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.
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.
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?
Podcast: Kara Walker
A new podcast featuring Art21 artist Kara Walker is now available¬†through iTunes¬†or¬†KCET.org. Walker discusses her work with Gary Garrels,¬†chief curator¬†at the Hammer Museum,¬†where the artist’s¬†touring survey¬†My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love is currently on view.
“California Video” at the Getty features 4 Art21 artists and many others
The Getty Research Institute has amassed one of the largest institutional collections of video art in the world. California Video, on view at the Getty Center through June 18, 2008, is the first major survey of video art produced in California. With more than 50 videos and 15 installations, this exhibition combines selections from the Getty’s collection, recent works by established and emerging artists, and rarely exhibited single-channel works on loan to the Museum. Artists include Mike Kelley (Season 3), Eleanor Antin (Season 2), Bruce Nauman, William Wegman (both Season 1), John Baldessari, Brian Bress, Nancy Buchanan, Chris Burden, Jim Campbell, Meg Cranston, Harry Dodge & Stanya Kahn, Allan Kaprow, Paul McCarthy, Tony Oursler, Martha Rosler, Jennifer Steinkamp, T.R. Uthco and Ant Farm, Diana Thater, and Bill Viola.
According to L.A. Times writer, Christopher Knight, the introduction of the Sony Portapak in 1967 was an “epochal event in image-making history, and [is] smartly signaled at the show’s entry.” Ever shrinking dimensions and greater fiscal accessibility, among other developments over the decades, has contributed to the large number of artists experimenting or working exclusively with video. Today, writes exhibition curator Glenn Phillips, “portable video is ubiquitous, but in the late 1960s and 1970s it was a new technology.”
In a video exhibition of this scale, it can be challenging (perhaps even impossible) to see everything in a single visit. The Getty seems to offer a smart solution, however‚Äîa ‚Äúvideo study room‚Äù that gives visitors the opportunity to see all of the single-channel videos in the exhibition on demand via touchscreen kiosks. Visit the Getty’s website to view excerpts from the exhibition, as well as a schedule of indoor and outdoor screenings.
Mark Bradford | Super 8 Movies
EXCLUSIVE: Mark Bradford at his home in Los Angeles, with excerpts from his childhood Super 8 home movies.
Mark Bradford transforms materials scavenged from the street into wall-sized collages and installations that respond to the impromptu networks—underground economies, migrant communities, or popular appropriation of abandoned public space—that emerge within a city. Bradford’s work is as informed by his personal background as a third-generation merchant in Los Angeles as it is by the tradition of abstract painting developed worldwide in the twentieth century.
SEE: More images, videos, and news for Mark Bradford.
LEARN: Mark Bradford is featured in the Season 4 (2007) episode Paradox 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 | Mark Bradford, production stills, 2008. Courtesy the artist.
VIDEO | Producer: Susan Sollins & Nick Ravich. Camera: Bob Elfstrom. Sound: Ray Day. Editor: Monte Matteotti. Artwork courtesy: Mark Bradford.
More Women in the City: installation views
Installation views of West of Rome’s Women in the City project, featuring Art21 artists Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger, as well as Cindy Sherman and Louise Lawler. Thanks to For Your Art for these.
Jenny Holzer, “Sex differences are here to stay,” selection from Truisms, 1977-79/2008 displayed on the marquee at the Roosevelt Hotel, Hollywood.
Barbara Kruger, Plenty, 2008 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s LACMA West facing 6th Street and Fairfax Avenue.
Installation view of Cindy Sherman, Untitled, 1978/2008 at Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue.
All photos by Fredrik Nilsen, courtesy of West of Rome
Women in the City: Holzer and Kruger artwork images
Jenny Holzer. Don’t Talk Down to Me, Selection from Inflammatory Essays, 1979-82. Offset poster. © 2008 Jenny Holzer, Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.
Jenny Holzer. Destruye, Selection from Inflammatory Essays, 1979-82. Offset poster. © 2008 Jenny Holzer, Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.
Barbara Kruger, stills from Plenty, 2008. Video, 3 min. 15 sec. loop. Courtesy of the artist.
Kruger and Holzer in Women in the City
Women in the City is a viral public art exhibition throughout the streets of Los Angeles that starts today. Timed to coincide with the opening of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Women in the City is on view at over 50 locations from Venice Beach to Pasadena. The project activates the relationship between art and the urban experience while investigating trends in consumerism and the language of popular culture.
The work of four seminal women artists, who began to emerge on the international art scene at the beginning of the ’80s within the feminist movement, will penetrate the urban and social geography of the city. Art21 artists Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger, along with Louise Lawler and Cindy Sherman, disseminate their work in various locations in on-the-road billboards, video screens, storefronts, a movie theater and even propagation through widely distributed stickers.
Today, Women in the City debuts Barbara Kruger’s new video Plenty (2008). The work appropriates advertisements and stereotypes commenting on consumerism. Presented on a temporary video billboard at LACMA, Plenty screens daily on continuous loop through mid-March. It is also presented on video billboards on the Sunset Strip, across from the Hyatt Hotel (8410 Sunset Boulevard) and at the Key Club (9039 Sunset Boulevard), where it is screened daily and fragmented between advertisements.
Because of its developing areas, its unique sprawl, and the diverse cultures that inhabit it, contemporary Los Angeles serves as a site for the recontextualization of Jenny Holzer’s political language within the social framework of the city. Beginning tomorrow, Holzer‚Äôs Inflammatory Essays (1979-82/2008) will be dispersed in both English and Spanish throughout all areas of the city. Posters will be placed in storefronts, alongside advertisement billboards, and in pedestrian areas. Her famous Truisms (1977-79/2008) occupy citywide LED screens, banners, and marquees. The Survival Series (1983-85/2008) is a set of aggressive phrases meant to propel the passive viewer into an act of questioning. They are distributed as stickers throughout Los Angeles clubs, shops, and will also be inserted into the LA Weekly on February 14.
Matthew Barney: Drawings from Guardian of the Veil
Opening this Saturday at Los Angeles’ Regen Projects is an exhibition by Season 1 artist Matthew Barney, featuring drawings from his latest work, Guardian of the Veil, as well as photographs from his earlier work Cremaster 3, establishing a point of departure from his Cremaster Cycle.
In the performance Guardian of the Veil (from “Il Tempo del Postino,” reported here back in July), Barney used remnants from the Cremaster Cycle combined with a new narrative based on elements from Norman Mailer’s novel, Ancient Evenings. In the Guardian of the Veil, the narrative follows a protagonist who died in a fire and begins his journey through the seven stages of death toward eternal afterlife. This examination of eternal life is in opposition to the trajectory of the Cremaster Cycle. The latter examines and follows a developing life from its inception to its inevitable end and the conflict presented in Guardian of the Veil is thereby set.
Drawn on black paper using graphite and petroleum jelly, the drawings from Guardian of the Veil convey Barney’s inimitable, almost surrealistic hand. As a vehicle for the narrative, the fantastical and exuberant drawings function as a story-telling device. In one drawing, a decorated bull is seen mounting a Chrysler Imperial car buried in an Egyptian pyramid, seemingly its final resting place. Pictorially conflicting imagery of eternal life after death and the creation of life leading to its ultimate demise is apparent and at odds.
An opening reception for Matthew Barney will take place this Saturday, December 15th, from 6 to 8pm. The exhibition is on view until January 20, 2008.
