Expanding the Definition(s): Some Days Are Easier Than Others
Many thanks to those who have helped get the Teaching with Contemporary Art column off to a smooth start! Recently, a few friends and colleagues have mentioned (even e-mailed) about the fact that, well, while Season 4 of Art:21 has won quite a few prestigious awards, the selection of artists chosen can be difficult to transition into the classroom. As educators, how do we get our collective heads around teaching with Season 4 artists such as Mark Dion, Alfredo Jaar, Ursula von Rydingsvard and Laurie Simmons? These aren’t artists that lend themselves easily to K-12 or university-level curriculum, particularly if the course is production-based. How can artists like these, as well as artists such as Ann Hamilton (Season 1), Martin Puryear (Season 2), and Fred Wilson (Season 3) help us work with students in our classrooms?
First… they can help us redefine and expand on what art is and what it’s becoming in the 21st century. There aren’t too many neat little projects that fit perfectly with what some of these artists do, but the segments and related materials on art21.org help us work with students to consider new possibilities for subject matter and ways of working with traditional and non-traditional media. These segments can inspire writing in the classroom just as well as Elizabeth Murray may inspire students to paint in new ways. They can be the catalyst for spirited debate much like Trenton Doyle Hancock can act as a starting point for understanding cartooning or how artists develop/illustrate alter-egos. Mark Dion can teach about the relationship between art and ecology, as well as blurring the line between artist and curator. Alfredo Jaar can teach about public art and how contemporary art often needs a particular setting much like a great work of fiction. Ursula von Rydingsvard teaches how an artist today can create work that relates to landscapes, the human body and psychological states… sometimes simultaneously. And Laurie Simmons can teach that there is a difference between photographers as artists and artists that use photography as a tool.
While it’s hard to incorporate the ever-increasing number of artists that can meaningfully inspire and help guide students, it’s hard to NOT include artists that will help them open up definitions and engage in dialogue about what art is and what constitutes an artist to begin with. Bringing these artists into discussions and/or socratic seminars in the art classroom can have surprising and wonderful benefits. Is it easy? Never. Some days are easier than others. But it’s always worth it. I can tell you stories…..
Image: Untitled Hot Glue Drawing by Karyl DelMundo
Conversations | Ursula von Rydingsvard with Martin Friedman part 2
The second half of the conversation between Ursula von Rydingsvard and Martin Friedman that took place on February 3, 2008 at the Mid-Manhattan Library. It concludes with questions from the audience.
Q: Before you start a piece, do you mathematically figure out how it would be stabilized when it was completed? Or does everything just come together and stabilize it as it goes along and you just hope it doesn’t topple when it’s finished?
UVR: Well I‚Äôd never made a model. I had to in a couple of situations where there were budgets involved, and there was this state that wanted to know exactly what was being done. I throw the models away. I‚Äôve only made them twice or three times in my life. I never make drawings for my pieces. But if I do make a drawing, I make [it] on the floor of the studio right before I start building. And the process of not knowing just where it‚Äôs going to go, just how high it‚Äôs going to be…you know, sometimes I have the form in my head, sometimes it‚Äôs vague, and sometimes it‚Äôs a little bit more clear that I go toward. But to have things in your head and to realize them are two completely different worlds. So the things you originally have in your head had to change as you build, because the material makes real demands. Then what it ends up looking like makes real demands in terms of what else you need to do; that‚Äôs different from what you originally thought. But your question is about the engineering end.
MF: Well, it’s intuitive.
UVR: Intuitive. Instinctively…Tom Carruthers, you‚Äôre here, right? Talk about how the engineering was figured out. In other words, my pieces never fell over, but neither were they ever engineered.
TOM CARRUTHERS: We did have that one piece that Cantor Seinuk did, the engineering one. You remember that?
UVR: Well how could I forget?
Conversations | Ursula von Rydingsvard with Martin Friedman part 1
The following interview took place at the Mid-Manhattan branch of the New York Public Library on February 4, 2008, following a screening of the Art:21 episode Ecology. Featured artist Ursula von Rydingsvard spoke with Martin Friedman, Director Emeritus of the Walker Art Center and lifelong curator, writer, and critic.
Martin Friedman: First of all, congratulations to Art21 on the most extraordinary choice of artists. They certainly managed to make the definition of “ecology” quite elastic. Which really brings me to the big question: Ursula, are you an ecologist?
Ursula von Rydingsvard: I’m not sure why I’m in this category. I’m the one who cuts the trees down. I do, however, work with a lumber company which does replant. I just do my artwork. I don’t think I’m an ecologist, no.
MF: Well, let’s see…in the simplest terms, “ecology” has to do with interrelated systems in nature that depend upon one another to change and evolve and so forth. And I think that Mark Dion’s work, as illustrated by that great sacred log, most approximates that definition. There are very few artists who I think would want to be described as ecology-minded; there’s something slightly pious about that.
