinetic-mechanical sculptural works.
Later, in what amounted to over ten years of life in New York, Horn undertook the production of highly narrative, full-length films, and incorporated the sculptures and movements from her earlier work into this new context of film, transforming their significance. Since the 1980s, after moving back to her home country of Germany, Horn's work that directly confronts modern historical issues has been acclaimed for its ability to tie together personal experience and social memory. One early example of this work involves the conversion of the interior of an abandoned tower in the city of Münster into a piece that utilizes its history as the subject matter.
In recent years, Horn has been working on large-scale installations and stage designs using music composed by Hayden Chisholm. She has also made, without the use of tools, a series of unrestrained drawings that emphasize direct human movement, developing a completely free mode of creation.
This exhibition is a full-scale presentation of Horn's work. With all representative film footage, which includes the performance records from the 1970s and the full-length narrative films from the 1990s, as well as installations and two- and three-dimensional works that she has been producing since the 1990s.
An approximate total of thirty exhibits allows one to trace the development of relationships between the various media in which Horn works. The flow of various invisible energies of humans and nature are transformed into visible form via movement, light, and the traces of such. Moreover, we present Horn's new work, The Raven Tree, which was made especially for the exhibition at MOT. Her visit to Kyoto in 1984 inspired her to make this sculpture, which represents the concept for this exhibition. The exhibition promises to be an unparalleled opportunity to experience this highly original, creative trajectory in MOT's vast space.
Horn has been known for her performance works involving the wearing of feathers, horns, and mirrors.
Since her participation in the 1972 Documenta show in her 20s, she has energetically pursued a range of artistic activity that continues to tackle new territories of art, one after the other—beginning with kinetic sculpture as well as film, and continuing on to capture the fascination of a great number of people—audiences with an interest not only in visual art, but that include film and dance enthusiasts as well.
Her performances, which began in the late 1960s, sought to expand the functions of the human body, improve communications with others, and develop a rapport with mythical animals and nature. The devices that attached to the body and enhanced its physical perceptions were first used in performance, and then eventually developed into independent, kinetic-mechanical sculptural works.
Later, in what amounted to over ten years of life in New York, Horn undertook the production of highly narrative, full-length films, and incorporated the sculptures and movements from her earlier work into this new context of film, transforming their significance. Since the 1980s, after moving back to her home country of Germany, Horn's work that directly confronts modern historical issues has been acclaimed for its ability to tie together personal experience and social memory. One early example of this work involves the conversion of the interior of an abandoned tower in the city of Münster into a piece that utilizes its history as the subject matter.
In recent years, Horn has been working on large-scale installations and stage designs using music composed by Hayden Chisholm. She has also made, without the use of tools, a series of unrestrained drawings that emphasize direct human movement, developing a completely free mode of creation.
This exhibition is a full-scale presentation of Horn's work. With all representative film footage, which includes the performance records from the 1970s and the full-length narrative films from the 1990s, as well as installations and two- and three-dimensional works that she has been producing since the 1990s.
An approximate total of thirty exhibits allows one to trace the development of relationships between the various media in which Horn works. The flow of various invisible energies of humans and nature are transformed into visible form via movement, light, and the traces of such. Moreover, we present Horn's new work, The Raven Tree, which was made especially for the exhibition at MOT. Her visit to Kyoto in 1984 inspired her to make this sculpture, which represents the concept for this exhibition. The exhibition promises to be an unparalleled opportunity to experience this highly original, creative trajectory in MOT's vast space.
Isabella Stewart
The art of Taro Shinoda engages themes of science, philosophy, and desire, and investigates our place in the universe. As he reflects on philosophical considerations of contemporary life he is thinking about how we might better function as a society.
During his month-long stay at the Gardner Museum in the spring of 2007, Shinoda was inspired by the moonlight and the sense of calm that reigns at night in the museum courtyard to develop his Lunar Reflection Transmission Technique. The project was rooted in the artist's early childhood memories of trying to communicate with his mother over great distances, entrusting messages to the moon, which he hoped his mother would receive on the other side of the planet when the moon rose for her.
For this project, Shinoda constructed an astronomical telescope out of corrugated cardboard and attached a video camera to it; with this instrument he filmed the moon from different parts of the world, including Istanbul, Limerick, Tokyo and Boston. He described his endeavor in the following way:
"It's not a bad place here, but with the entire land covered in asphalt and riding my bicycle while avoiding all the electrical currents and electro-pulses, I yearn for the flowing of water and the drifting of the clouds. These days I am working on reviving my old skills, of the lunar reflection transmission technique. Every night when the moon is out I bicycle outside and spend many hours and try to remember what that technique was. I've spent many nights attempting it, but have a long ways to go until I can use the technique like I used to be able to. Like how not everything you see is as it seems, your intuition can't tell you all you need to know. And how the concept of "American Civilization" seems to be integrating everything as we know it, there seems to be something above that which exists as fact. Even if our future comes up from behind us, and even if we aren't used to walking backwards, as adults I feel it is imperative to learn those techniques."
Taro Shinoda: Lunar Reflections will include an engawa—a Japanese viewing platform that traditionally separates the domestic space from the garden, an enchanted space. From this vantage point, visitors may sit and meditate on their place in the universe as they watch Shinoda's extraordinary films of the moon and mysterious nocturnal cityscapes.
Taro Shinoda's work has been shown in: Korea at the Busan Biennale; Turkey at the Istanbul Biennial; Limerick, Ireland at the EV+A festival; Los Angeles at the Roy and Edna Disney Calarts Theater; Tokyo at the Mori Art Museum; San Francisco at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; Lithuania at the Baltic Triennale; and Yokohama, Japan, at the International Triennale of Contemporary Art. Shinoda has been an artist-in-residence at REDCAT, Los Angeles and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Shinoda was born in Tokyo, where he continues to live and work.
During his month-long stay at the Gardner Museum in the spring of 2007, Shinoda was inspired by the moonlight and the sense of calm that reigns at night in the museum courtyard to develop his Lunar Reflection Transmission Technique. The project was rooted in the artist's early childhood memories of trying to communicate with his mother over great distances, entrusting messages to the moon, which he hoped his mother would receive on the other side of the planet when the moon rose for her.
For this project, Shinoda constructed an astronomical telescope out of corrugated cardboard and attached a video camera to it; with this instrument he filmed the moon from different parts of the world, including Istanbul, Limerick, Tokyo and Boston. He described his endeavor in the following way:
"It's not a bad place here, but with the entire land covered in asphalt and riding my bicycle while avoiding all the electrical currents and electro-pulses, I yearn for the flowing of water and the drifting of the clouds. These days I am working on reviving my old skills, of the lunar reflection transmission technique. Every night when the moon is out I bicycle outside and spend many hours and try to remember what that technique was. I've spent many nights attempting it, but have a long ways to go until I can use the technique like I used to be able to. Like how not everything you see is as it seems, your intuition can't tell you all you need to know. And how the concept of "American Civilization" seems to be integrating everything as we know it, there seems to be something above that which exists as fact. Even if our future comes up from behind us, and even if we aren't used to walking backwards, as adults I feel it is imperative to learn those techniques."
