Fall preview 2005: three times a year Artforum looks ahead to the coming season. The following survey previews fifty shows opening around the world between September and December."Robert Rauschenberg: Combines" Metropolitan Museum of Art December 20, 2005-April 2, 2006 Curated by Paul Schimmel Schimmel is a German surname and may refer to:
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When Robert Rauschenberg is finally recognized as the Walt Whitman of late-twentieth-century America, the Combines will be his Leaves of Grass. They will stand, like Whitman's masterpiece, as a moment synthesized, an all-inclusive, promiscuous embrace of America in its first, riotous, postindustrial post·in·dus·tri·al adj. Of or relating to a period in the development of an economy or nation in which the relative importance of manufacturing lessens and that of services, information, and research grows. Adj. 1. bang. So we should never forget that the Combines came into the world as rowdy, impudent im·pu·dent adj. 1. Characterized by offensive boldness; insolent or impertinent. See Synonyms at shameless. 2. Obsolete Immodest. rough trade, and if they no longer seem as mute and brute as they once did, it's only because we have invented words to defend ourselves. Today, we speak casually of art and life interpenetrated, of nature and culture compounded. Now, we have a vocabulary to deal with the assault of global media, niche marketing, designed obsolescence ob·so·les·cent adj. 1. Being in the process of passing out of use or usefulness; becoming obsolete. 2. Biology Gradually disappearing; imperfectly or only slightly developed. , celebrity assassination Assassination See also Murder. assassins Fanatical Moslem sect that smoked hashish and murdered Crusaders (11th—12th centuries). [Islamic Hist.: Brewer Note-Book, 52] Brutus conspirator and assassin of Julius Caesar. [Br. , and nonlinear image politics. But we didn't then. Then, in the late '50s and early '60s, the Combines just looked like America. They were big, profligate prof·li·gate adj. 1. Given over to dissipation; dissolute. 2. Recklessly wasteful; wildly extravagant. n. A profligate person; a wastrel. , messy, ebullient, and impersonal--chillingly sane and arrogantly careless. People tended to regard them as they regarded America in that decade: with a combination of awe, envy, and disdain. Even so, the Combines were so irrevocably there that the question of whether they were "good" or "bad" seemed irrelevant. You could hate them as regressive fictions, as many fledgling Minimalists did. You could disdain them as tawdry ephemera e·phem·er·a n. A plural of ephemeron. ephemera Noun, pl items designed to last only for a short time, such as programmes or posters Noun 1. , as the New York School New York school Painters who participated in the development of contemporary art, particularly Abstract Expressionism, in or around New York City in the 1940s and '50s. establishment chose to do. But you couldn't quibble QUIBBLE. A slight difficulty raised without necessity or propriety; a cavil. 2. No justly eminent member of the bar will resort to a quibble in his argument. with them, because, good or bad, the Combines felt right. In a single fiat, Rauschenberg appropriated the "personal virtues" of Abstract Expressionist painting--its energy, structure, and convulsive con·vul·sive adj. 1. Characterized by or having the nature of convulsions. 2. Having or producing convulsions. convulsive pertaining to, characterized by, or of the nature of a convulsion. extravagance--and, stepping nimbly aside, reattributed these virtues to the ambient culture. In doing so, he created a new image politics and a metaphor of artistic continuation between American art of the fading '50s and that of the burgeoning '60s. Most critically, however, the Combines, in their chaotic synthesis, supplied a toolbox and template for nearly everything that happened after 1968. "Installation," "appropriation," "recontextualization," "multimedia," "simulation," "neo-expressionism," and a multitude of other maneuvers trace their first permission to the Combines--as does an enormous landfill of provincial whimsy whim·sy also whim·sey n. pl. whim·sies also whim·seys 1. An odd or fanciful idea; a whim. 2. A quaint or fanciful quality: stories full of whimsy. and academic collage created by artists who thought that Rauschenberg had invented a style. He hadn't. He had a vision of the future and a strategy for adapting to it. Now, forty years later, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, in cooperation with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , is mounting a show of sixty-five Combines