UVR: Well, there are so many causes that are so good, but I have to make a decision as to what it is that I want to do with my life, and I made that 35 years ago. It’s just a commitment that can’t be partial. In a way, you go into some place where you can’t afford to worry about things that you have a very limited amount of control over. But beyond that, it’s having a need that seems to surpass other needs for me to make these objects.
Photos from Ursula von Rydingsvard/Martin Friedman at NYPL
Monday night’s screening of Ecology and discussion with Season 4 artist Ursula von Rydingsvard and Martin Friedman at the Mid-Manhattan Library drew over 100 people! Many thanks to the library for hosting such a great event. See more pictures on Art21’s Flickr site here.
Art21 is co-presenting monthly screenings of each Season 4 episode at the library throughout the spring. Up next is a screening of Romance, followed by a conversation between Judy Pfaff and BOMB Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Betsy Sussler on Monday, March 3. BOMB is partnering with Art21 to present the next three library programs. More info coming soon.
TONIGHT: Ursula von Rydingsvard with Martin Friedman at NY Public Library!
Art21 and the Mid-Manhattan Library
present
a film screening and conversation
Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century Season 4 episode Ecology.
After the screening Martin Friedman, Curator, Writer, and Director Emeritus of the Walker Art Center, will join Ursula von Rydingsvard for a conversation and Q&A session.
Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 6:30pm
Mid-Manhattan Library
The New York Public Library
40th Street and 5th Avenue, 6th floor
New York, NY 10016
212-340-0871
Elevators to access the 6th floor.
All events are FREE and open to the public.
Ursula von Rydingsvard with Martin Friedman at NYPL Feb. 4
Art21 and the Mid-Manhattan Library
present
a film screening and conversation
Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century Season 4 episode Ecology.
After the screening Martin Friedman, Curator, Writer, and Director Emeritus of the Walker Art Center, will join Ursula von Rydingsvard for a conversation and Q&A session.
Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 6:30pm
Mid-Manhattan Library
The New York Public Library
40th Street and 5th Avenue, 6th floor
New York, NY 10016
212-340-0871
Elevators to access the 6th floor.
All events are FREE and open to the public.
About Ecology
How does our culture influence and affect our understanding of the natural world? Ecology delves into the work of four artists who explore the relationship of nature and culture, including the submission of wilderness to civilization, the foundations of scientific knowledge, the impact of technology on biology, and our relationship to the earth forged by working the land. This episode was shot on location in New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Chicago, Il; Rochester, MN; Seattle, WA; Astoria, OR; Cape Disappointment, WA; King County, WA; Beach Lake, PA; and Williamstown, MA.
Ursula von Rydingsvard uses sculptures as a means to express the memories of her childhood. Her studio is filled with massive cedar sculptures, which she painstakingly constructs layer by layer. The end result is a complex and unpredictable surface for viewers to explore and experience.
Robert Adams, working closely with his wife, created Turning Back (1999-2003), which illustrates deforestation in the West, a practice that Adams describes as “not just a matter of exhaustion of resources. I do think there is involved an exhaustion of spirit.”
Mark Dion explains, “I’m not one of these artists who is spending a lot of time imagining a better ecological future. I’m more the kind of artist who is holding up a mirror to the present.” Viewers follow him on a journey during which he brings a “nurse log”—a fallen Hemlock tree which is home to a wide variety of flora and fauna—into the heart of Seattle.
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle’s interest in architecture, politics, and science underscores much of his work. His various exhibitions are featured in the documentary including Random Sky (2006) façade in Chicago, for which computers process weather data at the installation site to generate a visual representation of climate conditions.
Save the date: Ursula von Rydingsvard with Martin Friedman at New York Public Library
Art21 and the Mid-Manhattan Library
present
a video screening and conversation
Art:21‚ÄîArt in the Twenty-First Century Season 4: “Ecology”
with
Ursula von Rydingsvard interviewed by Martin Friedman
Monday, February 4th, 2008
6:30 p.m. on the 6th floor
Mid-Manhattan Library
The New York Public Library
40th Street and 5th Avenue
New York, NY 10016
212-340-0871
How does our culture influence and affect our understanding of the natural world? Ecology delves into the work of four artists who explore the relationship of nature and culture, including the submission of wilderness to civilization, the foundations of scientific knowledge, the impact of technology on biology, and our relationship to the earth forged by working the land. This episode was shot on location in New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Chicago, Il; Rochester, MN; Seattle, WA; Astoria, OR; Cape Disappointment, WA; King County, WA; Beach Lake, PA; and Williamstown, MA. After the screening Martin Friedman, Curator, Writer, and Director Emeritus of the Walker Art Center, will join Ursula von Rydingsvard for a conversation and Q&A session.