Taro Shinoda: Lunar Reflections will include an engawa—a Japanese viewing platform that traditionally separates the domestic space from the garden, an enchanted space. From this vantage point, visitors may sit and meditate on their place in the universe as they watch Shinoda's extraordinary films of the moon and mysterious nocturnal cityscapes.
Taro Shinoda's work has been shown in: Korea at the Busan Biennale; Turkey at the Istanbul Biennial; Limerick, Ireland at the EV+A festival; Los Angeles at the Roy and Edna Disney Calarts Theater; Tokyo at the Mori Art Museum; San Francisco at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; Lithuania at the Baltic Triennale; and Yokohama, Japan, at the International Triennale of Contemporary Art. Shinoda has been an artist-in-residence at REDCAT, Los Angeles and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Shinoda was born in Tokyo, where he continues to live and work.
The End of the Line: Attitudes in Drawing
This exhibition of new and recent work by eleven highly acclaimed young international artists explores a diverse range of contemporary approaches to drawing. From small, intricately-crafted pencil drawings to expanded installations in which the 'drawn' lines are made from masking tape, or in which drawings mutate into animation, the exhibition celebrates a contemporary resurgence in drawing.
Just as the formal and stylistic parameters of drawing have expanded, so too has the range of artists it attracts. This exhibition brings together artists from several continents, all using drawing to communicate their ideas, dreams and interpretations of the world.
Artists in the exhibition are: Jan Albers (Germany), Michaël Borremans (Belgium), Marc Brandenburg (Germany), Fernando Bryce (Peru/Germany), Kate Davis (New Zealand/Scotland), Monika Grzymala (Poland/Germany), David Haines (England/Netherlands), Kim Hiorthøy (Norway), Garrett Phelan (Ireland), Naoyuki Tsuji (Japan), Sandra Vasquez de la Horra (Chile).
A Hayward Touring exhibition organised in collaboration with mima, (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art) and the Bluecoat, Liverpool, in association with The Drawing Room, London
Just as the formal and stylistic parameters of drawing have expanded, so too has the range of artists it attracts. This exhibition brings together artists from several continents, all using drawing to communicate their ideas, dreams and interpretations of the world.
Artists in the exhibition are: Jan Albers (Germany), Michaël Borremans (Belgium), Marc Brandenburg (Germany), Fernando Bryce (Peru/Germany), Kate Davis (New Zealand/Scotland), Monika Grzymala (Poland/Germany), David Haines (England/Netherlands), Kim Hiorthøy (Norway), Garrett Phelan (Ireland), Naoyuki Tsuji (Japan), Sandra Vasquez de la Horra (Chile).
A Hayward Touring exhibition organised in collaboration with mima, (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art) and the Bluecoat, Liverpool, in association with The Drawing Room, London
Lunds konsthall: new exhibitions
Nasreen Mohamedi: Notes – Reflections on Indian Modernism
Nasreen Mohamedi (1937–90) is regarded as one of the most important Indian artists of her generation, and her paintings, drawings and photographs, produced from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, are now being recognised as a key body of work within the modernist canon.
In art-historical terms, Mohamedi can be seen in relation to an earlier generation of Indian abstract artists such as V.S. Gaitonde, and her works on paper have often been compared to those of Agnes Martin or to the utopian suprematist visions of Kazimir Malevich. Yet as this exhibition shows, Mohamedi also deserves to be considered on her own terms. Her drawings from the 1970s onwards tend toward uncompromising abstraction, but they also invoke a range of cultural references. This becomes clear in her photographs, in which meticulously cropped details of historical architecture and everyday life create aesthetic links to both contemporary culture and an Islamic visual heritage.
The exhibition, which brings together rarely seen drawings, paintings and photographs with unique archival material from Nasreen Mohamedi's studio, is curated by Suman Gopinath and Grant Watson and organised and initiated by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA). It was first shown at OCA in Oslo and then at Milton Keynes Gallery in England. The slightly extended version shown at Lunds konsthall will also travel to Kunsthalle Basel in Switzerland.
Rasheed Araeen: Structures, Chakras, Triangles
Rasheed Araeen was born 1935 in Karachi, Pakistan, also incidentally the birthplace of Nasreen Mohamedi. Trained as an engineer, he has been working as an artist, writer and publisher since his arrival in London in the 1960s.
Araeen is a leading artist whose work is informed by the aesthetics of minimalism, a movement in art that he pioneered in Britain. In his practice formal and political concerns overlap, the latter largely informed by his experience as an artist of non-Western origin living and working in the West. After joining the Black Panther Movement he founded the short-lived journal Black Phoenix in 1978. In 1987 he established Third Text, an important journal that critiques contemporary art from an international and postcolonial perspective.
The exhibition, curated by Suman Gopinath and Grant Watson, includes photographs of Araeen's sculptural Structures from the 1966–68 and documentation of his performances Chakras and Trianglesfrom 1969–70.
Raqs Media Collective: Steps Away from Oblivion
Steps Away from Oblivion is a circuit of films, installed on screens and as projections in a confined space, that invoke different rhythms of repose and transformation in today's India.
The Raqs Media Collective have invited eight documentary filmmakers (Debkamal Ganguly, Ruchir Joshi, Kavita Pai & Hansa Thapliyal, M.R. Rajan, Priya Sen, Surabhi Sharma, Vipin Vijay) to revisit key moments in their work; re-editing, re-making or re-presenting particular sequences from their films. In The Sleepwalker's Caravan (Prologue), Raqs's own contribution to the circuit, we are greeted by the wandering figures of a yaksha and a yakshi, mythic guardians of treasure and keepers of riddles in different Indic traditions, as they traverse a contemporary landscape which the other films also portray and problematise.
The installation was first shown within the context of Indian Highway, a travelling exhibition of contemporary art from India that was first presented at the Serpentine Gallery, London, in 2008.
About the curators:
Suman Gopinath is a curator and the founder and director of CoLab Art & Architecture, Bangalore, India. Grant Watson is a curator at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (MuHKA), Antwerp, Belgium. Gopinath and Watson have been collaborating on exhibitions of modern and contemporary Indian art since 1999.
Raqs Media Collective is a group of artists and curators (Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta) based in New Delhi, India, and working internationally. Among many other things, they were co-curators of Manifesta 7 in 2008 and responsible for one of its exhibitions, The Rest of Now in Bolzano, Italy.
