When in Rome 78
Through May 22nd at Anthology Film Archives is a retrospective of artist/filmmaker James Nares, perhaps best known for Rome 78, an anachronistic, subcultural take on decadent Rome via New York circa 1978, with a cast of “downtown personalities” that include Lydia Lunch and John Lurie.
James Nares: Motion Pictures also includes a bevy of never-before screened works from 1975 and 1976, discovered in deep storage only last year. Nares, who is also an accomplished painter, made these films solo and rapidly, usually in one take. They owed stylistically to minimalist, action-based “artists’ films” of the late ’60s to mid-’70s by notables such as Richard Serra and Bruce Nauman (both Season 1), “often combining live and sculptural elements.” Serra’s Hand Catching Lead was one of Nares’ favorites, which influenced subsequent films Arm and Hammer and Steel Rod.
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
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle | “Oppenheimer”
EXCLUSIVE: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle’s film Oppenheimer (2003) and mural Time (2003) installed at the Rochester Art Center, Minnesota.
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle’s technologically sophisticated works use natural forms such as clouds, icebergs, and DNA as metaphors for understanding social issues such as immigration, gun violence, and human cloning. The artist´s strategy of representing nature through information leads to an investigation of the underlying forces that shape the planet as well as points of human interaction and interference with the environment.
SEE: More images, videos, and news for Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle.
LEARN: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle 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 | Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, details of (Left) Oppenheimer, 2003 and (Right) Time, 2003. Courtesy the artist and Max Protetch, New York.
VIDEO | Producer: Susan Sollins & Nick Ravich. Camera: Mark Falstad. Sound: Heidi Hesse. Editor: Steven Wechsler. Artwork courtesy: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle. Thanks: Rochester Contemporary Art Center.
Orozco Revelation
One of the most interesting documentaries I have ever seen about Gabriel Orozco (Season 2) - and which was a total revelation into his work - is the Mexican production directed by Juan Carlos Martin in 2002. Excellent soundtrack and music too by Manuel Rocha Iturbide and the trance band Tosca Tango. I first saw it at INPUT’s (International Public TV) 2003 edition in Aarhus, Denmark, when it was presented in a session entitled “Artsy Fartsy?” dedicated to art documentaries. The documentary followed Orozco around the world while working in different projects and art pieces and allowed for a tremendously personal insight into the artist’s thoughts, creative process, and day-to-day life. We meet his friends, we see him drinking a beer and taking a nap in a hammock by a Mexican beach, we mingle in openings with him and see how he picks up trash from New York streets for his readymade installations. Orozco talks to us (the camera) and we wonder to what point his artistic vision influenced the filmmaker in his way of shaping the 82’ piece that keeps us stuck to the screen all along. It was specially interesting to discuss with the filmmaker the larger role of audiovisual production when tackling the theme of art or specific artists’ biographies. Fascinating questions about captivating audiences through sometimes intellectually challenging art arose in discussions with J. C. Martin and the other film directors during the session, as well as the format and shape art documentaries end up taking depending on the creative impulses and dictates of the artists themselves. Definitely worth looking into…
Picks from the Blanton Museum
Check out The Blanton Museum of Art’s two exciting exhibitions featuring works by Art21 artists Richard Tuttle (Season 3), Michael Ray Charles (Season 1) and Hubbard + Birchler (Season 3).
Richard Tuttle’s Light Pink Octagon from 1967 is displayed in America/Americas, an ongoing exhibition with rotating works from both the American and Latin American collections at the Blanton. The exhibition shows works from North, Central and South America in a refreshingly new and unprecedented way. Works range from 1909 through 1985, exploring the differences and similarities in creative production throughout the continent and the continuous flow of ideas between borders. Tuttle’s Light Pink Octagon, from his Octagon series, has also served as an inspiration piece for Texan poets participating in the Blanton’s Poetry Project. Tuttle’s own interest in space and objects that cross the boundaries between painting, sculpture or drawing, has turned into poetic visions of shape and color that shed light on our own interpretations of this particular piece.
