Weekly Roundup
Charles Atlas, "Son of Sam and Delilah", 1991. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York
Greek tragedy, cross dressing, cooking shows, needlework, rowdy teens, storytelling, nighttime walks, and a few mystery plays in this week’s roundup:
- Virtuoso Illusion: Cross Dressing and the New Media Avant-Garde at the MIT List Visual Arts Center explores how experimental art has been enlivened and advanced by artists who cross dress as part of their conceptual process. “The show is not intended,” according to MIT, “as an exploration of identity issues specifically, but more as an in depth look at current and historical strategies of cross dressing as an art of the irrational, the unexpected.” Artists include Charles Atlas, Matthew Barney (both Season 2), Claude Cahun, Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn, Marcel Duchamp, Michelle Handelman, John Kelly, Katarzyna Kozyra, Kalup Linzy, Ma Liuming, Manon, Pierre Molinier, Yasumasa Morimura, Brian O’Doherty, Ryan Trecartin, and Andy Warhol. Atlas created video mock documentaries about the evolving twentieth-century performance avant-garde during the years he collaborated with Merce Cunningham. In Son of Sam and Delilah (1991), Atlas provides “a transporting view of a flock of gender indiscriminate performers.” Virtuoso Illusion, organized by guest curator Michael Rush, former director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, is on view through April 4.
- The highly anticipated exhibition Kiki Smith: Sojourn opens at the Brooklyn Museum this Friday. Smith (Season 2) draws on a variety of experiences in the cycle of life, from the milestones of birth and death to the daily chores of domestic life, with particular attention to the lives of women artists. An eighteenth-century silk needlework by a woman named Prudence Punderson that inspired Smith’s installation is on loan to the museum from the Connecticut Historical Society and included in the exhibition. Via the museum website: “Punderson’s stark depiction of a woman’s journey from childhood to death in the years leading up to and immediately after the United States gained its independence intrigued Smith because rather than following the stereotypical rites of passage in a woman’s life of the period…this young woman chose to depict a life of the mind for her subject, presenting a woman engaged in creative work.” Smith will install her work in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art as well as in two of the museum’s eighteenth-century period rooms. Sojourn closes September 12.
- Works by Laylah Ali (Season 3), Kara Walker (Season 2), Ghada Amer, Shary Boyle, Amy Cutler, Chitra Ganesh, Wangechi Mutu, Annie Pootoogook, Leesa Streifler, and Su-en Wong are on view at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery in Ontario, Canada. The exhibition, titled Pandora’s Box, offers a new twist on the myth of Pandora in which it is no longer about what is hidden inside of the box, but what is metaphorically reflected on the outside. Pandora’s Box continues through March 21.
- Through February 28, Tank.tv is showing two works by Season 5 artist Paul McCarthy: Family Tyranny and Cultural Soup. Both works — cut from two days of taped performance at a community television studio in 1987 — feature Season 1 artist Mike Kelley. Tank.tv calls the videos a “disturbing tableaux of familial horror, steeped in the stomach turning abjection” of McCarthy’s practice. Performed within a “barely credible domestic set,” the format and characters in the videos enact several tropes of television entertainment: the unruly teenager (Kelley), and the how-to format of cooking and DIY programs.
- Fifty photographs of nocturnal landscapes by Robert Adams (Season 4) are on view at Matthew Marks Gallery in the exhibition Summer Nights, Walking. These images of trees and houses, mountains and streets, fields and sidewalks captured between dusk and approaching dark were made between 1976-1982 near Adams’ home in Longmont, Colorado. Adams first showed photographs from this series in 1985. He recently said of editing his night pictures: “When I have looked again at the photographs that I might have chosen but did not, it has seemed to me that if I had included a wider variety, the result would have been, though less harmonious, more convincing, closer to our actual experience of wonder, anxiety and stillness.” This exhibition celebrates the publication of Summer Nights, Walking, co-published by Aperture and the Yale University Art Gallery, a revised and updated version of an earlier book. The exhibition continues through April 17.
- Delusion, a new work by Laurie Anderson (Season 1) will premiere at the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company, February 16-21. The piece is described as “a series of short mystery plays” populated by “nuns, elves, golems, rotting forests, ghost ships, archaeologists, dead relatives and unmanned tankers.” Delusion was commissioned by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and The Barbican Centre in London. Tickets can be purchased here.
- The lecture series Critical Conversations at the Roski School of Fine Arts in Los Angeles features talks by visiting artists, curators, theorists, writers, and other cultural producers, who engage in open conversations with graduate students and attending members of the public. Season 4 artists Mark Dion and Mark Bradford will speak on February 23 and March 2, respectively.
- Season 5 artist William Kentridge will lecture at The Cooper Union in New York City tomorrow, February 9. The event begins at 8pm and is free and open to the public.
- BMW has announced that Season 5 artist Jeff Koons will design their 17th art car. Read more about the project here.