Nasreen Mohamedi (1937–90) is regarded as one of the most important Indian artists of her generation, and her paintings, drawings and photographs, produced from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, are now being recognised as a key body of work within the modernist canon.
In art-historical terms, Mohamedi can be seen in relation to an earlier generation of Indian abstract artists such as V.S. Gaitonde, and her works on paper have often been compared to those of Agnes Martin or to the utopian suprematist visions of Kazimir Malevich. Yet as this exhibition shows, Mohamedi also deserves to be considered on her own terms. Her drawings from the 1970s onwards tend toward uncompromising abstraction, but they also invoke a range of cultural references. This becomes clear in her photographs, in which meticulously cropped details of historical architecture and everyday life create aesthetic links to both contemporary culture and an Islamic visual heritage.
The exhibition, which brings together rarely seen drawings, paintings and photographs with unique archival material from Nasreen Mohamedi's studio, is curated by Suman Gopinath and Grant Watson and organised and initiated by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA). It was first shown at OCA in Oslo and then at Milton Keynes Gallery in England. The slightly extended version shown at Lunds konsthall will also travel to Kunsthalle Basel in Switzerland.
Rasheed Araeen: Structures, Chakras, Triangles
Rasheed Araeen was born 1935 in Karachi, Pakistan, also incidentally the birthplace of Nasreen Mohamedi. Trained as an engineer, he has been working as an artist, writer and publisher since his arrival in London in the 1960s.
Araeen is a leading artist whose work is informed by the aesthetics of minimalism, a movement in art that he pioneered in Britain. In his practice formal and political concerns overlap, the latter largely informed by his experience as an artist of non-Western origin living and working in the West. After joining the Black Panther Movement he founded the short-lived journal Black Phoenix in 1978. In 1987 he established Third Text, an important journal that critiques contemporary art from an international and postcolonial perspective.
The exhibition, curated by Suman Gopinath and Grant Watson, includes photographs of Araeen's sculptural Structures from the 1966–68 and documentation of his performances Chakras and Trianglesfrom 1969–70.
Raqs Media Collective: Steps Away from Oblivion
Steps Away from Oblivion is a circuit of films, installed on screens and as projections in a confined space, that invoke different rhythms of repose and transformation in today's India.
The Raqs Media Collective have invited eight documentary filmmakers (Debkamal Ganguly, Ruchir Joshi, Kavita Pai & Hansa Thapliyal, M.R. Rajan, Priya Sen, Surabhi Sharma, Vipin Vijay) to revisit key moments in their work; re-editing, re-making or re-presenting particular sequences from their films. In The Sleepwalker's Caravan (Prologue), Raqs's own contribution to the circuit, we are greeted by the wandering figures of a yaksha and a yakshi, mythic guardians of treasure and keepers of riddles in different Indic traditions, as they traverse a contemporary landscape which the other films also portray and problematise.
The installation was first shown within the context of Indian Highway, a travelling exhibition of contemporary art from India that was first presented at the Serpentine Gallery, London, in 2008.
About the curators:
Suman Gopinath is a curator and the founder and director of CoLab Art & Architecture, Bangalore, India. Grant Watson is a curator at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (MuHKA), Antwerp, Belgium. Gopinath and Watson have been collaborating on exhibitions of modern and contemporary Indian art since 1999.
Raqs Media Collective is a group of artists and curators (Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta) based in New Delhi, India, and working internationally. Among many other things, they were co-curators of Manifesta 7 in 2008 and responsible for one of its exhibitions, The Rest of Now in Bolzano, Italy.
Art Basel Miami Beach 2009: The Oceanfront area
Art Basel Miami Beach 2009: The Oceanfront area
http://www.artbasel.com
The Oceanfront area: Our new platform for artistic programs
The new Oceanfront area in Collins Park has been created as a platform for virtually all of Art Basel Miami Beach's cultural programming. Situated directly beside the beach, in the former location of Art Positions, the Oceanfront marks the point where the artworld interfaces with the broader public. We are delighted to have Creative Time, the legendary New York City-based public art organization, as a partner in the launching of this new dimen¬sion of Art Basel Miami Beach. Having solicited many proposals, Creative Time and Art Basel Miami Beach commissioned Los Angeles artist Pae White to create this "social space".
Free of any admission charge, the Oceanfront - located at Collins Park, between 21st and 22nd Streets - offers visitors many opportunities. In the mornings, they can attend the discussion panels of the Art Basel Conversations series, featuring prominent figures from every artworld domain. And every night during Art Basel Miami Beach, the Oceanfront will feature at least one special event. The evening se¬ries will be inaugurated by the annual Art Loves Music concert on the beach; the following evenings feature the Art Perform program, the Art Video program curated by Creative Time and the Art Film evening. Rounding out the experi¬ence, the Oceanfront Cafe will offer visitors the possibility to have brunch in the morning, then light meals and refreshing drinks from dusk to midnight.
Oceanfront project by Pae White
For the 2009 premiere of the Oceanfront, Pae White will create an immersive and interac¬tive cityscape, providing a new experience with each visit. By day, large color blocks will dominate the landscape. At night, these color blocks transform into a shadowy group of buildings that house various merchants and performers. In addition to this labyrinth-like metropolis on the sand, White will design a stage area that will host the morning Art Basel Conversations and the evening Art Video, Art Film, and Art Perform programs.
Art Basel Conversations
Thursday, December 3 through Saturday, December 5, 10 – 11 am
As in previous years, the Art Basel Conversation will be inaugurated by the Artist Talk premiere, which this year features Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. The Art Basel Conversations are "Museum Directors: Change in Generation," "Collector Focus: Latin America" and "The Future of the Museum: The Portable Museum." "Museum Directors: Change in Generation" brings together the next generation of museum and institution directors to discuss their visions for the coming decades. In "Collector Focus: Latin America" prominent art collectors from Argentina, Brazil and Mexico explore the dynamic way in which Latin America's collecting scene has grown and international¬ized in the last decade. "The Future of the Museum: The Portable Museum," will offer fresh insights from four artists on future models for exhibition-making.
Art Video
Thursday, December 3 and Saturday, December 5, 7 – 8.30 pm
Curated by Creative Time, the Art Video program includes discussions with the featured artists. Videos by Tom Sachs and The Neistat Brothers and Marc Horowitz will be screened on Thursday evening, followed by a conversation with Casey Neistat and Marc Horowitz. On Saturday evening videos by Jill Magid and Kon Trubkovich will be presented, followed by a conversation with the artists.