Michael Ray Charles and the artist team of Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler make an appearance in Atelier 2008: Selections from the Department of Art & Art History Faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, just about to open in three days and on view through June 8, 2008. Atelier 2008 is the first faculty exhibition being organized by a guest curator (this year, James Elaine, from the Hammer Museum of Art in LA), and it opens a new format of triennial exhibitions that will display faculty work at the Blanton from now on. For more information on Michael Ray Charles’s painting (Forever Free) Jersey #9 (Cultural Value/Black Hand), 2003, and Teresa Hubbard+Alexander Birchler’s video Single Wide, 2002, visit the Blanton Museum’s website.
Caption: Richard Tuttle, Light Pink Octagon, 1967
Art21 artists in “TRANSactions” in Atlanta
TRANSactions: Contemporary Latin American and Latino Art, a group show which opened on March 15 at the High Museum in Atlanta features work from three Art21 artists. Alfredo Jaar, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle (both Season 4), and Gabriel Orozco (Season 2) have contributed work to this exhibition which explores the boundaries of cultural identity while celebrating universal themes. The show contains work from artists in eight countries, and surveys the rich variety of methods and concerns of contemporary Latinos, dispelling the myth that they are a homogeneous cultural group.
You can find the press release for this traveling show here.
Photos from Charles Atlas/Lia Gangitano at NYPL
Check out the pictures from yesterday night’s screening of Paradox and discussion with Charles Atlas and Lia Gangitano, Director of Participant Inc, at the Mid-Manhattan Library.
Art21 is co-presenting monthly screenings of each Season 4 episode at the NYPL throughout the spring.
Josiah McElheny at the Henry Art Gallery
The Last Scattering Surface, an enormous spherical sculpture composed of metal and glass by Art21 artist Josiah McElheny (Season 3), has traveled to the University of Washington’s Henry Art Gallery. The sculpture is on view through August 17, 2008.
The Henry will also exhibit a series of conceptual drawings and the artist‚Äôs first film, shot on location at the New York Metropolitan Opera House. The film features the 1965-commissioned Lobmeyer chandeliers, which were gifts of the Austrian government. The largest of these chandeliers is lit with 260 bulbs, measures over 20 feet across, and weighs one and a half tons. In 1966, Austrian Foreign Minister Lujo Toncic-Soring declared them ‚Äúforever a shining and glittering symbol of the friendship between Austria and the United States.” While The Last Scattering Surface relates to industrial design of the mid-1960s and the science of the Big Bang, it also relates to a historical moment when “the universal linear narrative of modernity‚Äôs progress began to fracture, instigating a ’scattering’ of histories and viewpoints about society‚Äôs development over the ages.”
Read more about the exhibition here.
Reminder: Charles Atlas with Lia Gangitano at NYPL tonight
Art21, BOMB, & the Mid-Manhattan Library
present
a film screening and conversation
Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century Season 4 episode Paradox
After the screening Lia Gangitano, Director of Participant Inc., will join consulting director and video artist Charles Atlas for a conversation and Q&A session.
TONIGHT Monday, April 7, 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.
Catherine Sullivan | Empathy
EXCLUSIVE: Excerpts from Catherine Sullivan’s film installations Big Hunt (2002), Ice Floes of Franz Joseph Land (2003), and The Chittendens (2006).
Catherine Sullivan’s anxiety-inducing films and live performances reveal the degree to which everyday gestures and emotional states are scripted and performed, probing the border between innate and learned behavior. Sullivan’s appropriation of classic Hollywood filming styles, period costumes, and contemporary spaces such as corporate offices draws the viewer’s attention away from traditional narratives and towards an examination of performance itself.
SEE: More images, videos, and news for Catherine Sullivan.
LEARN: Catherine Sullivan 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 | Catherine Sullivan, production stills from (Left) Baby Jane/Birdie Jo Infusion, from Big Hunt, 2002; (Right) Chittenden Office (The Virtuous Woman) from The Chittendens, 2005. © Catherine Sullivan.
VIDEO | Producer: Susan Sollins & Nick Ravich. Camera: Mark Falstad. Sound: Heidi Hesse. Editor: Monte Matteotti. Artwork courtesy: Catherine Sullivan.
