Weekly Round-Up
Shiloh Baptist Church. Courtesy Hidden Philadelphia.
- A collaborative video installation by Raymond Pettibon and Yoshua Okon premiered last week at the Armory Center for the Arts. The work explores the tight-knit subculture of old hippies and beach bums who have lived in Venice Beach for more than thirty years. The inspiration behind the piece comes from the past-life therapist which Okon and Pettibon (Season 2) visited together, and who told the artists that one of them had been a hippie cult-leader in a past life. Through August 31.
- CITYarts recently presented a Royal Simplicity award to honor the artistic patronage and endeavors of Sheikha Manal Bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The award was specially designed by artist Ursula Von Rydingsvard (Season 4) and depicts an abstracted castle and forest hideaway.
- Hidden Philadelphia opens up the city’s lesser known historical and architectural landmarks to the public through artists collaborations. One of this year’s highlights takes place in the maze-like Victorian space of the Shiloh Baptist Church, where Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle (Season 4) has installed the sound installation Sonambulo. The festival runs May 30 - June 28.
- At PHotoEspaña, Manglano-Ovalle is also presenting two surveillance video installations inside the slaughterhouse-turned-contemporary art center Matadero Madrid. The artist presents Nocturne (White Poppies) and Sonambulo III (Infrared). The former shows a field of Afghan poppies while the second monitors the artist’s son sleeping, “confronting beauty with danger.” From May 30 through July 12.
- Universal Code opens next week at Toronto’s Power Plant. Timed to coincide with the International Year of Astronomy, the exhibition presents the work of artists whose work is fascinated with the origin and nature of the universe, including Franz Ackermann, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Thomas Hirschhorn, and Art21’s Josiah McElheny and Gabriel Orozco.
Flash Points #3: What is the Value of Art?
Hans Haacke, "Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A Real-Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971." 1971.
In the late-1990s I took a graduate seminar on “museums and institutional critique” that focused on artistic and curatorial practices in the 1980s and 90s, and included a series of guest lectures by artists, curators, and the like. It became a bit of a joke that during each class there’d come a point in the conversation where we’d be talking about how an artwork, exhibition, or program was put together, and I’d always raise my hand and ask how it was funded. (Foreshadowing my future career in fundraising, perhaps?)
Leonardo da Vinci, view of a skull, c. 1489. Gabriel Orozco, "Black Kites," 1997. Damian Hirst, "For the Love of God," 2007.
Asking these questions was not a matter of tabloid curiosity, or an exercise in mapping the dirty money that fuels lofty aesthetic pursuits ala Hans Haacke’s Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A Real Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971. Instead, it always seemed to me that how art is funded tells us something about the way it participates in a larger network of institutions, markets, and audiences. The questions of how art is valued and how it is monetized inevitably overlap: artworks perceived as “important” yield high prices at auction; economic development funding goes to out-of-the-way cultural institutions that bring high quality programming and consequently, tourists, to their neighborhoods; exhibitions that push boundaries attract grants from foundations dedicated to promoting free speech; arts education is consistently underfunded.
Kerry James Marshall, "Untitled," 2008. James Lee Byars, "The Perfect Table," 1989.
How many times have you asked yourself how Art21-featured artists were able to fund a large scale project - Ann Hamilton’s Corpus, for instance, or Cai Guo-Qiang’s Inopportune: Stage One? Or wondered who buys works by Iñigo Maglano Ovalle, Kerry James Marshall, or Janine Antoni and how much they pay? Buried within questions about the economics of art, are assumptions and often, judgments, about its value that beg to be examined: How is the value of an artist’s intellectual versus physical labor calculated? Are collectible works valued differently than ephemeral projects?
Tom Friedman, "Untitled," 1995. Rirkrit Tiravanija, "Unititled," 2002.
How does individual “taste” and critical reception affect the value of an artwork, exhibition, or institution? What factors influence the way we value an artistic experience, as individuals and as a society?
How do we quantify the intangible benefits that art education provides? How do we talk about the subtle and personal value that art has in our lives?
1971 cover of Artforum featuring the PASTA strike; 2006 National Post article on the "gallerina" phenomenon.