Art Perform
Thursday, December 3 and Saturday, December 5, 9 pm
Now in its fifth year, Art Perform features an intensified array of longer performances by rising international artists. This program will again be conceived by curator Jens Hoffmann, director of the CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco. It will take place on Thursday and Saturday at 9 pm. The participating artists are Claire Fontaine, Simon Fujiwara, Loris Gréaud/Mario Garcia Torres, Kris Martin, and Kelly Nipper.
Art Film: "Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child"
Friday, December 4, 8.30 pm
This year's Art Film event offers an exclusive work-in-progress sneak preview of the documentary feature film "Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child," preceded by a panel with a selection of participants, moderated by Bob Colacello. "Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child" is directed by Tamra Davis and features a long and never-before-seen interview with Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), shot shortly before his death. Art Film is curated by Zurich film connaisseur This Brunner.
The Oceanfront area: Our new platform for artistic programs
The new Oceanfront area in Collins Park has been created as a platform for virtually all of Art Basel Miami Beach's cultural programming. Situated directly beside the beach, in the former location of Art Positions, the Oceanfront marks the point where the artworld interfaces with the broader public. We are delighted to have Creative Time, the legendary New York City-based public art organization, as a partner in the launching of this new dimen¬sion of Art Basel Miami Beach. Having solicited many proposals, Creative Time and Art Basel Miami Beach commissioned Los Angeles artist Pae White to create this "social space".
Free of any admission charge, the Oceanfront - located at Collins Park, between 21st and 22nd Streets - offers visitors many opportunities. In the mornings, they can attend the discussion panels of the Art Basel Conversations series, featuring prominent figures from every artworld domain. And every night during Art Basel Miami Beach, the Oceanfront will feature at least one special event. The evening se¬ries will be inaugurated by the annual Art Loves Music concert on the beach; the following evenings feature the Art Perform program, the Art Video program curated by Creative Time and the Art Film evening. Rounding out the experi¬ence, the Oceanfront Cafe will offer visitors the possibility to have brunch in the morning, then light meals and refreshing drinks from dusk to midnight.
Oceanfront project by Pae White
For the 2009 premiere of the Oceanfront, Pae White will create an immersive and interac¬tive cityscape, providing a new experience with each visit. By day, large color blocks will dominate the landscape. At night, these color blocks transform into a shadowy group of buildings that house various merchants and performers. In addition to this labyrinth-like metropolis on the sand, White will design a stage area that will host the morning Art Basel Conversations and the evening Art Video, Art Film, and Art Perform programs.
Art Basel Conversations
Thursday, December 3 through Saturday, December 5, 10 – 11 am
As in previous years, the Art Basel Conversation will be inaugurated by the Artist Talk premiere, which this year features Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. The Art Basel Conversations are "Museum Directors: Change in Generation," "Collector Focus: Latin America" and "The Future of the Museum: The Portable Museum." "Museum Directors: Change in Generation" brings together the next generation of museum and institution directors to discuss their visions for the coming decades. In "Collector Focus: Latin America" prominent art collectors from Argentina, Brazil and Mexico explore the dynamic way in which Latin America's collecting scene has grown and international¬ized in the last decade. "The Future of the Museum: The Portable Museum," will offer fresh insights from four artists on future models for exhibition-making.
Art Video
Thursday, December 3 and Saturday, December 5, 7 – 8.30 pm
Curated by Creative Time, the Art Video program includes discussions with the featured artists. Videos by Tom Sachs and The Neistat Brothers and Marc Horowitz will be screened on Thursday evening, followed by a conversation with Casey Neistat and Marc Horowitz. On Saturday evening videos by Jill Magid and Kon Trubkovich will be presented, followed by a conversation with the artists.
Art Perform
Thursday, December 3 and Saturday, December 5, 9 pm
Now in its fifth year, Art Perform features an intensified array of longer performances by rising international artists. This program will again be conceived by curator Jens Hoffmann, director of the CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco. It will take place on Thursday and Saturday at 9 pm. The participating artists are Claire Fontaine, Simon Fujiwara, Loris Gréaud/Mario Garcia Torres, Kris Martin, and Kelly Nipper.
Art Film: "Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child"
Friday, December 4, 8.30 pm
This year's Art Film event offers an exclusive work-in-progress sneak preview of the documentary feature film "Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child," preceded by a panel with a selection of participants, moderated by Bob Colacello. "Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child" is directed by Tamra Davis and features a long and never-before-seen interview with Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), shot shortly before his death. Art Film is curated by Zurich film connaisseur This Brunner.
Slow Paintings
The exhibition Slow Paintings is devoted to the development of a highly involved form of painting as a continual strategy in the history of art, which emerged from the early 1960s onwards. With over 60 paintings and featuring no fewer than 32 artists, Slow Paintings provides a comprehensive overview of the different techniques and conceptual approaches that characterise this style of painting. The expanse of time invested by individual artists into the production of the paintings exerts its effect upon the visitor via the unique experience of sustained deceleration.
The exhibition starts chronologically with Ad Reinhardt's Abstract Painting from 1961 and Konrad Klapheck's Das Kinderfräulein from1964—two paintings, one abstract, the other figurative. Ad Reinhardt's painting of a black cross on a black ground emphasises, with an amazing diversity of superimposed layers of coloured glazes, the meditative character of the painting itself, as well as the aspect of intense observation in this decidedly polyvalent work. Klapheck's portrait of a typewriter entitled Kinderfräulein shows the way in which the painting techniques of the Old Masters can also serve—precisely in the 20th century—an endearing, if disturbing description of a surreal pictorial world. John Currin’s Girl in Bed from 1993 connects with this idea in a 'trashy' way, whereas artists, such as Tomma Abts, Adrian Schiess, or Ekrem Yalçindağ, perpetuate the tradition of abstract painting in new ways.
During the course of the 20th century, artists have extended the traditional boundaries of painting in a variety of ways. Long-term projects, such as On Kawara's well-known Date Paintings or Roman Opalka’s Details, with its continuous series of numbers, have introduced the idea of the project into the realm of slow painting. Contrary to their conventional interpretation as sculptural works, Reinhard Mucha considers his wall vitrines to be paintings as well. This means consigning their tonal valency to a two-dimensional plane: the reverse glass painting of the frontal planes of glass and the internal reliefs, the bituminised felt board of 'found' floor coverings printed with various patterns, the zones of light and shade of the painted surfaces of the door leaves with their panels and the negative volume behind them filled with felt—all of these 'painterly' aspects are crucial here.
Recent figurative works by Alexander Esters and Sebastian Ludwig, developed especially for the exhibition, likewise explore the continuing delimitation of painting. Esters combines numerous, specially developed printing techniques using traditional components, whereas Ludwig sketches shapes onto canvases, which he then elaborately covers with tape, allowing the paint to flow over and behind the taped areas in a controlled process. These techniques presuppose a high degree of craftsmanship endowed with the power to captivate and fascinate the viewer both when scrutinising the motifs themselves and when reviewing the essence of the alchemistic means deployed.
