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SculptureCenter, New York

(Left) Installation view of Decoys, Complexes, and Triggers: Feminism and Land Art in the 1970s featuring work by Alice Adams, Alice Aycock, Michelle Stuart, Jackie Winsor, and Suzanne Harris
(Right) Michael Portnoy Untitled (Wawalk), 2008
Images c. 2008 SculptureCenter and the artists
Photo: Jason Mandella

Decoys, Complexes, and Triggers: Feminism and Land Art in the 1970s
Alice Adams, Alice Aycock, Lynda Benglis, Agnes Denes, Jackie Ferrara, Suzanne Harris, Nancy Holt, Mary Miss, Michelle Stuart, Jackie Winsor
Curated by Catherine Morris

Michael Portnoy
Casino Ilinx
Curated by Sarina Basta

On view through July 28, 2008 at SculptureCenter
44-19 Purves Street
Long Island City, NY 11101
+1.718.361.1750
http://www.sculpture-center.org

Decoys, Complexes, and Triggers: Feminism and Land Art in the 1970s
Alice Adams, Alice Aycock, Lynda Benglis, Agnes Denes, Jackie Ferrara, Suzanne Harris, Nancy Holt, Mary Miss, Michelle Stuart, Jackie Winsor

On view through July 28, 2008 at SculptureCenter

Decoys, Complexes, and Triggers focuses on work by women artists who made significant contributions to the development of sculptural practice in the 1970s. They explored the formal constructs of Post-Minimalism: altering notions of sculptural scale, introducing non-traditional mediums, as well as adapting unusual landscape and interior sites.

Utilizing an abstract, formal language, the artists in Decoys, Complexes, and Triggers helped define the structural conventions of Land Art and Post-Minimalism, such as architectural scale, the use of mathematical systems, and an awareness of the human body in relation to monumental works of art. The exhibition includes sculpture, models, photographs, drawings video, and other forms of documentation, some of which has not been shown since its original exhibition. Many of the works in this exhibition contain oblique references to the body, subjectivity, and self-portraiture.

While some artists in Decoys, Complexes, and Triggers identified their work as Feminist, many of them, including Alice Aycock, Jackie Ferrara, and Nancy Holt explicitly rejected such categorization. This is not to say that these artists were not Feminists, only that their work was not based in a Feminist ideology and did not draw upon imagery and subject matter common to Feminist art of the time. They produced work of equal scale, ambition, and critical intentionality as their male peers.

To read more, click here to download the full press release.

Michael Portnoy: Casino Ilinx
On view through July 28, 2008 at SculptureCenter

“Director of Behavior” and performance artist since 1995, Portnoy’s long-standing investigation of the poetics of humor and the rules of communication and play, takes form in Casino Ilinx as a series of gambling tables and related sculptures.

Drawing on gambling’s roots in ritual and divination, Portnoy’s tables are constructed of high and low materials including wood, mirror, sand, felt, bone, brass, vinyl, and shell. Influenced by gaming devices from various cultures and times, Portnoy’s objects take on a life of their own. When activated by games, the stylized sculptural pieces trigger experimental and experiential situations for the study of human behavior. “Rules” are imparted through riddles and gestures interpreted by players of each game. The rules and language associated with each piece shift constantly, challenging the viewer’s interaction with individual objects leading to dysfunctional, intimate, and absurd situations.

Portnoy explains, “the tables are supposed to be seductive, they appear like games that have been around for a long time for which no one was taught the rules. But the more closely you look, you see that the basic mechanisms of chance — the role of the dice — are compromised. You can’t roll the dice, at least not in the way you are used to.”

Casino Ilinx is composed of a series of moments, surprises, dead ends, and trap doors. The viewer must negotiate sporadic performers, sculptures such as a rabid cube, a squirrel escort, and other opaque symbols and rules. Casino Ilinx will be activated by scheduled and intermittent performances and gaming sessions throughout the exhibition.

To read more, click here to download the full press release.

