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
Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco
In 1998, internationally renowned architect Daniel Libeskind was selected to design the Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) in San Francisco. On June 8, the CJM will at last open its doors to the public. To celebrate the opening, the Museum and Reboot, a nonprofit organization based in New York City, will host DAWN ’08, an all-night arts and culture festival and celebration of Shavuot. Attendees will have the opportunity to “groove, learn, explore and mingle” at the new building and exhibition space before the doors open to the public the following morning. Tickets for the event go on sale today.
In the Beginning: Artists Respond to Genesis, will be the first in a series of CJM exhibitions that examines the contemporary relevance of Jewish texts from a variety of artistic, cultural, and literary perspectives. The exhibition will begin with historical representations of the creation story and culminate with seven major commissions by living artists including Trenton Doyle Hancock (Season 2) and Matthew Ritchie (Season 3).
CJM is located at 736 Mission Street. To learn more about this 63,000-square-foot building, visit the Museum’s website or listen to their cell phone audio tour.
Matthew Ritchie’s The Iron City at St. Louis Art Museum
Season Three featured artist Matthew Ritchie breaks new ground this summer with The Iron City, a viewer-activated installation that debuts in the St. Louis Art Museum’s New Media Series. The work is characterized by densely layered audio and visual information that shifts in response to human presence in the gallery.
Through a round aperture evoking the porthole of a ship or the lens of a camera, the viewer experiences a post-apocalyptic environment awash in ocean waves and sepia tones. Collapsing bridges and decaying piers are glimpsed from below. A lulling narrative accompanies the imagery and alludes to scenarios that may have caused the conditions rendered in the film, including the possibility that “the renunciation of gravity converted back, up, and through pressure into a hurricane of dreadful and sublime desire.”
The Iron City is on view from June 29 - September 30, 2007. For more information, click here.
