Eleanor Antin installation at the Armory Show
Those who are planning to see the Armory Show in New York this weekend (March 27- 30) will want to check out the Eleanor Antin (Season 2) solo exhibition at booth 557. Ronald Feldman Fine Arts has devoted its entire booth to exhibiting an Antin installation from the mid-eighties, Loves of a Ballerina—a mock movie theater entrance. Ronald Feldman had a solo show of works by Eleanor Antin earlier this year, and you can find out more information about both here.
“California Video” at the Getty features 4 Art21 artists and many others
The Getty Research Institute has amassed one of the largest institutional collections of video art in the world. California Video, on view at the Getty Center through June 18, 2008, is the first major survey of video art produced in California. With more than 50 videos and 15 installations, this exhibition combines selections from the Getty’s collection, recent works by established and emerging artists, and rarely exhibited single-channel works on loan to the Museum. Artists include Mike Kelley (Season 3), Eleanor Antin (Season 2), Bruce Nauman, William Wegman (both Season 1), John Baldessari, Brian Bress, Nancy Buchanan, Chris Burden, Jim Campbell, Meg Cranston, Harry Dodge & Stanya Kahn, Allan Kaprow, Paul McCarthy, Tony Oursler, Martha Rosler, Jennifer Steinkamp, T.R. Uthco and Ant Farm, Diana Thater, and Bill Viola.
According to L.A. Times writer, Christopher Knight, the introduction of the Sony Portapak in 1967 was an “epochal event in image-making history, and [is] smartly signaled at the show’s entry.” Ever shrinking dimensions and greater fiscal accessibility, among other developments over the decades, has contributed to the large number of artists experimenting or working exclusively with video. Today, writes exhibition curator Glenn Phillips, “portable video is ubiquitous, but in the late 1960s and 1970s it was a new technology.”
In a video exhibition of this scale, it can be challenging (perhaps even impossible) to see everything in a single visit. The Getty seems to offer a smart solution, however‚Äîa ‚Äúvideo study room‚Äù that gives visitors the opportunity to see all of the single-channel videos in the exhibition on demand via touchscreen kiosks. Visit the Getty’s website to view excerpts from the exhibition, as well as a schedule of indoor and outdoor screenings.
Martian Museum show at Barbican features real Art21 artists
Examining contemporary art from the perspective of an extraterrestrial, the group show Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art, which opens this week at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, features the work of Art21 artists Bruce Nauman (Season 1), Eleanor Antin (Season 2), Mike Kelley, Cai Guo-Qiang (both Season 3), Jenny Holzer, and Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla (both Season 4). This unusual exhibition’s starting point is the fantasy of an alien anthropologist attempting to understand and explain human culture solely from contemporary art, and it builds from there to offer a quirky look at recent art practices. The curators invent a humorously imprecise classification system designed to raise questions about the practice of anthropology, as well as the role misunderstanding plays in the understanding of contemporary art. Interested patrons will also want to download mp3’s of the the exhibition’s audio guide, narrated by the director of the Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art, the “esteemed” Dr. Klaatu.
The show is open until May 18. Find more information, images, and the audio guide here.
Eleanor Antin: Helen’s Odyssey at Ronald Feldman
Helen of Troy was the most beautiful and dangerous woman in the history of western culture. Her story comes down to us from European literature’s founding epic…. But what do we know of her? After three thousand years of notoriety she remains strangely silent as the most beautiful and disastrous objectification of male anxiety and desire.
— Eleanor Antin, San Diego, August 2007
As a pioneering conceptual artist, Season 2 artist Eleanor Antin has engaged in a dialogue with history for nearly forty years. Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in New York City presents Antin’s latest work, in which she turns her gaze on the Trojan War. Through Helen’s Odyssey, Helen of Troy is finally allowed to speak for herself in a series of imagined scenes. In nine large-scale dramatic photographs, warriors, artists, gods, and goddesses emerge in a set of luminous archaeological retrievals from Helen’s historically fragmented life.
Ronald Feldman Fine Arts will also feature Eleanor Antin’s work in a solo exhibition in Booth 557 at the 2008 Armory Show in New York, March 27–30. Elsewhere, her work is included in the exhibition, WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution, opening next week at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center. Later this year, a new retrospective featuring her most recent works, Eleanor Antin: Historical Takes, will open at the San Diego Museum of Art, July 19–November 2, 2008.
Opening reception for Helen’s Odyssey is tomorrow, February 15, 6-8pm.
