Matthew Ritchie at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Season 3 artist Matthew Ritchie’s The Hierarchy Problem (2003) and The Fine Constant (2003) are on view at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao as part of Installations: Selections from the Guggenheim Collections, an exhibition curated by Nat Trotman and which just opened a couple of days ago. Together with three more pieces by artists David Altmejd (The University 2, 2004), Rirkrit Tiravanija (Untitled 2002 – he promised-, 2002) and Javier Pérez (Mask of Seduction, 1997), Ritchie’s multipart installation completes the selection of works that look to envelop audiences in the total experiences provided by their installations, which gain their full meaning through interaction and participation. Viewers are encouraged to dive into the pieces and explore architectural constructions and spaces through painting, sound, sculpture and a variety of different media.
In a playful game of space and physics, The Hierarchy Problem and The Fine Constant create relationships between different objects (a mural, a painting, a carpet, a light box and a sculpture), materializing the visual connections that exist in space between these objects and thus turning what we usually cannot see (the space between things in the vastness of the material universe) into a physical reality. The system of symbols used in Ritchie’s murals has a very particular beauty and appeal to the eye. Their black over white curving shapes seem to form almost an alphabet where our gaze is lost when trying to decipher its meaning.
For more information and other related materials on installations visit http://www.guggenheim-bilbao.es
The Confluence Project looks for volunteers
Season 1 artist Maya Lin’s Confluence Project is looking for volunteers during June and October 2008 to complete a trail at Sandy River Delta in Oregon, which leads to Lin’s Bird Blind installation. Lin’s Confluence Project was born in 2000, when she was asked to create a series of installations along the Columbia River basin to commemorate the bicentennial of the journey of the Corps of Discovery, the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806, which ran from Chief Timothy Park to Cape Disappointment. Maya Lin was asked by local Native American tribes to rethink the meaning of the expedition by creating art pieces on the same trails that were minutely described by these travelers 200 years ago.
If you are interested in collaborating in this ongoing project or to see Maya Lin’s online video explaining the project herself, visit www.confluenceproject.org
Orozco Revelation
One of the most interesting documentaries I have ever seen about Gabriel Orozco (Season 2) – and which was a total revelation into his work – is the Mexican production directed by Juan Carlos Martin in 2002. Excellent soundtrack and music too by Manuel Rocha Iturbide and the trance band Tosca Tango. I first saw it at INPUT’s (International Public TV) 2003 edition in Aarhus, Denmark, when it was presented in a session entitled “Artsy Fartsy?” dedicated to art documentaries. The documentary followed Orozco around the world while working in different projects and art pieces and allowed for a tremendously personal insight into the artist’s thoughts, creative process, and day-to-day life. We meet his friends, we see him drinking a beer and taking a nap in a hammock by a Mexican beach, we mingle in openings with him and see how he picks up trash from New York streets for his readymade installations. Orozco talks to us (the camera) and we wonder to what point his artistic vision influenced the filmmaker in his way of shaping the 82’ piece that keeps us stuck to the screen all along. It was specially interesting to discuss with the filmmaker the larger role of audiovisual production when tackling the theme of art or specific artists’ biographies. Fascinating questions about captivating audiences through sometimes intellectually challenging art arose in discussions with J. C. Martin and the other film directors during the session, as well as the format and shape art documentaries end up taking depending on the creative impulses and dictates of the artists themselves. Definitely worth looking into…
Picks from the Blanton Museum
Check out The Blanton Museum of Art’s two exciting exhibitions featuring works by Art21 artists Richard Tuttle (Season 3), Michael Ray Charles (Season 1) and Hubbard + Birchler (Season 3).
Richard Tuttle’s Light Pink Octagon from 1967 is displayed in America/Americas, an ongoing exhibition with rotating works from both the American and Latin American collections at the Blanton. The exhibition shows works from North, Central and South America in a refreshingly new and unprecedented way. Works range from 1909 through 1985, exploring the differences and similarities in creative production throughout the continent and the continuous flow of ideas between borders. Tuttle’s Light Pink Octagon, from his Octagon series, has also served as an inspiration piece for Texan poets participating in the Blanton’s Poetry Project. Tuttle’s own interest in space and objects that cross the boundaries between painting, sculpture or drawing, has turned into poetic visions of shape and color that shed light on our own interpretations of this particular piece.
Michael Ray Charles and the artist team of Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler make an appearance in Atelier 2008: Selections from the Department of Art & Art History Faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, just about to open in three days and on view through June 8, 2008. Atelier 2008 is the first faculty exhibition being organized by a guest curator (this year, James Elaine, from the Hammer Museum of Art in LA), and it opens a new format of triennial exhibitions that will display faculty work at the Blanton from now on. For more information on Michael Ray Charles’s painting (Forever Free) Jersey #9 (Cultural Value/Black Hand), 2003, and Teresa Hubbard+Alexander Birchler’s video Single Wide, 2002, visit the Blanton Museum’s website.
Caption: Richard Tuttle, Light Pink Octagon, 1967