Rauschenberg made between 1954 and 1964. Before this moment, I suspect, their pervasive influence has been reason enough not to show them. And this is fine, actually, because now, with the fever receding, we may see them plain in their sweet, prescient antiquity. Not just avant la lettre, but before the whole alphabet. --Dave Hickey Travels to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles This article is about Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. For other Museums named Museum of Contemporary Art, see Museum of Contemporary Art. The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum in and near Los Angeles, California. , May 14-Sept. 4, 2006; Centre Pompidou, Paris, Oct. 4, 2006-Jan. 8, 2007; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Feb. 4-Apr. 29, 2007. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] NEW YORK Elizabeth Murray Museum of Modern Art October 23, 2005-January 9, 2006 Curated by Robert Storr Updating her 1987-88 traveling retrospective, MOMA's survey of seventy-odd paintings and drawings spanning four decades is a tribute to Elizabeth Murray's eccentric presence in today's art world. With a funk sensibility that connects her to the indigenous art of her native Chicago, as well as to Guston and Crumb, she has created her own, Pop-inspired universe swarming with forms resembling Mickey Mouse ears, Dagwood Dagwood comic strip character exasperated over Blondie’s sale purchases. [Comics: “Blondie” in Horn, 118–119] See : Exasperation Dagwood relieves tensions by making and eating gargantuan sandwiches. shoes, thought balloons, and domestic objects that morph into illegibility. But her work has equally strong parallels to the story of abstraction, often echoing de Kooning's restless collisions and Stella's shaped explosions as she continues to invent baroque extravagances of clashing shapes and eye-popping colors, all squirming in low relief. --Robert Rosenblum Russia! Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: see Guggenheim Museum. September 16, 2005-January 12, 2006 The founders of the Museum of Non-objective Painting--as the Guggenheim was once called--will turn in their graves when "Russia!" opens. Their institution committed itself to abstract art not long after the big shots of socialist realism celebrated a victory over their modernist rivals; now Krens & Co. will grant the production of these aesthetic adversaries equal status as "masterpieces." Approximately 250 works from the last eight centuries will be generously thrown into the bin--medieval icons, imperial statuary stat·u·ar·y n. pl. stat·u·ar·ies 1. Statues considered as a group. 2. The art of making statues. 3. A sculptor. adj. Of, relating to, or suitable for a statue. , Suprematist paintings, Soviet propaganda--everything, presumably pre·sum·a·ble adj. That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. , but a Russian kitchen sink. No fewer than nine people, including familiar names from the Russian museum establishment as well as some unknown to the field, were required to curate CURATE, eccl. law. One who represents the incumbent of a church, person, or20 vicar, and takes care of the church, and performs divine service in his stead. this behemoth behemoth (bē`hĭmŏth, bĭhē`–) [Heb.,=plural of beast], large, fanciful primeval monster, like Leviathan, evoking the hippopotamus mentioned in the Book of Job. .--Margarita Tupitsyn [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Safe: Design Takes On Risk Museum of Modern Art October 16, 2005-January 2, 2006 Curated by Paola Antonelli and Patricia Juncosa Vecchierini Imagine the grim security theater performed by weary airline passengers, stripped of dignity, dropping their shoes into gray dishwashing tubs. Now picture the colorful, sleek, lightweight, high-performance--in a word, sexy--safety equipment donned by skydivers. Aha! Risk, an inherent part of life, can be embraced with joy (helped in no small measure by well-designed protective devices). Gathering some three hundred prototypes, products, and designs-like home C[O.sub.2] detectors, emergency-response gadgets, and anti-drug ads--"Safe" sets out to prove that no aspect of life, no matter how perilous, needs to be imaginatively impoverished. If the Freedom Tower, New York's tallest bunker, had the fizz and pizzazz of this show, the war on terror This article is about U.S. actions, and those of other states, after September 11, 2001. For other conflicts, see Terrorism. The War on Terror (also known as the War on Terrorism would soon be over.