Art21 “Exclusive” Video, Year 2
What a year it’s been! We’re taking a look back at the 42 Exclusive videos that premiered here on the Art21 Blog, and subsequently on YouTube and iTunes. We hope you’ve enjoyed this new feature for 2009 and, as always, look forward to your comments.
What’s our New Year’s resolution? We’ll be premiering more behind-the-scenes moments with contemporary artists such as Beryl Korot, Shahzia Sikander, Allan McCollum, Julie Mehretu, Cao Fei, Florian Maier-Aichen, and many, many more. Check out what happened in year one.
Weekly Round Up
Robert Adams, "Eden, Colorado" (circa 1968-71). Courtesy the artist.
- Robert Adams has won the 2009 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. Based in Astoria, Oregon, the Season 4 artist received the $61,000 prize at a ceremony in San Francisco last week.
- Maya Lin will speak tonight at San-Francisco based not-for-profit organization City Arts and Lectures. The Season 2 artist will engage in dialogue with with Ryan Watt.
- As part of Earth Day events, Mel Chin (Season 1) will deliver a talk this Wednesday at Blue Ridge Community College in Blue Ridge, North Carolina. For more information, click here.
- The China Project: Three Decades of Contemporary Chinese Art just opened at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia. Culled from the Queensland Art Gallery Collection, the show features installations, painting, sculpture and video by over 40 of China’s foremost contemporary artists including Xu Bing and Cai Guo-Qiang (Season 3).
- Opening tomorrow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is The Pictures Generation, 1974-1985. The show features artists “educated in the self-reflexive and critical principles of Minimal and Conceptual art,” a list of 30 that includes Barbara Kruger (Season 1), Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo, Allan McCollum, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, and Laurie Simmons (Season 4).
Rolling Up Our Sleeves
Since this column gets posted on Wednesdays (and believe me, I didn’t arrange it this way), it’s been my pleasure to contribute posts directly after the November 4th election (see Hope and Change) and today, after the thrilling inauguration of Barack Obama as our 44th President.
Throughout President Obama’s speech, I kept thinking about ways we can teach students about being truly productive citizens- citizens that contribute, think critically, offer service, and teach others. It got me thinking about artists in the Art21 series who can help teach about these things in a variety of ways….
First, Krzysztof Wodiczko can certainly teach students that speaking out can not only be something done in a newspaper editorial or part of a speech, but it can also be a part of the art we create. Wodiczko helps voices literally project themselves and allows viewpoints to be shared in ways few artists approach.
Nancy Spero can teach about protest and history, and how protest can take many forms- somehow avoiding violence yet simultaneously picturing it.
Jenny Holzer offers students the opportunity to think critically about the text she uses in her work and then relate that to what it means to be a “good” or “productive” citizen. Her recent work with declassified documents can open up meaningful discussion about what citizens should know and be informed of.
Mark Dion can teach students about teaching others through art. Whether it’s work inspired by literature or installation inspired by natural elements, Dion shares with students that the work of contemporary artists can educate and inspire discussion about things such as sustainability, recycling, and preserving natural resources.
Lastly, I want to mention Robert Adams‘ photography. Through his quiet and intense pictures, students can reflect on the things we must do to save and reclaim the parts of our landscape that are devastated by greed and carelessness.
Have you used, or are planning to use Art21 segments and resources as part of your post-inauguration lessons? Please share them with us!
Pictured above: Jenny Holzer, “Benches”, 1989
Installation: Dorris C. Freedman Plaza New York, New York.
Robert Adams | Light
EXCLUSIVE: Robert Adams in his Oregon home.
Robert Adams’s black-and-white photographs document scenes of the American West, revealing the impact of human activity on the last vestiges of wilderness and open space. An underlying tension in Adams’s body of work is the contradiction between landscapes visibly transformed or scarred by human presence and the inherent beauty of light and land rendered by the camera.
SEE: More images, videos, and news for Robert Adams.
LEARN: Robert Adams 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 | Robert Adams, (Left) From Lookout Mountain, at Buffalo Bill’s Grave. Jefferson County, Colorado and (Right) Sunday School, a Church in a New Tract, Colorado Springs, 2007. © Robert Adams. Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.
VIDEO | Producer: Susan Sollins & Nick Ravich. Camera: Bob Elfstrom. Sound: Doug Dunderdale. Editor: Steven Wechsler.
Robert Adams | Working Along Freeways
EXCLUSIVE: Robert Adams with photographs in his Oregon studio.
Robert Adams’s black-and-white photographs document scenes of the American West, revealing the impact of human activity on the last vestiges of wilderness and open space. An underlying tension in Adams’s body of work is the contradiction between landscapes visibly transformed or scarred by human presence and the inherent beauty of light and land rendered by the camera.
SEE: More images, videos, and news for Robert Adams.
LEARN: Robert Adams 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 | Robert Adams, (Left) Untitled, Colorado, early 1970s; (Right) Adams County, Colorado, 1973. © Robert Adams. Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.
VIDEO | Producer: Susan Sollins & Nick Ravich. Camera: Bob Elfstrom. Sound: Doug Dunderdale. Editor: Steven Wechsler. Artwork courtesy: Robert Adams. Thanks: Matthew Marks Gallery & Fraenkel Gallery.