On no account does the exhibition desire to foster a sense of competition between slow and fast painting. Instead, Slow Paintings is intent upon placing the emphasis on the special connection between conceptuality and elaborate composition, which entails a unique experience for the viewer: this isn’t merely concerned with extremely decelerated reception on the part of the viewer. More fascinating still is the apprehension of the way in which the complex ideas and the seemingly infinite number of layers of glaze resulting from this highly involved method are superimposed upon and, indeed, even conceal one another, ultimately surrendering the sharp, intellectual contours of their origin in favour of an unexpectedly rich, new physical identity. Slow Paintings shows us in ideal-typical manner the abundant potential and continual inventiveness of painting.
With works by Tomma Abts, Ross Bleckner, Alighiero e Boetti, Michaël Borremans, Gillian Carnegie, Raúl Codero, John Currin, Alexander Esters, Bernard Frize, Franz Gertsch, Andrew Grassie, On Kawara, Konrad Klapheck, Jochen Kuhn, Sebastian Ludwig, Michel Majerus, Fabian Marcaccio, Rodney McMillian, Jonathan Monk, Reinhard Mucha, Manuel Ocampo, Roman Opalka, Laura Owens, Magnus Plessen, Ad Reinhardt, Bernd Ribbeck, Adrian Schiess, Pablo Siquier, Andreas Slominski, Cheyney Thompson, Corinne Wasmuht and Ekrem Yalçindağ.
The exhibition starts chronologically with Ad Reinhardt's Abstract Painting from 1961 and Konrad Klapheck's Das Kinderfräulein from1964—two paintings, one abstract, the other figurative. Ad Reinhardt's painting of a black cross on a black ground emphasises, with an amazing diversity of superimposed layers of coloured glazes, the meditative character of the painting itself, as well as the aspect of intense observation in this decidedly polyvalent work. Klapheck's portrait of a typewriter entitled Kinderfräulein shows the way in which the painting techniques of the Old Masters can also serve—precisely in the 20th century—an endearing, if disturbing description of a surreal pictorial world. John Currin’s Girl in Bed from 1993 connects with this idea in a 'trashy' way, whereas artists, such as Tomma Abts, Adrian Schiess, or Ekrem Yalçindağ, perpetuate the tradition of abstract painting in new ways.
During the course of the 20th century, artists have extended the traditional boundaries of painting in a variety of ways. Long-term projects, such as On Kawara's well-known Date Paintings or Roman Opalka’s Details, with its continuous series of numbers, have introduced the idea of the project into the realm of slow painting. Contrary to their conventional interpretation as sculptural works, Reinhard Mucha considers his wall vitrines to be paintings as well. This means consigning their tonal valency to a two-dimensional plane: the reverse glass painting of the frontal planes of glass and the internal reliefs, the bituminised felt board of 'found' floor coverings printed with various patterns, the zones of light and shade of the painted surfaces of the door leaves with their panels and the negative volume behind them filled with felt—all of these 'painterly' aspects are crucial here.
Recent figurative works by Alexander Esters and Sebastian Ludwig, developed especially for the exhibition, likewise explore the continuing delimitation of painting. Esters combines numerous, specially developed printing techniques using traditional components, whereas Ludwig sketches shapes onto canvases, which he then elaborately covers with tape, allowing the paint to flow over and behind the taped areas in a controlled process. These techniques presuppose a high degree of craftsmanship endowed with the power to captivate and fascinate the viewer both when scrutinising the motifs themselves and when reviewing the essence of the alchemistic means deployed.
On no account does the exhibition desire to foster a sense of competition between slow and fast painting. Instead, Slow Paintings is intent upon placing the emphasis on the special connection between conceptuality and elaborate composition, which entails a unique experience for the viewer: this isn’t merely concerned with extremely decelerated reception on the part of the viewer. More fascinating still is the apprehension of the way in which the complex ideas and the seemingly infinite number of layers of glaze resulting from this highly involved method are superimposed upon and, indeed, even conceal one another, ultimately surrendering the sharp, intellectual contours of their origin in favour of an unexpectedly rich, new physical identity. Slow Paintings shows us in ideal-typical manner the abundant potential and continual inventiveness of painting.
With works by Tomma Abts, Ross Bleckner, Alighiero e Boetti, Michaël Borremans, Gillian Carnegie, Raúl Codero, John Currin, Alexander Esters, Bernard Frize, Franz Gertsch, Andrew Grassie, On Kawara, Konrad Klapheck, Jochen Kuhn, Sebastian Ludwig, Michel Majerus, Fabian Marcaccio, Rodney McMillian, Jonathan Monk, Reinhard Mucha, Manuel Ocampo, Roman Opalka, Laura Owens, Magnus Plessen, Ad Reinhardt, Bernd Ribbeck, Adrian Schiess, Pablo Siquier, Andreas Slominski, Cheyney Thompson, Corinne Wasmuht and Ekrem Yalçindağ.
Cai Guo-Qiang
Cai Guo-Qiang: Hanging Out in the Museum
Internationally acclaimed artist Cai Guo-Qiang was born in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province. He speaks Fukienese and is also a follower of the goddess Mazu; for him, visiting Taiwan "feels like coming home." In 1998, Cai was first invited by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum to realize Golden Missile and Advertising Castle for the 1998 Taipei Biennial. In the same year, he was commissioned to realize the No Destruction, No Construction: Bombing the Taiwan Museum of Art project. In 2004, Cai curated the BMOCA (Bunker Museum of Contemporary Art: Everything is Museum No. 3). After the September 21, 2000 earthquake and August 8, 2009 floods, he donated his works to charity sales, showing his deep affection and friendship for Taiwan.
This is Cai's second collaboration with the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and his first exhibition inside the grand space of the museum. Through the positioning of the installation works in the architectural space, Cai looks back at his works and places them in new contexts, challenging and energizing the museum space in unusual ways. The 35 works on exhibition are drawn from internationally renowned museum and private collections, and include three specially created new works. In this exhibition with the special featuring Cultural Melting Bath (1997), audiences are invited to join the medicinal bath located in the outdoor courtyard. For this exhibition, Cai Guo-Qiang devoted intensive artistic thanking for three new works: Day and Night, a gunpowder drawing based on the physical diary of a female nude; the classical Chinese landscape Toroko Gorge, inspired by Cai's recent visit to the spectacular landscape in eastern Taiwan; and Strait, a Quanzhou rock curved as a cross-section of Taiwan Strait transported in this occasion by sea, literally through the ancient journey from the mainland China.