--Bruce Sterling Oscar Bluemner Whitney Museum of American Art Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City, founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. It was an outgrowth of the Whitney Studio (1914–18), the Whitney Studio Club (1918–28), and the Whitney Studio Galleries (1928–30). October 7, 2005-February 12, 2006 Curated by Barbara Haskell There are probably as few people around these days who remember Al Capp's cartoon character Joe Btfsplk--so dogged by misfortune that he had his own personal raincloud hovering over him--as there are contemporary art scenesters who know who Oscar Bluemner was. Actually Btfsplk and Bluemner (1867-1938) could have been the same guy. The artist fled Germany (no, the Kaiser) in 1892; practiced as an architect but had credit for his best design snatched from him; saw his wife die from the effects of chronic poverty; and, crippled, blind, and insomniac in·som·ni·ac n. One who suffers from insomnia. adj. Having or causing insomnia. after a car crash, committed suicide in 1938. But he painted luminous if heartbreaking semiabstract sem·i·ab·stract adj. Of or relating to an art form characterized by stylized but recognizable subject matter. sem landscapes, and they--not his star-crossed life--are the attraction of this eighty-work retrospective, Bluemner's first in nearly two decades.--Peter Plagens Odd Lots: Revisiting Gordon Matta-Clark's "Fake Estates" White Columns September 9-October 16 Queens Museum of Art The Queens Museum of Art is a major art museum in the Queens borough of New York City, USA. The museum occupies a structure originally built for the 1939 New York World's Fair, held in Flushing Meadows Park, a park designed and built primarily to host the fair, under the September 11, 2005-January 22, 2006 Curated by Jeffrey Kastner, Sina Najafi, and Frances Richard Between 1973 and 1974, Gordon Matta-Clark bought fifteen tiny, oddly shaped fragments of land from the City of New York at auction, a meditation on property rights he called "Fake Estates." In what promises to be the definitive statement on this project, "Odd Lots," jointly organized by Cabinet magazine, the Queens Museum of Art, and White Columns, will both revisit the sites Matta-Clark purchased and invite nineteen artists--including Isidro Blasco, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles--to respond to the plots themselves. The catalogue boasts essays by the curators and Queens historian Jeffrey Kroessler.--Pamela M. Lee Peter Hujar P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center The P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center is one of the largest and oldest institutions in the United States dedicated solely to contemporary art. It is located in the neighborhood of Long Island City, Queens in New York City. October 23, 2005-January 16, 2006 Curated by Bob Nickas For thirty years, until his death in 1987, Peter Hujar documented the untamed margins of New York and New Jersey, pointing his camera at people (Susan Sontag, David Wojnarowicz, drag queens, and gay cruisers), buildings (corporate high-rises, dilapidated diners, crumbling Newark apartments), and animals. The easy rapport he established with his subjects allowed for intimate pictures that are equal parts romance and record. Selecting fifty previously unexhibited images that span the photographer's career and range of subject matter, P.S. I curator Bob Nickas provides an opportunity to broaden our exposure to Hujar's contemplative and influential body of work.--Kyle Bentley [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Stephen Shore P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center October 23, 2005-January 23, 2006 Curated by Bob Nickas Developing out of his earlier experiments with Pop and Conceptualist con·cep·tu·al·ism n. 1. Philosophy The doctrine, intermediate between nominalism and realism, that universals exist only within the mind and have no external or substantial reality. 2. practices, Stephen Shore's "American Surfaces" signaled a shift away from the theatrical anomie anomie, a social condition characterized by instability, the breakdown of social norms, institutional disorganization, and a divorce between socially valid goals and available means for achieving them. of late '60s American street photography. Photographing with a miniature 35 mm camera on road trips in 1972 and 1973, Shore documented nearly everything and everyone he encountered, producing perhaps the most stylistically expressive and hauntingly autobiographical work of his career, while laying the foundation for the stoic large-format images that would dominate his oeuvre over the next decade. The resulting series, over three hundred examples of which are on view, is an uneasy portrait of '70s America that is as coolly detached as it is deeply affecting. The show coincides with Phaidon's updated publication of American Surfaces.