Artipedia - Arts News

Blanton Museum of Art

Jorge Macchi
b. Buenos Aires, 1963
Nocturne, Variation on Nocturne
No. 1 by Erik Satie, 2002
Paper and nails
50 x 62 cm framed
Private collection

Jorge Macchi:
The Anatomy of Melancholy
December 15, 2007 - March 16, 2008

Blanton Museum of Art
The University of Texas at Austin
MLK at Congress
(200 East MLK)
Austin, Texas 78701

http://www.blantonmuseum.org/

The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin presents the first comprehensive U.S. exhibition of the art of Jorge Macchi, one of Latin America’s principal contemporary artists. On view through March 16, 2008, Jorge Macchi: The Anatomy of Melancholy features more than 40 of the artist’s most important works from the 1990s to the present, drawn from public and private collections in South America, Europe, and the United States.

Jorge Macchi is co-organized by the Blanton Museum of Art and the Fundação Bienal do Mercosul in conjunction with the Sixth Mercosul Biennial, held in Porte Alegre, Brazil, where the exhibition premiered September 1 – November 17, 2007, before traveling to the Blanton. Following its presentation in Austin, the exhibition will travel to the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporáneo in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The exhibition has been curated by Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, curator of Latin American art for the Blanton, who also served as chief curator of the Sixth Mercosul Biennial. ”Jorge Macchi’s work is widely admired by art experts and the general public alike, but this is the first opportunity to see a comprehensive overview of his work from the early 1990s to the present,” said Pérez-Barreiro. “Macchi’s work is compelling in how he walks the very fine line between sophisticated conceptual strategies and emotive content.”

A 2005 featured artist at the Venice Biennale, Macchi has garnered international attention for his delicate meditations on the poetics of everyday life using a variety of media and formats, from video installations to artist’s books to cut out newspaper collages. His work is characterized by a somewhat melancholic air, with subjects ranging from acts of random violence to unrequited love, the impossibility of conclusion, and the interplay between presence and absence. Among featured works in the show are: Monoblock [Tower Block] (1999), in which text is removed from newspaper obituaries; Guía de la inmovilidad [Guidebook to Stillness] (2003), a guidebook of Buenos Aires from which all of the city blocks have been removed, leaving only a skeletal remnant of a city, and a new commission, Fim de Film [End of the Film], a video work in collaboration with composer Edgardo Rudnitsky, including a film score performed by the Orquesta Sinfonica de Porto Alegre. The museum is acquir
ing this work thanks to a generous gift by Museum Council member Ellen Susman and her husband Steve. This acquisition is part of the museum’s effort to acquire Latin American artwork dating from the 1990s to the present day—an endeavor that builds on the Latin American collection’s strengths and maintains its position as one of the preeminent collections in the United States.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1963, Macchi has gained a significant reputation in his native Argentina and Europe, though he is less well known in the United States. Museums that have featured solo exhibitions of his work include the University of Essex in England, Recoleta Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Antwerp.

Jorge Macchi: The Anatomy of Melancholy is co-organized by the Blanton Museum of Art and the Fundação Bienal do Mercosul.. Funding for the exhibition is provided by The Bruce T. Halle Family Foundation and the Susan Vaughan Foundation. Transportation provided by Continental Airlines. This project is also supported by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Thanks to a generous gift by Museum Council member Ellen Susman and her husband Steve, the Blanton is acquiring Fim de Film [End of the Film], a work by Jorge Macchi in collaboration with composer Edgardo Rudnitsky, which is included in this exhibition.

Underwriting for the project through the Bienal do Mercosul is provided by Gerdau, Santander Cultural, and Petrobras.

CCA Wattis Institute
for Contemporary Arts

Yves Klein
Leap into the Void, 1960
Photographer: Shunk-Kender

Paul McCarthy’s
Low Life Slow Life: Part 1
February 7 - April 12, 2008

CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts
California College of the Arts
1111 Eighth Street
San Francisco CA 94107
T: 415.551.9210

http://www.wattis.org

Paul McCarthy’s Low Life Slow Life: Part 1 is the first half of an evolving, two-part exhibition presenting sculpture, photography, painting, installation, drawing, performance, video, music, magazines, books, images, memorabilia, documents, and films.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS: John Altoon, Bob Arentz, Joseph Beuys, Stan Brakhage, Malcolm W. Browne, John Cage, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Bruce Conner, Paul Cotton, Jay DeFeo, Marcel Duchamp, John Heartfield, Wally Hedrick, Mike Henderson, Allan Kaprow, Yves Klein, Tetsumi Kudo, Yayoi Kusama, Robert Mallary, Paul McCarthy, Gustav Metzger, Allan Midgette, Henry Moore, Saburo Murakami, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Al Payne, Raivo Puusemp, Kazuo Shiraga, Tony Smith, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Doyle Strong, Stan VanDerBeek, Irby Walton, Andy Warhol