As a contemporary artist, Cai Guo-Qiang not only dreams audaciously, he is effective doer in realizing his artistic vision. His explosive energy does not stem from gunpowder, but from an unrestrained flow of creative energy, an ability to create social dialogue, and a dogmatic romanticism. This exhibition highlights the artist's background and development, his creative process, and his insistence on and methods of making art more accessible to the general public. To fully embrace the theme of "hanging out in the museum" and to create opportunities where the public can interact with art, a series of activities and programs, such as the public viewing and volunteer training for the creation of several gunpowder drawings in the exhibition, and related education programs have been initiated. The exhibition also seeks to examine Cai Guo-Qiang's creations and the zeitgeist in his art, through contemplating the practice of contemporary art, critiquing socio- and geopolitics, and reflecting on Eastern aesthetics and philosophy.
Internationally acclaimed artist Cai Guo-Qiang was born in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province. He speaks Fukienese and is also a follower of the goddess Mazu; for him, visiting Taiwan "feels like coming home." In 1998, Cai was first invited by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum to realize Golden Missile and Advertising Castle for the 1998 Taipei Biennial. In the same year, he was commissioned to realize the No Destruction, No Construction: Bombing the Taiwan Museum of Art project. In 2004, Cai curated the BMOCA (Bunker Museum of Contemporary Art: Everything is Museum No. 3). After the September 21, 2000 earthquake and August 8, 2009 floods, he donated his works to charity sales, showing his deep affection and friendship for Taiwan.
This is Cai's second collaboration with the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and his first exhibition inside the grand space of the museum. Through the positioning of the installation works in the architectural space, Cai looks back at his works and places them in new contexts, challenging and energizing the museum space in unusual ways. The 35 works on exhibition are drawn from internationally renowned museum and private collections, and include three specially created new works. In this exhibition with the special featuring Cultural Melting Bath (1997), audiences are invited to join the medicinal bath located in the outdoor courtyard. For this exhibition, Cai Guo-Qiang devoted intensive artistic thanking for three new works: Day and Night, a gunpowder drawing based on the physical diary of a female nude; the classical Chinese landscape Toroko Gorge, inspired by Cai's recent visit to the spectacular landscape in eastern Taiwan; and Strait, a Quanzhou rock curved as a cross-section of Taiwan Strait transported in this occasion by sea, literally through the ancient journey from the mainland China.
As a contemporary artist, Cai Guo-Qiang not only dreams audaciously, he is effective doer in realizing his artistic vision. His explosive energy does not stem from gunpowder, but from an unrestrained flow of creative energy, an ability to create social dialogue, and a dogmatic romanticism. This exhibition highlights the artist's background and development, his creative process, and his insistence on and methods of making art more accessible to the general public. To fully embrace the theme of "hanging out in the museum" and to create opportunities where the public can interact with art, a series of activities and programs, such as the public viewing and volunteer training for the creation of several gunpowder drawings in the exhibition, and related education programs have been initiated. The exhibition also seeks to examine Cai Guo-Qiang's creations and the zeitgeist in his art, through contemplating the practice of contemporary art, critiquing socio- and geopolitics, and reflecting on Eastern aesthetics and philosophy.
ARCOmadrid_2010 PANORAMA: LOS ANGELES
Gallerists, collectors and other players in the art world will be travelling to Madrid next February 17th through 21st for ARCOmadrid_ 2010, the International Contemporary Art Fair. Work from around 200 galleries and almost 3000 major artists will guarantee an exciting fair mirroring all the latest tendencies in contemporary visual and plastic creation. An excellent cross-section of languages, supports and expressions spanning from painting to performance, not forgetting graphic work, sculpture, installation, digital art and other emerging creative expressions.
ARCOmadrid_ 2010 gives collectors and other art world professionals a unique chance to catch the latest in artistic creation around the world. Apart from the galleries taking part in the core General Programme and ARCO40, the fair also spotlights happening art in its curated programmes: SOLO PROJECTS, EXPANDED-BOX, CINEMALoop and PERFORMING ARCO. These curated sections will feature around 50 projects and reinforce the fair as a leading showcase for the most cutting-edge art of today.
Besides, 2010 will be the first time that ARCOmadrid's special annual guest is a city, more specificallyLos Angeles, one of the world's most exciting and fertile hubs for art at the moment. The Panorama: L.A. programme will host a selection of 17 galleries, curated by Kris Kuramitsu and Christopher Miles, giving the public an overview of the latest tendencies in art taking place in one of the world's major cities.
The exhibition programme is rounded off by a long list of activities organized to coincide with the fair. These include the Experts Forum, as well as a large number of conferences, parties and presentations, reflecting the importance of ARCOmadrid as one of Spain's biggest annual cultural events and a must-visit for the contemporary art market.