--Walead Beshty Egon Schiele Neue Galerie October 21, 2005-February 20, 2006 Curated by Renee Price Put together for the first time, the more than 150 paintings and drawings by Egon Schiele amassed in the collections of Neue Galerie cofounders Ronald Lauder and the late Serge Sabarsky amount to a comprehensive survey of the short-lived rebel's work. The staged gawkiness Noun 1. gawkiness - the carriage of someone whose movements and posture are extremely ungainly and inelegant ungainliness clumsiness, awkwardness - the carriage of someone whose movements and posture are ungainly or inelegant of Schiele's naked bodies--ready for sex or painful self-reflection--not only fit perfectly into the world of Klimt and Freud, but offer a Janus-faced mirror of Viennese art, looking backward to the grimacing busts of Messerschmidt and forward to the kinky body-art performances of Nitsch. And there's another Schiele, too, whose land-scapes resemble exquisite mosaics, at once echoing turn-of-the-century Viennese decorative arts and anticipating Hundertwasser's patchwork-quilt villages.--RR Frequency Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American fine arts museum in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, New York. It was founded in 1968 as the first such museum in the U.S. November 9, 2005-March 12, 2006 Curated by Thelma Golden and Christine Y. Kim No one could blame you for thinking that "Frequency" will likely be a reprise of "Freestyle," Thelma Golden's celebrated 2001 survey of young black American artists, which presciently showcased the work of Laylah Ali, Julie Mehretu, and Rico Gatson, then in the liftoff stage of big career arcs. But four years have passed, and while the new crop of young hopefuls in "Frequency" may include a few names already familiar from New York gallery shows--Adam Pendleton, Jeff Sonhouse, Kalup Linzy--the bulk of the exhibition's thirty-four artists are relative newcomers from places like Notre Dame, Indiana Notre Dame, Indiana is an unincorporated community northeast of South Bend in St. Joseph County, Indiana; it includes the campuses of three colleges: the University of Notre Dame, Saint Mary's College, and Holy Cross College. , and Costa Mesa, California Costa Mesa is a suburban middle class city in Orange County, California, United States. The population was 108,724 at the 2000 census. Since its incorporation in 1953, the city has grown from a semi-rural farming community of 16,840 to a suburban city with an economy based on . Their presence will give viewers a rare opportunity to be surprised--again.--Brian Sholis BOSTON Thomas Hirschhorn Institute of Contemporary Art September 21, 2005-January 16, 2006 Curated by Nicholas Baume and Ralph Rugoff Thomas Hirschhorn is best known for works that not only challenge the institution of art, but take place outside its confines. His 2002 Bataille Monument, for example, famously sent spectators to a working-class neighborhood far from Documenta 11's tourist-friendly complex. By contrast, Hirschhorn's American venues--galleries and museums--appear decidedly mainstream. Still, his approach remains as context-sensitive as ever, albeit in more geopolitical ge·o·pol·i·tics n. (used with a sing. verb) 1. The study of the relationship among politics and geography, demography, and economics, especially with respect to the foreign policy of a nation. 2. a. terms. Titled Utopia, Utopia=One World, One War, One Army, One Dress, Hirschhorn's latest project promises a sly, sartorially minded send-up of America's campaign to put "freedom on the march." Travels to the CCA (1) (Common Cryptographic Architecture) Cryptography software from IBM for MVS and DOS applications. (2) (Compatible Communications A Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts is a contemporary art center in San Francisco,California, United States and part of the California College of the Arts. It was established in 1998 and serves as a forum for the presentation and discussion of international , San Francisco, Mar. 15-May 13, 2006.