About Ecology
Robert Adams, working closely with his wife, created Turning Back (1999-2003), which illustrates deforestation in the West, a practice that Adams describes as “not just a matter of exhaustion of resources. I do think there is involved an exhaustion of spirit.”
Mark Dion explains, “I’m not one of these artists who is spending a lot of time imagining a better ecological future. I’m more the kind of artist who is holding up a mirror to the present.” Viewers follow him on a journey during which he brings a “nurse log”—a fallen Hemlock tree which is home to a wide variety of flora and fauna—into the heart of Seattle.
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle’s interest in architecture, politics, and science underscores much of his work. His various exhibitions are featured in the documentary including Random Sky (2006) façade in Chicago, for which computers process weather data at the installation site to generate a visual representation of climate conditions.
Ursula von Rydingsvard uses sculptures as a means to express the memories of her childhood. Her studio is filled with massive cedar sculptures, which she painstakingly constructs layer by layer. The end result is a complex and unpredictable surface for viewers to explore and experience.
Elevators access the 6th floor after 6p.m.
All events are FREE and subject to last minute change or cancellation.
Spotlight on Ecology: Ursula von Rydingsvard
Ursula von Rydingsvard was born in Deensen, Germany in 1942. She received a BA and an MA from the University of Miami, Coral Gables (1965), an MFA from Columbia University (1975), and an honorary doctorate from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore (1991). Von Rydingsvard’s massive sculptures reveal the trace of the human hand and resemble wooden bowls, tools, and walls that seem to echo the artist’s family heritage in pre-industrial Poland before World War II. Having spent her childhood in Nazi slave labor and post-war refugee camps, the artist’s earliest recollections of displacement and subsistence through humble means infuses her work with emotional potency. Von Rydingsvard builds towering cedar structures, creating an intricate network of individual beams, shaped by sharp and lyrical cuts and glued together to form sensuous, puzzle-like surfaces. While abstract at its core, Von Rydingsvard’s work takes visual cues from the landscape, the human body, and utilitarian objects‚Äîsuch as the artist’s collection of household vessels‚Äîand demonstrates an interest in the point where the man-made meets nature. Von Rydingsvard has received many awards, including a Joan Mitchell Award (1997); an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1994); fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (1983) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1979, 1986); and exhibition prizes from the International Association of Art Critics (1992, 2000). Major exhibitions include Madison Square Park, New York (2006); the Neuberger Museum, SUNY Purchase, New York (2002); and Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York (1992). Von Rydingsvard lives and works in New York.
Watch a clip from von Rydingsvard’s Art:21 segment:
About her work, von Rydingsvard says,
“I’m not even sure that it’s sculpture that I drink the most from to reap imagery for my work. I think it’s vernacular architecture -everyday kinds of objects like bowls and cups- that enables me to springboard. And that gives me a lot of room and a lot of leeway because none of it has been so explicitly defined. Usually the utilitarian object is just that; it’s made to be used…If I were to say how it is that I break the convention of sculpture (and I’m not sure that’s what I do or even if that’s what I want to do) it would be by climbing into the work in a way that’s highly personal, that I can claim as being mine. I have this feeling that the more mine it is, the more I’m able to break the convention.”
(taken from the companion book Art in the Twenty-First Century 4, pp. 106-7).
Read more about her work and watch additional clips on her Art:21 webpage here.
Have you experienced von Rydingsvard’s work in person, or did you have an opportunity to view her in one of the hundreds of Art21 Access ‘07 events that have been taking place all month? Share your thoughts on Ursula von Rydingsvard by leaving a comment below.
Ursula von Rydingsvard at the Portland Art Museum
A new show of work by Season 4 artist Ursula von Rydingsvard opens tomorrow, September 1, at the Portland Art Museum in Oregon. This exhibition, the first one of von Rydingsvard’s work in the Pacific Northwest, presents a major sculpture, Pod Pacha, and a series of dynamic new drawings completed during the artist‚Äôs Italian residency as a recipient of a 2007 Rome Prize.
The German-born, New York-based artist, internationally recognized for her massive carved cedar sculpture, creates a dialogue between intimate gesture and architecture in the highly articulated and complex surfaces of her work. Years ago, the New York Times praised von Rydingsvard’s work for “standing on its own, shunning the influence of Minimalism‚Ķ putting emphasis on the handmade and the associative.” As von Rydingsvard explains in the upcoming companion book to the PBS series, Art:21‚ÄîArt in the Twenty-First Century 4,
“If I were to say how it is that I break the convention of sculpture (and I’m not sure that’s what I do or even if that’s what I want to do) it would be by climbing into the work in a way that’s highly personal, that I can claim as being mine. I have this feeling that the more mine it is, the more I’m able to break the convention.”
This exhibition, marking the first time von Rydingsvard shows her drawings, runs from September 10 to December 30, 2007. The artist will speak on her work and practice as they relate to her current installation on September 16. Read more about the exhibition and view related images here.