CURATED BY: Paul McCarthy

Paul McCarthy’s Low Life Slow Life is a two-part exhibition curated by the acclaimed Los Angeles–based artist Paul McCarthy. It showcases a wide range of artists and artworks related to McCarthy’s memories from his career, as well as a number of his own works. This first part investigates McCarthy’s student years in Salt Lake City in the 1960s and his early career in the Bay Area during the 1970s. The second part, to be presented in 2009, will focus on his years in Los Angeles and map out the period from the mid-1970s to the present.

McCarthy’s curatorial selections are eclectic and unconventional, deriving more from his personal recollections than from any historical, objective measure of artistic influence. The works on display range from sculptures and paintings to magazines, books, artifacts, memorabilia, films, videos, photographs, installations, and reproductions or remakes of artworks that no longer exist or that McCarthy only ever encountered as reproductions. The featured artists will include such established figures as Henry Moore and Allan Kaprow and lesser-known artists such as Wally Hedrick and Al Payne. An extensive film program and a number of reenactments of historical performance pieces will also be part of the exhibition.

Although McCarthy did not achieve international recognition until the 1990s, he has been an influential figure on California’s art scene for more than 30 years. His early performance work of the 1970s explored the body and sexuality. The intensity of these performances, which often included graphic depictions of taboo sub-jects, eventually led him to further explorations and exploitations of video and film, special effects, and large-scale installations as he continually strove to heighten the effect of his work. Today McCarthy is considered one of the most influential living American artists.

LECTURE BY PAUL McCARTHY: Tuesday, February 12, 7 p.m.

FILM SCREENINGS: An extensive film program will accompany the exhibition, including films by Stan Brakhage, Bruce Conner, Bruce Nauman, Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono, Stan VanDerBeek, and Andy Warhol. For a complete list of films and screening times please visit http://www.wattis.org

The lecture and film screenings take place in Timken Lecture Hall, California College of the Arts, 1111 Eighth Street (at 16th and Wisconsin), San Francisco CA 94107. All events are free and open to
the public.

Paul McCarthy’s Low Life Slow Life is curated by Paul McCarthy and organized by Jens Hoffmann, director of the CCA Wattis Institute, and Stacen Berg, assistant curator of the CCA Wattis Institute.

About the CCA Wattis Institute
The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts was established in 1998 in San Francisco at California College of the Arts. It serves as a forum for the presentation and discussion of international contemporary art and curatorial practice. Through groundbreaking exhibitions, the Capp Street Project residency program, lectures, symposia, and publications, the Wattis Institute has become one of the leading art institutions in the United States and an active site for contemporary culture in the Bay Area.

Founding support for CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts programs has been provided by Phyllis C. Wattis and Judy and Bill Timken. Generous support provided by the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, Grants for the Arts / San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, Ann Hatch and Paul Discoe, and the CCA
Curator’s Forum.

Frac Bourgogne

Copyright: Matthew Buckingham,
Everything I Need, 2007, video still

Matthew Buckingham:
Play the story
February 16th to May 17th, 2008
Opening : Friday 15th February at 6 pm

http://www.frac-bourgogne.org

Opening Hours : Monday to saturday from 2 pm to 6 pm (except holidays)
Guided Tour : Saturday 5th April, 2008 - 3 pm – free entry

Others events during the exhibition at the Frac Bourgogne in Dijon:
• Festival Art Dance 2008 — Annie Vigier, Franck Apertet / Les gens d’Uterpan — X-Event 2 (dance performance) Sunday March 2nd 2008 — 5-6:30 pm - admission free until seats are taken. Designed by: AnnieVigier and Franck Apertet, choreographers; Art Danse CDC Dijon, Burgundy / Studio reception, jointly produced with the Frac Bourgogne.
• Jus de fruits #1 Concert — Sunday April 27th 2008 — 11 am - admission free until all seats are taken.