--Margaret Sundell [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] PHILADELPHIA Eugene Atget Philadelphia Museum of Art Philadelphia Museum of Art, established in 1875, chartered in 1876. When the city of Philadelphia planned to erect a building to house the Centennial Exposition of 1876, provision was made to keep the building permanently occupied; the Pennsylvania Museum and School September 10-November 27 Curated by Peter Barberie and Katherine Ware Atget's photographs of Paris--what he modestly termed his "documents"--have entered the canon of twentieth-century photography. Rather than argue his already established legitimacy, this exhibition provides a perspective on Atget through the sensibility of a collector and a photographer, both of whom loved and conserved his work. The 120 photographs are from the collection of Julian Levy, known for his pioneering art gallery (established 1931). Many of these pictures, taken between 1890 and 1926, were printed in the '30s by Berenice Abbott, who rescued so many of Atget's negatives from oblivion and whose own photographs were informed by his work. This show is obligatory for anyone interested in Atget and his photographic legacies.--Abigail Solomon-Godeau WASHINGTON, DC Sean Scully Phillips Collection October 22, 2005-January 8, 2006 Curated by Stephen Bennett Phillips To some, Dublin-born Sean Scully is a profoundly joyful painter who, in spite of an obsession with cinder-block compositions and really big paintbrushes paintbrushes see castilleja. , almost manages to pull off greatness. To others, Scully is a rigorous abstractionist who, in spite of a persistent atmospheric romanticism in his work, almost manages to pull off greatness. While this show of the artist's "Wall of Light" series (1998-2005) would seem to bode in favor of the latter, it's still probably six to five, pick 'em. The odds of Scully eluding that nagging almost are a little longer. Some sixty watercolors, oils, pastels, and aquatints should go a long way in deciding the matter. Travels to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (widely referred to as The Modern) was first granted a Charter from the State of Texas in 1892 as the "Fort Worth Public Library and Art Gallery", evolving through several name changes and different facilities in Fort Worth. , Feb. 11-May 28, 2006; Cincinnati Art Museum Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1877 by the Women's Art Museum Association, the museum opened in 1886. Its collections contain examples spanning 3,000 years of artistic production. Works from Mesopotamia and medieval Europe are featured. , June 24-Sept. 3, 2006; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Sept. 25, 2006-Jan. 14, 2007.--PP MIAMI Miami, cities, United States Miami (mīăm`ē, –ə). 1 City (1990 pop. 358,548), seat of Dade co., SE Fla., on Biscayne Bay at the mouth of the Miami River; inc. 1896. Albert Oehlen Museum of Contemporary Art November 18, 2005-January 8, 2006 Curated by Bonnie Clearwater I Know What You Did Last Summer helped launch the careers of Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. "I Know Whom You Showed Last Summer" (the title of Oehlen's exhibition) won't launch anyone's career, but it may lead Miami gallerygoers to take a closer look at two artists, Albert Oehlen and Malcolm Morley--or at least that's Clearwater's plan. Oehlen's thirty-work survey, spanning 1983 to the present, strategically precedes Morley's big MOCA MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art MOCA Multimedia over Coax MoCA Museum of Chinese in the Americas MOCA Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance MOCA Montezuma Castle National Monument (US National Park Service) show in December. The younger German painter is known for collaborating with more folks than a Vichy bureaucrat (having partnered with, among others, Martin Kippenberger and Jonathan Meese). Clearwater hopes his painterly paint·er·ly adj. 1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a painter; artistic. 2. a. Having qualities unique to the art of painting. b. affection for Morley will emerge in this, his first US survey.--Eric Banks COLUMBUS, OH Part Object Part Sculpture Wexner Center for the Arts October 30, 2005-February 26, 2006 Curated by Helen Molesworth In 1964, Duchamp oversaw an edition of his readymades in which replicas of iconic works such as Bottle Rack and Fountain were handcrafted hand·craft n. Variant of handicraft. tr.v. hand·craft·ed, hand·craft·ing, hand·crafts To fashion or make by hand. hand·craft by artisans. In this first show in the Wexner's newly renovated galleries, Molesworth argues that these works, along with a series of erotic ceramic sculptures Duchamp made in the '50s, complicate the standard narrative of postwar sculptural production with its emphasis on the logic of the assembly line. To support her revisionist re·vi·sion·ism n. 1. Advocacy of the revision of an accepted, usually long-standing view, theory, or doctrine, especially a revision of historical events and movements. 