Roni Horn at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills
July 24 through August 29, 2008, works by Season 3 artist Roni Horn will be on view at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills, California. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition in the Los Angeles area in almost ten years, and her first with the gallery. A reception for the artist will be held on July 24 from 6-8pm.
Included in the exhibition are sculptures from the ongoing series of inlaid aluminum rods that Horn began in the early nineties. As seen in the picture above, the rods lean against the wall and bear bits of text. In this exhibition the texts relate to writers Flannery O’Connor and Emily Dickinson. In an Art21 interview, Horn said, “My relationship to my work is extremely verbal, extremely language-based. I am probably more language-based than I am visual, and I move through language to arrive at the visual. So I’ve always questioned whether I am really a visual artist. You get into this situation where your ‘identity’ takes over your actual being because you get stuck with whatever it is you resemble to other people- not who you are. They’re not necessarily the same thing.”
Click here to read about other objects in the exhibition. Follow this link for directions to the gallery.
Sound and Vision: A Night with Barry McGee, Japanther, and PAPER RAD
A full roster of public programs accompany Life on Mars, the Carnegie International 2008. On Thursday, July 24th Douglas Fogle, curator of the 55th Carnegie International, will host a conversation with Art21 artist Barry McGee (Season 1). McGee will discuss his work as well as artists’ response to the phrase “life on Mars.” For the exhibition, McGee has transformed an ordinary hallway with his mixed-media installation using bold colors and dynamic geometric shapes. Following the talk will be performances by Japanther, Extreme Animals [Paper Rad], and Centipede E’est with DJs Cutups and Edgar Um in the Sculpture Court. This event titled Sound and Vision will not disappoint.
Slowing Down and Visualizing Approaches
While vacationing locally this summer (since that’s all anyone has gas money for) and taking the necessary steps to slow down in order to feed your imagination and even your own art making, make sure to visit some beautiful and engaging exhibitions on view through the dog days of August. Two of these exhibits—Henry Moore’s Moore in America: Monumental Sculpture at the New York Botanical Garden and Louise Bourgeois at the Guggenheim Museum—are outstanding places for educators to revisit both of these artists, make important connections and visualize multiple approaches to working with our students.
When visiting the New York Botanical Garden for the Henry Moore show, plan to walk a few miles in order to see all of the sculptures. Allow for plenty of time with your sketchbook and/or camera. Most importantly, give the works attention and time; allow yourself to consider how you have approached the figure, sculpture, or figurative sculpture in your own classes while walking around the pieces. Take things slow and not only enjoy the grounds but also consider how we may teach more about context and the place a work is viewed in order to see it and engage with it.
At the Guggenheim Museum, Louise Bourgeois’ exhibit will not require nearly as much walking or a camera, but the possibilities for teaching about a wide range of sculptural materials, autobiographical themes, and depictions of the figure in a variety of roles will require a step or two backward, reflection, and a comfy sketchbook once again.
Other shows of interest for educators this summer include:
- Artist as Publisher at The Center for Book Arts in New York
- Lucky Number Seven, SITE Santa Fe’s 7th international biennial
- Jeff Koons at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art
At the end of August, after spending some time with Marlene Dumas’ Measuring Your Own Grave at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, I look forward to sharing an artist-educator’s take on the exhibit as well as possibilities for teaching with Dumas’ work.
Do you have some “best bets” to check out this summer? If so, please share them! If you have visited one of the exhibits above, please share your comments and thoughts.
Laurie Anderson at Lincoln Center
Starting tomorrow, July 22, Laurie Anderson (Season 1) performs her acclaimed piece Homeland at the Rose Theater as part of the 2008 Lincoln Center Festival. Backed by four musicians, the artist offers “an editorial narrative on the delivery of information and control, the push and pull of freedom and fear, and today’s omnipresent context of war.” Click here for sound clips from the performance.
The Rose Theater is located on the 5th floor of the Time Warner Center at Broadway and 60th Street. The show runs through Saturday, July 26, 2008; all performances start at 8pm.
A public conversation with the artist and Elizabeth Diller of Diller Scofidio + Renfro takes place on Thursday, July 24 at 6pm.
Eternal Twilight at the New Museum
Several Art21 artists temporarily engage in a moment of symbiosis in the New Museum’s new group exhibition, After Nature, curated by Massimiliano Gioni with the assistance of Jarrett Gregory and Chris Wiley. The work of the Puerto Rico-based collaborative team Allora & Calzadilla (Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla) (Season 4) often explores hybrid relationships and global politics. Their installation, Growth (Survival), 2006, presented in After Nature, pairs an existing work by Jenny Holzer (Season 4), Yellow Corner, 2002 with a Staghorn Fern (a plant native to such places as Southeast Asia and Australia, among other tropical locales). The work actually exists in two forms using the aforementioned work or with Holzer’s Blue Wall Tilt, 2004. The installation at the New Museum is placed in a darkly lit corner so the plant is exposed to virtually no other light besides the somber glow of the yellow LED screens of Holzer’s sculpture.