The current global financial crisis has given the question “What is the value of art?” a new urgency as we come to terms with not only a downturn in the art market, but with the larger societal changes caused by the crisis that are sure to affect the way art is made, distributed, valued, and consumed in the coming years. Over the next two months Flash Points will present a multifaceted look at both topical issues—recent deaccessioning controversies, how the recession is affecting artists and institutions—as well as explore larger philosophical issues about the deeply complicated relationship between art and money, and tackle thorny questions about the value of art in our individual lives.
We welcome your input. Please feel free to comment, share ideas on what you’d like to see here, and post questions for our regular writers, guest bloggers, and Art21 staff.
Not So Weird Science
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, "Phantom Truck" (2007). Photo credit: Barbar Sax/AFP/Getty Images.
A new weekly series of discussions and salons dedicated to collaborations of art and science began last month at the Chicago Cultural Center. ARS SCIENTIA puts artists in the same room with biologists, environmentalists, physicists, and similar kin, and includes snappy topics like The Chemistry of Cooking and The Magic of Perception.
This Monday, February 9, in a conversation titled “Structuring Change,” computational scientist Mark Hereld speaks with Season 4 artist Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, whose elegant, tech savvy works employ natural forms and systems to address politically sensitive issues ranging from immigration to cloning, gun violence, and climate change.
For further information and the full ARS SCIENTIA schedule, click here.
Farnsworth House Flooded
Record rains on September 14th flooded Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois. 18 inches of water filled the modern masterpiece, damaging fixed wood panels and an armoire, while the movable furniture, which was placed on top of milk crates prior to the flood, was spared. The house stands on columns five feet above ground, which were inadequate against the surfeit of water brought on by Tropical Storm Lowell and remnants of Hurricane Ike.
Decades of suburban development and expansion around the flood plain of the Fox River in Plano have left no place for the rains to seep in. Hence, since it was built more than fifty years ago, the Farnsworth House “has suffered seven 100-year floods” (Edward Lifson). The deluge this time brought water levels 14 feet above normal.
After several days, the waters subsided while damage assessment and relief efforts were quickly mobilized. The architectural landmark will certainly be closed the rest of the year, and significant funds are still needed to assist with the cleanup and restoration. For further updates and ways to contribute, go to the Farnsworth House website.
The house itself is seen as one of the purest examples of modernist architecture in its “pared down minimalism.” Its understatements can almost be extracted one by one in this lovely work, Le Baiser/The Kiss, by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle (Season 4).
Artists Respond at MCA San Diego
Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet opened last week at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. The pioneering artist residency and collaborative exhibition project is the first of its kind to operate on a large scale to investigate the relationships between fragile natural environments and the human communities that depend upon them. Each of the eight participating artists took two trips (one in 2005 and a return in 2007/2008) to eight UNESCO World Heritage sites around the globe to create new work informed and inspired by their experiences in these diverse cultural and natural regions.
The exhibition at MCASD features new commissioned works by Mark Dion, Ann Hamilton, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Marcos Ramírez ERRE, Rigo 23, Dario Robleto, Diana Thater and Xu Bing. The artists’ personal site selections produced a range of engagement, such as Hamilton’s visit to the Galápagos, where she observed many of the animals for which the islands are known: land iguanas, finches, sea lions, and tortoises. The artist returned home thinking about such concepts as buoyancy and balance in relation to human life and natural landforms, concepts that go to the heart of Human/Nature. In response, Hamilton created a poetic text that inventories the animals and plants of the Galápagos, citing population figures and incorporating words from Charles Darwin’s famous texts about the islands. Local elementary schoolchildren recited the words from a boat circling the islands. The exhibition installation features video footage documenting the children’s performance and including images of a wavering horizon line shot from a camera suspended in water.
Other explorations include Mark Dion’s travels to the Komodo and Rinca islands inspired by a childhood fascination with the Komodo dragon and Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle to the Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaíno, where he was inspired to create an installation that emphasizes the natural beauty and ecological importance of the area in addition to raising awareness of the industrial development that threatens it.
For full project descriptions, visit the Artists Respond website.
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle | Casta Paintings
EXCLUSIVE: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle at home in Chicago, with photographs of the installation The Garden of Delights (1998) at the XXIV Sao Paulo Bienal.
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle’s technologically sophisticated works use natural forms such as clouds, icebergs, and DNA as metaphors for understanding social issues such as immigration, gun violence, and human cloning. The artist’s strategy of representing nature through information leads to an investigation of the underlying forces that shape the planet as well as points of human interaction and interference with the environment.
SEE: More images, videos, and news for Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle.