2. take on Duchamp's legacy, Molesworth marshals eighty-five works by twenty artists, including Lynda Benglis, Louise Bourgeois, Marcel Broodthaers, Robert Gober, and Josiah McElheny. The catalogue features essays by Molesworth, Briony Fer, Rachel Haidu, Rosalind Krauss, and Molly Nesbit.--Lisa Pasquariello [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] MINNEAPOLIS Huang Yong Ping Huang Yong Ping (born 1954) is contemporary French visual artist of Chinese origin. Huang's work combines many media and cultural influence, but is particularly strongly influence by the intellectual abstraction of Dada and by Chinese numerology traditions. Walker Art Center October 16, 2005-January 15, 2006 Curated by Philippe Vergne A leading figure of China's '80s avantgarde, Huang Yong Ping went to Paris in 1989 to participate in Jean-Hubert Martin's seminal "Magiciens de la terre In 1989, in the wake of the infamous “Primitivism” show at MOMA, curator Jean-Hubert Martin set out to create a show that counteracted ethnocentric practices within the contemporary art world as a replacement for the format of the traditional Paris Biennial. " at the Centre Pompidou and never left. In his first US retrospective, Huang unveils the culminating installment of "Bat Project," 2001-2005, a series of partial re-creations of the American spy plane that crashed into a Chinese fighter jet on April 1, 2001, triggering an international standoff. (Earlier incarnations of this work were banned in China.) Apart from the controversial "Bat Project," the Walker's show will feature over forty works--installations, documentation of performances, and objects--from 1985 to the present. Travels to Mass MOCA, North Adams, MA, Feb. 19, 2006-Jan. 8, 2007.--Melissa Chiu HOUSTON Andrea Zittel Contemporary Arts Museum Houston The Contemporary Arts Museum - Houston is a not-for-profit institution in Houston, Texas, dedicated to presenting the contemporary art of our time to the public. As a non-collecting museum, it strives to provide a forum for visual arts of the present and recent past and October 1, 2005-January 1, 2006 Curated by Paola Morsiani and Trevor Smith Andrea Zittel has carved out--or knitted, drilled, and glue-gunned--a niche in critiquing the uber-efficient but impersonal domestic lifestyle. Since the early '90s, she has turned on its head every cultural signpost of utopian freedom, from homemade clothes to the RV. At the CAMH CAMH Centre for Addiction and Mental Health CAMH Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (Houston, TX) CAMH Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals (which co-organized the exhibition with New York's New Museum), Zittel's gouache gouache (gwäsh): see watercolor painting. gouache Opaque watercolour. Also known as poster paint, designer's colour, and body colour, it differs from transparent watercolour in that the pigments are bound by liquid glue, which is drawings, dehydrated food, and living units will settle in one place for the first time on native soil. It should be the most avant-garde RV park in Houston's history. Travels to the New Museum of Contemporary Art This article is about New Museum of Contemporary Art. For other Museums named Museum of Contemporary Art, see Museum of Contemporary Art. The New Museum of Contemporary Art , New York, Jan. 26, 2005-Apr. 29, 2006; Albright-Knox Art Gallery The Albright-Knox Art Gallery is a major showplace for modern art and contemporary art located in Buffalo, New York. It is located at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, which is directly across the street from Buffalo State College. , Buffalo, NY, Oct. 6, 2006-Jan. 7, 2007; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Mar. 4-May 21, 2007; and other venues.--Christopher Bollen Robert Gober Menil Collection October 28, 2005-January 22, 2006 Curated by Matthew Drutt "The Meat Wagon," the creepy title of the Menil Collection's Robert Gober exhibition, is perhaps more immediately evocative of an artist like Paul McCarthy, but then there's no shortage of "meat" in Gober's oeuvre--like a man's hairy leg protruding pro·trude v. pro·trud·ed, pro·trud·ing, pro·trudes v.tr. To push or thrust outward. v.intr. To jut out; project. See Synonyms at bulge. from a hairless vagina. Organized by Menil curator Matthew Drutt in collaboration with the artist, the exhibition includes twenty familiar and seldom-seen works by Gober from the past two decades. These will be installed with about fifty items from the museum's collections--Surrealist, Spanish Colonial, and black Americana, for example--in the interest of fostering a "dialogue" between the historical artifacts artifacts see specimen artifacts. and Gober's works. And since the artist has proven himself a genius at installation, the results should be compelling.