LIST OF GALLERIES:
GENERAL PROGRAMME 1900*2000 PARIS AD HOC VIGO AELE EVELYN BOTELLA MADRIDAICON GALLERY LONDON ALEXANDER AND BONIN NEW YORK ÁLVARO ALCÁZAR MADRIDANDRÉ SIMOENS GALLERY KNOKKE ANGELS BARCELONA BARCELONA ANTHONY REYNOLDS GALLERY LONDON ARARIO GALLERY SEOUL BARBARA GROSS MUNICH BÄRBEL GRÄSSLINFRANKFURT BENVENISTE CONTEMPORARY MADRID BERNARD BOUCHE PARIS CAIS GALLERYSEOULCÁNEM CASTELLÓN CAPRICE HORN BERLIN CARLES TACHÉ BARCELONA CARLOS CARVALHO-ARTE CONTEMPORANEA LISBON CARRERAS MÚGICA BILBAO CASA TRIANGULOSAO PAULO CASAS RIEGNER BOGOTÁ CATHERINE PUTMAN PARIS CAYÓN MADRID CHARIM GALERIE VIENNA CHRISTOPHER GRIMES SANTA MONICA DAN GALERIA SAO PAULO DISTRITO CUATRO MADRID DNA GALERIE BERLIN EDWARD TYLER NAHEM FINE ART, L.L.C. NEW YORKELBA BENÍTEZ MADRID ELISABETH & KLAUS THOMAN INNSBRUCK ELVIRA GONZÁLEZMADRID ERNST HILGER VIENNA ESPACIO MÍNIMO MADRID ESPAIVISOR GALERIA VISORVALENCIA ESTIARTE MADRID ESTRANY DE LA MOTA BARCELONA FAGGIONATO FINE ARTSLONDON FARIA FÁBREGAS GALERÍA CARACAS FILOMENA SOARES LISBON FÚCARES MADRIDGANA ART GALLERY SEOUL GEORG KARGL VIENNA GEORG NOTHELFER GALERIE BERLINGRIMM FINE ART AMSTERDAM GRITA INSAM VIENNA GUILLERMO DE OSMA MADRID GUY BÄRTSCHI GENEVE HANS MAYER DUSSELDORF HAUNCH OF VENISON LONDON HEINRICH EHRHARDT MADRID HEINZ HOLTMANN COLOGNE JAVIER LÓPEZ MADRID JOAN PRATSBARCELONA JUANA DE AIZPURU MADRID KLAUS GERRIT FRIESE STUTTGART LA CAJA NEGRAMADRID LA FÁBRICA MADRID LEANDRO NAVARRO MADRID LELONG PARIS LEME SAO PAULOLEYENDECKER SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE LUCÍA DE LA PUENTE LIMA LUCIANA BRITO GALERIA SAO PAULO LUIS ADELANTADO VALENCIA MAI 36 GALERIE ZURICH MAIOR POLLENÇAMAISTERRAVALBUENA MADRID MAM MARIO MAURONER CONTEMPORARY ART VIENNAVIENNA MANUEL BARBIÉ BARCELONA MANUEL OJEDA LAS PALMAS MARIO SEQUEIRA BRAGAMARK MÜLLER ZURICH MARLBOROUGH GALLERY MADRID MARTA CERVERA MADRID MAX ESTRELLA MADRID MAX WIGRAM GALLERY LONDON MEESSEN DE CLERCQ BRUSSELSMICHAEL JANSSEN BERLIN MIGUEL MARCOS BARCELONA MOISÉS PÉREZ DE ALBÉNIZPAMPLONA MORIARTY MADRID NÄCHST ST. STEPHAN ROSEMARIE SCHWARZWÄLDERVIENNA NOGUERAS BLANCHARD BARCELONA OLIVA ARAUNA MADRID ORIOL GALERIA D'ARTBARCELONA PALMA DOTZE VILAFRANCA DEL PENEDÈS PELAIRES PALMA DE MALLORCA PILAR PARRA & ROMERO MADRID POLÍGRAFA OBRA GRÁFICA BARCELONA PROJECTESDBARCELONA RAFAEL ORTIZ SEVILLE REFLEX AMSTERDAM RONMANDOS GALLERY AMSTERDAMSABINE KNUST MUNICH SENDA BARCELONA SLEWE AMSTERDAM SOLEDAD LORENZO MADRIDSOLLERTIS TOULOUSE STUDIO TRISORIO NAPLES T20 MURCIA THADDAEUS ROPAC PARISTHE PARAGON PRESS LONDON THOMAS SCHULTE BERLIN TIM VAN LAERE ANTWERP TOMAS MARCH VALENCIA TONI TÀPIES BARCELONA TRAVESÍA CUATRO MADRID TRAYECTO VITORIAVANGUARDIA BILBAO VISTAMARE BENEDETTA SPALLETTI PESCARA WALTER STORMS GALERIE MUNICH WETTERLING GALLERY STOCKHOLM WOLFGANG GMYREK DUSSELDORFZINK BERLIN
ARCO40 ADN GALERÍA BARCELONA ADORA CALVO SALAMANCA ALEJANDRO SALESBARCELONA ALEXANDRA SAHEB BERLIN ALFREDO VIÑAS MÁLAGA ALTAMIRA GIJÓN ANNET GELINK GALLERY AMSTERDAM ANTONIO HENRIQUES-GALERIA DE ARTE VISEU ART NUEVEMURCIA BACELOS VIGO BEIJING SPACE BEIJING BIRGIT OSTERMEIER BERLIN BITFORMSNEW YORK BRIGITTE SCHENK COLOGNE CASADO SANTAPAU MADRID CHINA TODAYBRUSSELS CHRISTIAN LETHERT COLOGNE DEL SOL ST. ART GALLERY SANTANDER ESPACIO LÍQUIDO GIJÓN FACTORÍA COMPOSTELA (C5 COLECCIÓN) SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELAFONSECA MACEDO PONTA DELGADA FORMATO CÓMODO MADRID GABRIEL ROLT AMSTERDAMGIMPEL FILS LONDON JM MÁLAGA JUAN SILIÓ SANTANDER KAI HILGEMANN BERLIN KASHYA HILDEBRAND ZURICH KUCKEI + KUCKEI BERLIN LA ACACIA LA HABANA MARIBEL LÓPEZ GALLERY BERLIN MICHEL SOSKINE MADRID MIRTA DEMARE ROTTERDAM MS MADRID NF NIEVES FERNÁNDEZ MADRID OREL ART PARIS PACIARTE CONTEMPORARY BRESCIA PERUGI ARTECONTEMPORANEA PADUA PROJECTRAUM VIKTOR BUCHER VIENNAPROMETEOGALLERY MILAN RAIÑA LUPA BARCELONA RAQUEL PONCE MADRID ROSA SANTOSVALENCIA RUBICON GALLERY DUBLIN SANDUNGA GRANADA SERVANDO LA HABANA SIBONEYSANTANDER STELLA LOHAUS GALLERY ANTWERP TAIK BERLIN VALLE ORTÍ VALENCIA VAN DER MIEDEN ANTWERP YBAKATU ESPAÇO DE ARTE CURITIBA
ARCOmadrid_ 2010 gives collectors and other art world professionals a unique chance to catch the latest in artistic creation around the world. Apart from the galleries taking part in the core General Programme and ARCO40, the fair also spotlights happening art in its curated programmes: SOLO PROJECTS, EXPANDED-BOX, CINEMALoop and PERFORMING ARCO. These curated sections will feature around 50 projects and reinforce the fair as a leading showcase for the most cutting-edge art of today.
Besides, 2010 will be the first time that ARCOmadrid's special annual guest is a city, more specificallyLos Angeles, one of the world's most exciting and fertile hubs for art at the moment. The Panorama: L.A. programme will host a selection of 17 galleries, curated by Kris Kuramitsu and Christopher Miles, giving the public an overview of the latest tendencies in art taking place in one of the world's major cities.
The exhibition programme is rounded off by a long list of activities organized to coincide with the fair. These include the Experts Forum, as well as a large number of conferences, parties and presentations, reflecting the importance of ARCOmadrid as one of Spain's biggest annual cultural events and a must-visit for the contemporary art market.