Join us!
Christmas in Tucson
Sunday, June 29, 7pm
Join us for a musical evening on the rocks, with live music from Tucson, AZ, featuring Bebe and Serge, Al Foul, Al Perry, Chris Taylor, The Pork Torta, and surprise guests. Co-organized with Elizabeth Cherry and Olivier Mosset.

Save the Date
SculptureCenter’s Gala Honoring Franz West
Friday, October 10, 2008

For additional information please contact SculptureCenter: (1) 718.361.1750 or
info@sculpture-center.org

Media contact: Katie Farrell, kfarrell@sculpture-center.org

About SculptureCenter
Founded by artists in 1928, SculptureCenter is a not-for-profit arts institution dedicated to experimental and innovative developments in contemporary sculpture. SculptureCenter commissions new work and presents exhibits by emerging and established, national and international artists. In 2001, SculptureCenter purchased a former trolley repair shop in Long Island City, Queens. This facility, designed by artist/designer Maya Lin, includes 6,000 square feet of interior exhibition space, offices, and outdoor exhibition space.

SculptureCenter
44-19 Purves Street
Long Island City, NY 11101
http://www.sculpture-center.org
+1.718.361.1750

Directions
7 to 45th Road / Courthouse Square, E or V to 23rd / Ely, or G to Courthouse Square (note: the V train does not run on weekends). From all trains, walk north on Jackson Avenue one block past 44th Drive and turn right onto Purves Street.

SculptureCenter is five minutes from Midtown by subway.

TEXTE ZUR KUNST
June 2008 / Issue No. 70

Out now

“WRITING FOR STEFAN GERMER”

http://www.textezurkunst.de

The new issue pays homage to Stefan Germer, the co-founder of this journal, who died in 1998 — that is ten years ago. It was the distinctive strength of Germer’s writings that they were always both meeting academic standards and the criteria of journalism. Today these competencies have severed virtually all ties. Shedding light on the reasons behind this questionable development was one aim of the current issue as well as to revive a problem-oriented form of art-critical writing — not least in memory of Stefan Germer.

Plus reviews from New York, Berlin, Santa Monica, London, Munich, Baden-Baden, Vienna, Bologna, Düsseldorf, and Castellón

Exclusive new artists’ editions:
Raymond Pettibon, Gerhard Richter, Annette Kelm

ENGLISH CONTENT

PREFACE

MARTIN SAAR
THE ART OF DISTANCING
Considerations regarding the logic of social critique

CHRIS KRAUS
STICK TO THE FACTS

TOM HOLERT
EXPANSION OF PRAXIS OR THE ENDS OF WRITING

PETER GEIMER
OUT TO THE OPEN SEA
Three remarks about Stefan Germer’s writings

DOUGLAS CRIMP
SUCCESS IS A JOB IN NEW YORK

ONCE A DANCER ALWAYS A DANCER
An interview with Yvonne Rainer by Michaela Meise

SABETH BUCHMANN
SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION
On “feelings are facts: a life” by Yvonne Rainer

DIETMAR DATH
CRITIQUE OF SELF-CRITIQUE: THE NEXT ROUND

ULRICH GUTMAIR
GOOD TEXTS, BAD TEXTS

JOSEPH IMORDE
TO FAIL BECAUSE OF MICHELANGELO
A short view of the history of art historical writing

REVIEWS

ERIC DE BRUYN
PRESSURE POINTS
On “Beyond the Dream Syndicate: Tony Conrad and the Arts After Cage” by Branden W. Joseph

WALEAD BESHTY / MARK GODFREY
PARALLAX VIEWS
Two comments on Michael Asher at the Santa Monica Museum of Art

DANIEL EMMANUEL
GOLDEN AGE
On John Miller at Metro Pictures and Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York

COLIN LANG
BUT THE NOTHING SHOWS THROUGH
On Sergej Jensen at Galerie Neu, Berlin

JALEH MANSOOR
MATTERS THAT MATTER
On the Whitney Biennial, New York

BENJAMIN H. D. BUCHLOH
COUNTER-PROPAGANDA
On John Knight at the Espai d’art contemporani de Castellón

http://www.textezurkunst.de

SURPLUS
Marina Vishmidt on “Double Agent” at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London / Sarina Basta on Blake Rayne at Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York