--David Rimanelli The Surreal Calder Menil Collection September 30, 2005-January 8, 2006 Curated by Mark Rosenthal "Surrealism," like "Romanticism," encompasses a bewildering be·wil·der tr.v. be·wil·dered, be·wil·der·ing, be·wil·ders 1. To confuse or befuddle, especially with numerous conflicting situations, objects, or statements. See Synonyms at puzzle. 2. variety of artists as different as Magritte and Miro. Now Calder will be initiated into this strange fraternity. Often pigeonholed simply as the inventor of the mobile, Calder in fact participated in many of the vital artistic movements of his time, but it was Surrealism that rooted his art in a biomorphic universe. Calder's flying, crawling creatures, celestial visions, and fantastic constructions from unexpected fragments--dating from 1927 to 1947--will find themselves at home in the company of works by his European friends and contemporaries, from Tanguy to Ernst. Travels to SF MOMA Moma (mō`mä), town, E central Mozambique. It is important mainly as a harbor for the export of tropical produce. , Mar. 3-May 21, 2006; Minneapolis Institute of Arts The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is a comprehensive art museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota on a campus that covers nearly 8 acres (32,000 m²). It does not charge an entrance fee (although it does charge for some special exhibitions), and allows photography of its permanent , June 11-Sept. 10, 2006.--RR [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Thornton Dial Sr. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
September 25, 2005-January 8, 2006 Curated by Jane Livingston and Alvia J. Wardlaw Thornton Dial was one of the first contemporary outsider artists to gain an international reputation. Born in 1928 in rural Alabama, Dial spent about forty years as a carpenter, welder, and bricklayer, all the while burying his paintings in the yard so no one could see them. Since his retirement in 1983, he has devoted his time and skills to artmaking. The seventy-three paintings in this show are encrusted en·crust also in·crust tr.v. en·crust·ed, en·crust·ing, en·crusts 1. To cover or coat with or as if with a crust: with barbed wire barbed wire, wire composed of two zinc-coated steel strands twisted together and having barbs spaced regularly along them. The need for barbed wire arose in the 19th cent. , carpeting, paper, and steel; the twenty-two large sculptures are made from steel piping and found objects. The exhibition, Dial's largest to date, also includes twenty-three watercolors and charcoal drawings. But what will stand out above all is that there is nothing remotely marginal about Dial's work.--Michele Wallace FORT WORTH Anselm Kiefer Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth September 25, 2005-January 8, 2006 Curated by Michael Auping Will Anselm Kiefer ever overcome his limited American reputation as Germany's premier history painter, working the nation through its National Socialist past? This sixty-work survey will provide US viewers with a metaphysical take on the artist's practice. The exhibition traces the dialogue between heaven and earth in Kiefer's oeuvre, from one of his earliest artist's books, The Heavens, 1969, to recent engagements with Jewish mysticism. Travels to the Musee d'Art Contemporain de Montreal, Feb. 12-May 7, 2006; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum was designed by Gordon Bunshaft to house 6,000 pieces of the enormous art collection amassed by the industrialist Joseph H. , Washington, DC, June 18-Sept. 10, 2006; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a major modern art museum and San Francisco landmark. It opened in 1935 under founding director Dr. Grace Morley (Grace L. , Oct. 15, 2006-Jan. 14, 2007.--Christine Mehring SAN FRANCISCO Kiki Smith San Francisco Museum of Modern Art November 19, 2005-January 29, 2006 Curated by Siri Engberg Kiki Smith's restless forays into paper, glass, bronze, video, books, bodily fluids, and tattoos have been sparked at one time or another by feminist politics, AIDS activism, and classic fables, perhaps giving her practice more personality than focus. This distillation of nearly one hundred works--organized by Siri Engberg of the Walker Art Center, where the show doubles in size next winter--is arranged into thematic "clusters" of figural fig·ur·al adj. Of, consisting of, or forming a pictorial composition of human or animal figures. fig  ur·al·ly adv.Adj. and abstract pieces. The first to take stock of Smith's entire oeuvre (now spanning twenty-five years), this survey seems well timed for our emotive, craft-conscious moment. Travels to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Feb. 26-May 14, 2006; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, July 15-Sept. 24, 2006; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Nov. 16, 2006-Feb. 11, 2007.