LEARN: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle is featured in the Season 4 (2007) episode Ecology of the Art:21–Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS.
DISCUSS: What do you think about this video? Leave a comment!
PHOTO | Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, (Left) Doug, Joe and Genevieve from (Right) The Garden of Delights, 1998. Courtesy the artist and Max Protetch, New York.
VIDEO | Producer: Susan Sollins & Nick Ravich. Camera: Mark Falstad. Sound: Heidi Hesse. Editor: Steven Wechsler. Artwork courtesy: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle. Thanks: Max Protetch Gallery.
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle wins Richard H. Driehaus Foundation award
Art21 artist Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle (Season 4) is the winner of a 2008 individual artist award granted by the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. This award recognizes artists living in the Chicago area and aims to support and encourage “excellence, artistry, focus, direction, maturity, and originality in the visual arts.” The fifteen thousand dollar prize is awarded to three artists each year to support their work and future achievements.
Other winners of the 2008 individual artist award include Jason Lazarus and Anne Wilson. A jury of five arts professionals selected the recipients of the award and included Susanne Ghez, director of the Renaissance Society; Lane Relyea, professor at Northwestern University; Lisa Dorin, assistant curator of contemporary art at the Art Institute of Chicago; Carol Ehlers, independent curator; and Nick Cave, artist and past winner of this award.
McElheny, Mies, & Modernism
In this week’s Art:21 video and interview The Alpine Cathedral and the City-Crown, artist Josiah McElheny references a number of modernist figures and projects, from architects Bruno Taut and Mies van der Rohe to the failed Chicago housing project Cabrini-Green. See what he’s talking about in these videos on YouTube:
VIDEO | Josiah McElheny presenting at MoMA
The lecture that Josiah McElheny gave at MoMA on the topic of “Artists and Models” is a condensed overview, with the artist riffing on Isamu Noguchi, Buckminster Fuller, and other modernist icons.
VIDEO | Farnsworth House
This all access tour of Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House illustrates some of what Josiah McElheny means when he says about Modernist architecture that “you have to live like the building tells you to live.”
VIDEO | Mies on Architecture Island
Did it take virtual reality to realize the utopian ideals of modernism? Take a Second Life tour of Mies van der Rohe’s Fansworth House on Architecture Island (The Homestead).
VIDEO | Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle
Art:21 artist Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle (Season 4) brings a sinister edge to modern architecture in Climate (2000), filmed in Mies van der Rohe’s Lake Shore Drive Apartments in Chicago.
VIDEO | Cabrini Green: Past and Present
Josiah McElheny’s question “how do you both believe in utopia…and at the same time keep it within limits?” can be felt in this homemade video when the narrator states that Chicago’s Cabrini-Green “started out as a place where poor people had hope.”
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle | “Oppenheimer”
EXCLUSIVE: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle’s film Oppenheimer (2003) and mural Time (2003) installed at the Rochester Art Center, Minnesota.
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle’s technologically sophisticated works use natural forms such as clouds, icebergs, and DNA as metaphors for understanding social issues such as immigration, gun violence, and human cloning. The artist´s strategy of representing nature through information leads to an investigation of the underlying forces that shape the planet as well as points of human interaction and interference with the environment.
SEE: More images, videos, and news for Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle.
LEARN: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle is featured in the Season 4 (2007) episode Ecology of the Art:21 — Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS.
DISCUSS: What do you think about this video? Leave a comment!
PHOTO | Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, details of (Left) Oppenheimer, 2003 and (Right) Time, 2003. Courtesy the artist and Max Protetch, New York.
VIDEO | Producer: Susan Sollins & Nick Ravich. Camera: Mark Falstad. Sound: Heidi Hesse. Editor: Steven Wechsler. Artwork courtesy: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle. Thanks: Rochester Contemporary Art Center.
Art21 artists in “TRANSactions” in Atlanta
TRANSactions: Contemporary Latin American and Latino Art, a group show which opened on March 15 at the High Museum in Atlanta features work from three Art21 artists. Alfredo Jaar, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle (both Season 4), and Gabriel Orozco (Season 2) have contributed work to this exhibition which explores the boundaries of cultural identity while celebrating universal themes. The show contains work from artists in eight countries, and surveys the rich variety of methods and concerns of contemporary Latinos, dispelling the myth that they are a homogeneous cultural group.
You can find the press release for this traveling show here.