ARTISTS’ EDITIONS issue 70:

RAYMOND PETTIBON

“No Title (He could not)”, 2008

GERHARD RICHTER

“40000”, 2008

ANNETTE KELM

“Finanzamt Kreuzberg, Mehringdamm 22”, 2008

For additional information, orders or subscriptions please contact

TEXTE ZUR KUNST
STRAUSBERGER PLATZ 19
10243 BERLIN
Germany

TEL +49 (0)30 – 30 10 453 45
FAX +49 (0)30 – 30 10 453 44

editionen@textezurkunst.de
http://www.textezurkunst.de

FRAC Bourgogne

Rita McBride
Koenraad Dedobbeleer
TIGHT, REPEATING BOREDOM
June 21th - September 12th 2008

Opening on Friday June 20 th from 6 pm

http://www.frac-bourgogne.org

The FRAC Bourgogne, Regional Contemporary Art Collection, has invited Rita McBride (born in Des Moines, Iowa (USA) in 1959) and Koenraad Dedobbeleer (born in Halle, Belgium, in 1975) to come up with a very first exhibition together. These two artists feature in the FRAC Bourgogne collection, Rita McBride with Stairs, Gentle (1999) and Koenraad Dedobbeleer with Erewhon (2000). For this show, the two artists are producing specific works, shifting architectural structures in the exhibition space. By initiating this collaboration between Rita McBride and Koenraad Dedobbeler, Eva Gonzalez-Sancho—director of the FRAC Bourgogne and curator of this exhibition—has been keen to create the conditions of an artistic experiment. The artists have never worked together before, but they have a shared interest in forms issuing from reality. Both of them proceed with an analysis of architectural factors and urban fixtures, all so many structures which organize the space. By their shift
and hijacking, they illustrate just as much a perceptible approach to forms as a line of thinking about their history, their production conditions, economic and industrial alike, and their reception. By inviting them to use the exhibition room at the FRAC Bourgogne, what was involved above all was enabling them to respond to this setting, both jointly and severally.

Rita McBride has shown an interest in a form of service station whose gradual replacement she has observed in the United States, and more precisely in Los Angeles. We can all remember that work produced by Ed Ruscha in 1967, Twentysix Gasoline Stations, where, using photography, he listed the gas stations situated along Route 66 between Oklahoma and Los Angeles. Without any concern for aesthetics, he recorded “the strange link between people and their rural surroundings, without underpinning or dramatizing this strangeness” (Ed Ruscha).Like Ed Ruscha and his use of photography, Rita McBride describes “the modern man” by choosing stereotypes out of context, ordinary forms. From the late 1980s onward, she has been undertaking a critical reading of art history combined with an analysis of the material and political components of the present-day world. Just one major solo show in France to date has enabled people to discover her work (at the Institute of Contemporary Art
in Villeurbanne, in 2002). The service station is the standard building, that has become the cultural symbol of the age of the automobile. Its architecture has been ceaselessly evolving in time with functional requirements, but also with the development of the petrol market. The model that Rita McBride has chosen, and which is tending to be replaced today, is a model called a “shelter-roof”, where the only function highlighted is the distribution of petrol. The choice of this type of building obviously takes on a specific meaning today, when the end of this resource is on the books.

Koenraad Dodobbeleer, for his part, has chosen to move the wooden framework of a lower roof in a residential building. Inferior purloin, joists, tie-beams are all made identically and assembled in the FRAC Bourgogne space. The wooden framework is incorporated under the place’s metal frame. This displacement is not patrimonial, as may be the case with museums of rural dwellings, for example. So there is no conservation measure involved here, but rather a confrontation which creates a shift in more ways than one. A strange time scale between two almost contemporary framework principles in their execution. There is a confusion of tempos between the the wooden frame referring to old models and the metal one appropriating new methods. The wooden frame is displayed and experimented with for its own sake, a spider-like structure in which the onlooker evolves. Koenraad Dedobbeleer bases his work, ever since his first shows in the late 1990s, on the presentation of objects and space
s which accommodate very tenuous transformations. For him, presentation is the fact “of offering or proposing something that is deliberately open and available”. For him it is a non-scientific study of possibilities. He has been present on the French scene in one or two rare group shows, but he often works in a collaborative way, as here, with his first real appearance in France.