LIST OF GALLERIES:
GENERAL PROGRAMME 1900*2000 PARIS AD HOC VIGO AELE EVELYN BOTELLA MADRIDAICON GALLERY LONDON ALEXANDER AND BONIN NEW YORK ÁLVARO ALCÁZAR MADRIDANDRÉ SIMOENS GALLERY KNOKKE ANGELS BARCELONA BARCELONA ANTHONY REYNOLDS GALLERY LONDON ARARIO GALLERY SEOUL BARBARA GROSS MUNICH BÄRBEL GRÄSSLINFRANKFURT BENVENISTE CONTEMPORARY MADRID BERNARD BOUCHE PARIS CAIS GALLERYSEOULCÁNEM CASTELLÓN CAPRICE HORN BERLIN CARLES TACHÉ BARCELONA CARLOS CARVALHO-ARTE CONTEMPORANEA LISBON CARRERAS MÚGICA BILBAO CASA TRIANGULOSAO PAULO CASAS RIEGNER BOGOTÁ CATHERINE PUTMAN PARIS CAYÓN MADRID CHARIM GALERIE VIENNA CHRISTOPHER GRIMES SANTA MONICA DAN GALERIA SAO PAULO DISTRITO CUATRO MADRID DNA GALERIE BERLIN EDWARD TYLER NAHEM FINE ART, L.L.C. NEW YORKELBA BENÍTEZ MADRID ELISABETH & KLAUS THOMAN INNSBRUCK ELVIRA GONZÁLEZMADRID ERNST HILGER VIENNA ESPACIO MÍNIMO MADRID ESPAIVISOR GALERIA VISORVALENCIA ESTIARTE MADRID ESTRANY DE LA MOTA BARCELONA FAGGIONATO FINE ARTSLONDON FARIA FÁBREGAS GALERÍA CARACAS FILOMENA SOARES LISBON FÚCARES MADRIDGANA ART GALLERY SEOUL GEORG KARGL VIENNA GEORG NOTHELFER GALERIE BERLINGRIMM FINE ART AMSTERDAM GRITA INSAM VIENNA GUILLERMO DE OSMA MADRID GUY BÄRTSCHI GENEVE HANS MAYER DUSSELDORF HAUNCH OF VENISON LONDON HEINRICH EHRHARDT MADRID HEINZ HOLTMANN COLOGNE JAVIER LÓPEZ MADRID JOAN PRATSBARCELONA JUANA DE AIZPURU MADRID KLAUS GERRIT FRIESE STUTTGART LA CAJA NEGRAMADRID LA FÁBRICA MADRID LEANDRO NAVARRO MADRID LELONG PARIS LEME SAO PAULOLEYENDECKER SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE LUCÍA DE LA PUENTE LIMA LUCIANA BRITO GALERIA SAO PAULO LUIS ADELANTADO VALENCIA MAI 36 GALERIE ZURICH MAIOR POLLENÇAMAISTERRAVALBUENA MADRID MAM MARIO MAURONER CONTEMPORARY ART VIENNAVIENNA MANUEL BARBIÉ BARCELONA MANUEL OJEDA LAS PALMAS MARIO SEQUEIRA BRAGAMARK MÜLLER ZURICH MARLBOROUGH GALLERY MADRID MARTA CERVERA MADRID MAX ESTRELLA MADRID MAX WIGRAM GALLERY LONDON MEESSEN DE CLERCQ BRUSSELSMICHAEL JANSSEN BERLIN MIGUEL MARCOS BARCELONA MOISÉS PÉREZ DE ALBÉNIZPAMPLONA MORIARTY MADRID NÄCHST ST. STEPHAN ROSEMARIE SCHWARZWÄLDERVIENNA NOGUERAS BLANCHARD BARCELONA OLIVA ARAUNA MADRID ORIOL GALERIA D'ARTBARCELONA PALMA DOTZE VILAFRANCA DEL PENEDÈS PELAIRES PALMA DE MALLORCA PILAR PARRA & ROMERO MADRID POLÍGRAFA OBRA GRÁFICA BARCELONA PROJECTESDBARCELONA RAFAEL ORTIZ SEVILLE REFLEX AMSTERDAM RONMANDOS GALLERY AMSTERDAMSABINE KNUST MUNICH SENDA BARCELONA SLEWE AMSTERDAM SOLEDAD LORENZO MADRIDSOLLERTIS TOULOUSE STUDIO TRISORIO NAPLES T20 MURCIA THADDAEUS ROPAC PARISTHE PARAGON PRESS LONDON THOMAS SCHULTE BERLIN TIM VAN LAERE ANTWERP TOMAS MARCH VALENCIA TONI TÀPIES BARCELONA TRAVESÍA CUATRO MADRID TRAYECTO VITORIAVANGUARDIA BILBAO VISTAMARE BENEDETTA SPALLETTI PESCARA WALTER STORMS GALERIE MUNICH WETTERLING GALLERY STOCKHOLM WOLFGANG GMYREK DUSSELDORFZINK BERLIN
ARCO40 ADN GALERÍA BARCELONA ADORA CALVO SALAMANCA ALEJANDRO SALESBARCELONA ALEXANDRA SAHEB BERLIN ALFREDO VIÑAS MÁLAGA ALTAMIRA GIJÓN ANNET GELINK GALLERY AMSTERDAM ANTONIO HENRIQUES-GALERIA DE ARTE VISEU ART NUEVEMURCIA BACELOS VIGO BEIJING SPACE BEIJING BIRGIT OSTERMEIER BERLIN BITFORMSNEW YORK BRIGITTE SCHENK COLOGNE CASADO SANTAPAU MADRID CHINA TODAYBRUSSELS CHRISTIAN LETHERT COLOGNE DEL SOL ST. ART GALLERY SANTANDER ESPACIO LÍQUIDO GIJÓN FACTORÍA COMPOSTELA (C5 COLECCIÓN) SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELAFONSECA MACEDO PONTA DELGADA FORMATO CÓMODO MADRID GABRIEL ROLT AMSTERDAMGIMPEL FILS LONDON JM MÁLAGA JUAN SILIÓ SANTANDER KAI HILGEMANN BERLIN KASHYA HILDEBRAND ZURICH KUCKEI + KUCKEI BERLIN LA ACACIA LA HABANA MARIBEL LÓPEZ GALLERY BERLIN MICHEL SOSKINE MADRID MIRTA DEMARE ROTTERDAM MS MADRID NF NIEVES FERNÁNDEZ MADRID OREL ART PARIS PACIARTE CONTEMPORARY BRESCIA PERUGI ARTECONTEMPORANEA PADUA PROJECTRAUM VIKTOR BUCHER VIENNAPROMETEOGALLERY MILAN RAIÑA LUPA BARCELONA RAQUEL PONCE MADRID ROSA SANTOSVALENCIA RUBICON GALLERY DUBLIN SANDUNGA GRANADA SERVANDO LA HABANA SIBONEYSANTANDER STELLA LOHAUS GALLERY ANTWERP TAIK BERLIN VALLE ORTÍ VALENCIA VAN DER MIEDEN ANTWERP YBAKATU ESPAÇO DE ARTE CURITIBA
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