Supporting Bodies: This exhibition was produced with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Communication (DRAC: Regional Direction of Cultural Affairs of Burgundy), the Burgundy Regional Council and the Côte d’Or General Council.

The exhibition Matthew Buckingham, Play the Story (curator : Mark Godfrey) is being organized by Camden Arts Centre, London, in association with the Frac Bourgogne, Dijon ; Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee ; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines and Henry Art Gallery, Seattle.
The Frac Bourgogne is member of –PLATFORM–

The FRAC Bourgogne — Burgundy Regional Contemporary Art Collection — is hosting the first solo show in France of the work of the American artist Matthew Buckingham (born in 1963 in Nevada, Iowa, USA). His films, slide shows, and photographs all present various historical figures, real and make-believe alike: a politician, a freed slave, a drama coach, a lexicographer, a camera inventor, a philosopher, and the like. The artist chooses such figures for what their life experience reveals about issues running through the contemporary world.

For this exhibition, titled Play the Story, he is presenting three video installations produced in 2007. They revisit the route taken by two women of importance in the feminist movement, as well as an influential episode of film history. As a fully-fledged historiographer, no less, Matthew Buckingham invites viewers to experience history and its constructive methods, as well as feel its closeness to the present.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past”, wrote William Faulkner. This oft-repeated quotation perfectly situates what he has been involved with since the mid-1990s: challenging the connection we have with history. Surprised by our understanding of history, as well as by the objectivity value we grant it, the artist re-interprets historical facts, the better to question the meaning of documents and images, and incorporate them on the basis of different viewpoints.

For Buckingham, each work is the springboard for nothing less than an historical investigation. He seeks out ancient sources as well as the way in which publications have reported the event in the course of history. He chooses situations which retain an extreme topicality. Matthew Buckingham’s work may be fuelled by an important theoretical basis, but it matters to him to come up with installations whose scope is based on textual experience as much as imagery and space. Understanding, representation, and physical experience are all worked in such a way as to lend substance to thoughts and events.

Three installations made in 2007 are brought together in this show: The Spirit and the Letter presents the writings of the novella writer, essayist and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797); Everything I Need imagines the thoughts of Charlotte Wolff (1897-1986), forerunner of gender theories and theories about homosexuality, during her flight back to Berlin in 1978, after 35 years of exile in England; and False Future links back up with the early cinematographic images shot by Louis Le Prince (1841-1890), French inventor of the camera, who mysteriously disappeared in a train between Dijon and Paris. In these three installations the artist makes use of the principle of spectator identification associated with different image arrangements, aimed at giving to each one of these situations a stronger actuality.

These three works well illustrate Matthew Buckingham’s approach and method, which also borrows from the historian, the archivist, the anthropologist and the detective. In his installations, the artist gives preference to the way the viewer negotiates between several sources and documents. He is interested by the encounter between work and viewer, leaving the latter a great deal of autonomy, running counter to the conveyance of a more unified sense. Each project seems comparable to the state of the beginning of his own research, when things crop up in a dispersed way, without any immediate coherence. By summoning up historiography within the exhibition venue, Matthew Buckingham recognizes in the exhibition’s form a capacity for honing the onlooker’s perceptions. ”Looking for forms of interdependence, analyzing contemporary problems by nearing their complex relationships in mind, this is perhaps a way of sidestepping cynicism and naivety.”[Conversation between Matthew
Buckingham and Mark Godfrey: New York and London, February 2007”,in Matthew Buckingham Play the Story, Camden Arts Centre, (Londres – GB), Frac Bourgogne, (Dijon – France), Dundee Contemporary Arts (Dundee, Écosse - GB), Des Moines Art Centre (Des Moines - USA), Henry Art Gallery (Seattle - USA), 2007, vol.1, p.45].

Text by Claire Legrand, manager of the visitor’s department
Translated by Simon Pleasance

To see the whole text: http://www.frac-bourgogne.org/

Frac Bourgogne
(Regional Contemporary Art Collection of Burgundy)
49 rue de Longvic
F-21000 Dijon
T : +33 (0)3 80 67 18 18
F : +33 (0)3 80 66 33 29
infos@frac-bourgogne.org
http://www.frac-bourgogne.org