The confrontation of these two works in the FRAC Bourgogne venue reveals the many different ways in which these two artists question the real in the art space. Both broach space through what structures it, the architecture and what stems therefrom. As an object that is every bit as formal as it is cultural, it is also for Rita McBride the praxis of sculpture as much as an approach to and construction of the landscape. For Koenraad Dedobbeleer it is a many-facetted and open experiment. This joint venture lets us experience the intrinsic bond with reality, that infinite vanishing line, which artists so indefatigably pursue.

Claire Legrand
manager of the visitors’department
Translated by Simon Pleasance

The exhibition Tight, Repeating Boredom (curator: Eva González- Sancho) by Rita McBride and Koenraad Dedobbeleer is being organized by the Frac Bourgogne, Dijon, in association with the Kunsthalle de Bern (CH) and the PMMK - Musée d’Art Moderne, Ostende (BE).

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, the General Council of the Cote-d’Or and with the backing of the Flemish Government.

The Frac Burgundy is member of PLATFORM.

Open from Monday to Saturday from 2-6 pm, except Saturday June 28 th,
September 13 th and public holidays

Guided tour: Saturday July 5 th 2008: 3 pm at the Frac - free entry

A catalogue of the exhibition Tight, Repeating Bordeom, which will be held at the FRAC Bourgogne (Dijon)then at the Berne Kunsthalle (Berne, Switzerland) and at the PMMK - the Museum of Modern Art in Ostend, will be published in late 2009.

Other events at the Frac Bourgogne in Dijon
Jus de fruits #2 Concert: Sunday June 29 th 2008: 11 am - admission free until all seats are taken.

Jus de fruits #3 Concert: Sunday September 14 th 2008: 11 am - admission free until all seats are taken.

Frac Bourgogne

49, rue de Longvic
F-21000 Dijon
http://www.frac-bourgogne.org

la maison rouge

Copyright: Marc Domage

Augustin Lesage and Elmar Trenkwalder,
les inspires
June 11th to September 7th

Andrea Blum, birdhouse café
June 11th to October 5th

la maison rouge
10 bd de la bastille
75012 Paris, france

http://www.lamaisonrouge.org

Augustin Lesage and Elmar Trenkwalder, inspired artists
The summer 2008 exhibition at la maison rouge is an encounter between two bodies of work: that of the French mediumistic artist Augustin Lesage (born 1876 in Auchel, France - died 1954 in Burbure, France) and the Austrian sculptor and painter Elmar Trenkwalder (born 1959 in Weißenbach am
Lech, Austrian).

Two singular oeuvres, distinct as much for their era as for the form of art with which they are associated – outsider art for one, contemporary art for the other – yet both produced by individuals who are equally convinced of the magical force of the artwork.

The exhibition will show paintings and drawings by Augustin Lesage and seven large sculptures by Elmar Trenkwalder, including three specially-created works, together with a selection of drawings.

The exhibition is co-produced by the Austrian Cultural Forum Paris.

The catalogue for the exhibition, in French and German, is published by Fage editions with texts by Savine Faupin, Frédéric Paul and Pierre Dourthe.

Andrea Blum, birdhouse café a project for the patio
This summer, la maison rouge has commissioned the American artist Andrea Blum to create a café in its patio, an area open to the sky at the heart of the foundation.

For la maison rouge, Andrea Blum has imagined a pavilion that stands on piles in the middle of the patio, which she transforms into an aviary.

Birdhouse Café (the project’s name) is intended as an extension of the Foundation’s own café, a social setting where people can meet over a drink or meal, and a place from which to observe and admire the birds as they fly around.

In a subtle switch, the observer becomes the observed: visitors sit perched inside the café, pecking at their food, while the birds fly “freely” around the pavilion. Not without a certain tongue-in-cheek humour, she turns the tables one more time by including in her project the glass-walled corridors of the exhibition space around the patio, where visitors gather to see what’s going on.