Humor and Beauty
How can humor be used to say something serious?
Can unattractive or disturbing things be represented in a beautiful way?
These were just two of the questions posed at last week’s workshop for Rockland County, NY art educators. During an afternoon at the Garnerville Arts and Industrial Center’s GAGA Gallery, teachers viewed season 4 segments featuring Robert Adams and Allora & Calzadilla, worked with Season 4 Educator Guides, and learned about new Garnerville programs with James Tyler, curator of the GAGA galleries.
The workshop and discussion offered a glimpse into how contemporary artists work with redefining beauty (who can resist Allora & Calzadilla’s gesture for residents of Vieques to acknowledge a new anthem celebrating the return of their land or Adams’ passionate critique of our altered landscape?). It also brought together over two dozen art educators to think about and plan for incorporating contemporary art into a variety of curricula. Through the segments featured during the October 15th workshop, participants got a chance to reflect on how the art of today works not only with beautiful images, but also beautiful ideas set into motion- sometimes on film, sometimes through performance.
How is contemporary art shaping your curriculum this year vs. past years? How has Art21 played a role in your work?
Shooting in Broad Daylight
Many teachers I met over the summer had some connection to teaching photography or working with a variety of students who are photographers (for example, in an AP Studio Art class). During a few conversations the subject of Art21’s developing collection of featured photographers came up, so the purpose of this week’s TWCA column is to highlight various Art21 artists that allow students both traditional and non-traditional approaches to taking pictures.
Some photographers, like Robert Adams and Gabriel Orozco walking with his camera, give students the chance to see photographers who inform their work through discovery and re-discovery of the landscape, be it beautiful, surprising or desolate. Others like Laurie Simmons (who clearly says she is an artist who uses the camera simply as a tool) and Eleanor Antin meticulously set up their photographs, arranging the compositions and designing the space in particular ways with models, props and even stagehands. Then there are portrait photographers, to use the term loosely, such as Oliver Herring and Sally Mann, who create more than a representation of the person photographed through particular interaction with the model(s).
Juxtaposing these pairings, or across these pairings, can give student photographers a chance to look into how a camera in the hands of an artist with a patient and experimental eye can stretch common themes and subject matter- making viewers look again.
Have any of these artists, or other Art21 artists who use photography in their art, influenced your work or the work of your students? Please share with us by posting a comment and even links to images…
Have a good start to the new school year!
Badlands at Mass MOCA
Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape is currently on view at MASS MOCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art). The exhibition considers the traditions of landscape painting and picks up the thread with work that addresses contemporary ideas of exploration, population of the wilderness, land usage, environmental politics and the relativity of aesthetic beauty.
The artists in the show include, among others, Vaughn Bell, Center for Land Use Interpretation, Joe Smolinski, Nina Katchadourian, Alexis Rockman, Anthony Goicolea, and Season 4’s Robert Adams. In ways harking back to history and dismissing it altogether, each re-invents the genre of landscape painting while addressing current anxieties over the human-effected environment.
“From the earliest renderings on cave walls, man has been compelled to depict the world around him…Badlands comes at this critical time, an era when the world is more ecologically aware yet more desperately in need of solutions than ever before.”
The Billy Joels of Art Education
This past Sunday, the New York Times ran an article about Billy Joel. The article focused on the fact that, despite not making a new recording in 15 years, Billy Joel still manages to sell out Shea Stadium—twice—in less than two hours. It got me thinking about the Billy Joels of art education. You know, the artists that we may admire and respect in one way or another, but have gotten tired of teaching about over and over. Think “Uptown Girl.” A fun song when it came out, but a song that’s been beaten into submission by its radio-friendliness. It got me thinking about the “Stairway to Heavens”of the art classroom and immediately I came up with three: Monet, Dali, and Warhol. These artists now have the unfortunate distinction of often having their names linked with the word “project”. For example, “Oh you tried a Warhol-project with your class.”
I started to think about artists that might offer very different takes on what Monet, Dali and Warhol often help us teach. Here’s are some initial ideas:
- Juxtapose the work of Andy Warhol with Alfredo Jaar. Have students compare how both of these artists explore the idea of becoming desensitized to certain images. Students can create, juxtapose or layer contemporary images and symbols that, from their perspective, the public has become desensitized to.
- Compare the works of Salvador Dali and An-My Lê. How do both artists deal with the the theme of violence in ways that are similar and very different? Students can create a variety of work that explores violence in our society. One approach might ask students to create a surreal illustration or staged photograph based on world news images.
- View and discuss the work of Claude Monet and Robert Adams side by side. How do the landscapes painted by Monet compare with the photo landscapes by Robert Adams? What kinds of things does each artist want the viewer to think about? Students can then create a painting or series of photographs that explore landscapes (both literal and figurative) of personal importance.
Who are the Billy Joels of your own classroom? How can we use and incorporate contemporary art to give these artists a different, and perhaps more meaningful, place in our teaching?