In his catalogue essay, Gioni describes the exhibition as “a land of wilderness and ruins that exists in an imaginary time zone suspended between a remote past and a not-so-distant future.” It’s impossible to hear this statement without recalling Rod Sterling’s hauntingly apocalyptic introduction to the 1960s television show The Twilight Zone: “There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.” Gioni’s curatorial premise, not to mention Allora & Calzadilla’s installation, seems to take this notion to heart, reminding humankind that new systems of sustainability are inevitable on a planet that has been irrevocably altered by the careless endeavors of its inhabitants and also suggests that earth’s only hope for survival may be found within the unpredictable landscape of the mind.
SIDE X SIDE
Art and activism have been intimately engaged throughout contemporary art history, reiterating the notion that the personal is political. In 2007, Art:21’s Season 4 addressed activist strategies (in particular, the politics of war) in “Protest,” which included Jenny Holzer, Alfredo Jaar, An-My Lê, and Nancy Spero. A new investigation of art and activism (in this case, the AIDS crisis) can currently be seen in SIDE X SIDE, an exhibition curated by Dean Daderko for Visual AIDS on view through August 3, 2008 at La MaMa La Galleria in the East Village.
With works from the 1980s to the present by Scott Burton, Kate Huh, Nicholas Moufarrege, Martin Wong, and Carrie Yamaoka, Daderko’s project is rooted in the history of the 1980s in New York City where more than 10,000 people were diagnosed with AIDS in 1986. Between 1986 and 1991 there were numerous exhibitions, conferences, and artworks about AIDS in New York, while activist groups such as ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and Visual AIDS worked to educate the public and insist on medical research and treatment. Art21 artist Oliver Herring (Season 3) has also made works related to AIDS, in particular A Flower for Ethyl Eichelberger (1991) a tribute to the performance artist who committed suicide in 1990 after discovering that he had AIDS.
One of the most noted exhibitions about the politics of AIDS was Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing (a 1989 review of the show can be found in the New York Times on-line) organized by artist Nan Goldin at Artists Space in 1989. The show highlighted a group of artists living in the lower east side of Manhattan who were directly affected by AIDS. Daderko’s project is a sobering reminder of this history as well as a tribute to those who have been lost to this vicious disease. Further details and upcoming events related to SIDE X SIDE can be found on the Visual AIDS website.
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?
Socially Acceptable
My biggest pet peeve in New York City is watching men (and women) of all walks of life, hack and cough, then swiftly discharge a slimy wad of saliva on the sidewalk as passersby narrowly attempt to avoid its path. Despite my repulsion for this most sordid act, saliva is the product of Ana Prvacki’s innovative performance at the Sydney Biennale this year in which she produced gallons of saliva through a solemn flute solo. The bodily fluid—known for its medicinal properties—is then used as a healing salve. Though her actual saliva cannot legally be used, Prvacki has worked with a chemist to create wet wipes infused with her music-derived painkiller that were distributed at her performance at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art in June. The event was reviewed in the The Sydney Morning Herald and images of her performance can be seen on the 2008 Sydney Biennale website.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Prvacki’s performance in view of the upcoming exhibition, theanyspacewhatever, at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, organized by Chief Curator Nancy Spector, which will open this fall. The show addresses artists whose conceptual and social practices in the 1990s are frequently defined by the term “relational aesthetics,” a phrase coined by Nicolas Bourriaud in his collection of essays by the same name (originally published in France in 1998). Art: 21 artist Pierre Huyghe (Season 4) as well as Angela Bulloch, Maurizio Cattelan, Liam Gillick, Dominique Gonzalez-Forester, Douglas Gordon, Carsten Höller, Jorge Pardo, Philippe Parreno, and Rirkrit Tiravanija are included in the forthcoming exhibition. Though I am eager to see how this ambitious project is executed, I can’t help but question the institutionalization of such practices. Aren’t they inherently in opposition to such institutions? And where do artists like Lygia Clark, Jeremy Deller, William Pope L., and Ana Prvacki fit into this dialogue?
Last Chance: The Old, Weird America
Closing at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston on July 20, The Old, Weird America is the first museum exhibition to explore the widespread resurgence of folk imagery and history in American contemporary art. The exhibition borrows its inspiration and title from music and cultural critic Greil Marcus’ 1997 book examining the influence of folk music on Bob Dylan and The Band’s album, The Basement Tapes.
This exhibition of works from nearly 20 artists and collaborative groups, includes Kara Walker (Season 2), Eric Beltz, Jeremy Blake, Sam Durant, Barnaby Furnas, Brad Kahlhamer, David McDermott and Peter McGough, Aaron Morse, Cynthia Norton (a.k.a. Ninny), Greta Pratt, Dario Robleto, Allison Smith, and Charlie White.
The exhibition is curated by Contemporary Arts Museum Houston senior curator Toby Kamps. Click here for museum hours.
Mark Bradford at Artpace
Artpace annually invites nine artists to conceive and create new art projects as part of their International Artist-in-Residence program in San Antonio, TX. Each residency is for a period of two months and composed of one artist from Texas, one from elsewhere in the United States, and one from abroad.
An exhibition of works by the program’s most recent residents–Mark Bradford (Season 4), William Cordova and Marcos Ramirez ERRE–opens July 10. Curated by Lauri Firstenberg, the exhibition is titled New Works: 08.2. A dialogue with Bradford, Cordova and ERRE will take place during the opening reception.
Previous participants of the Artpace residency include Art21 artists Shahzia Sikander (Season 1), Do-Ho Suh, Paul Pfeiffer, Kara Walker (all Season 2) and Arturo Herrera (Season 3).