--Linda Yablonsky LOS ANGELES Ecstasy: In and About Altered States Museum of Contemporary Art October 9, 2005-February 20, 2006 Curated by Paul Schimmel In the '80s, XTC XTC See Ecstasy, MDMA. (the English pop band whose name phonetically transcribes the word that serves as the theme for this exhibition) wrote a song titled "The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul." The great voyage beyond oneself seems to be the order of the day, at least if one is to judge by the number of recent exhibitions devoted either to soul-searching's historical and vernacular side (psychedelia psy·che·de·li·a n. The subculture associated with psychedelic drugs. Noun 1. psychedelia - the subculture of users of psychedelic drugs ) or to its multiple avatars in contemporary art. Among the latter, this show promises a particularly original, and very multimedia, journey. The list of thirty artists is radically eclectic, running the gamut from Jeppe Hein to Pipilotti Rist, Ann Veronica Janssens to Takashi Murakami, plus a few newcomers from the four corners of the globe.--Jean-Pierre Criqui Translated from French by Jeanine Herman. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Masters of American Comics Museum of Contemporary Art/UCLA Hammer Museum November 20, 2005-March 12, 2006 Curated by John Carlin car·line or car·lin n. Scots A woman, especially an old one. [Middle English kerling, from Old Norse, from karl, man.] and Brian Walker Funny as a crutch crutch (kruch) a staff, ordinarily extending from the armpit to the ground, with a support for the hand and usually also for the arm or axilla; used to support the body in walking. crutch n. , as Ralph Malph used to say: Most discussions of comics are drier than a Methodist wake. And with fans' obsessive knowledge of particular faves often exaggerating their subject's relative cultural importance, essays on the medium frequently adopt a tone that is, ironically, world-serious. This show hopes to circumvent this somber solipsism sol·ip·sism n. Philosophy 1. The theory that the self is the only thing that can be known and verified. 2. The theory or view that the self is the only reality. by tracing comics' development over the century, with drawings and vintage newspaper strips by fifteen "masters" exhibited alongside comic books themselves. The catalogue offers writers as varied and talented as Pete Hamill and Jules Feiffer (on Terry and the Pirates Terry and the Pirates is the title of:
The museum's history began in 1888 when the Milwaukee Art Association was created by a group of German panorama artists and local businessmen; its first home was the Layton Art Gallery. , Apr. 25-Aug. 20, 2006.--EB HONOLULU Situation Comedy: Humor in Recent Art Contemporary Museum September 9-December 31 Curated by Dominic Molon and Michael Rooks Rooks can refer to: People:
Though sitcoms are a staple of American culture, will "Situation Comedy" be able to draw connections between Cary Leibowitz, Michael Smith, and Dave Muller and The Honeymooners, Golden Girls, and Friends? I hope so. The exhibition includes more than sixty works in traditional media (and video, of course) by nearly thirty artists, some of whom seem like naturals (John Waters, Richard Prince) and others (Dana Schutz, Rodney Graham) who may provide oblique insight into the pleasures of self-deprecation, pranks, and laugh tracks. An excerpt from David Sedaris's essay collection Me Talk Pretty One Day complements a catalogue essay by the curators. Travels to the Chicago Cultural Center The Chicago Cultural Center is a Chicago Landmark building that houses the city's official reception venue where the Mayor has welcomed Presidents and royalty, diplomats and community leaders. , Feb. 4-Apr. 9, 2006; and other venues.--DR LONDON Nobuyoshi Araki Barblcan Art Gallery October 6, 2005-January 22, 2006 Curated by Yoshiko Isshiki, Akiko Miki, and Tomoko Sato Nobuyoshi Araki is Japan's most prolific photographer, and so much more: a purveyor of kimono-clad Japanese girls trussed up and hanging from the ceiling (with perhaps a curious kitten looking on?) and a master of desiccated des·ic·cate v. des·ic·cat·ed, des·ic·cat·ing, des·ic·cates v.tr. 1. To dry out thoroughly. 2. To preserve (foods) by removing the moisture. See Synonyms at dry. 3. lizards resting atop sunflower blooms. Perversity per·ver·si·ty n. pl. per·ver·si·ties 1. The quality or state of being perverse. 2. An instance of being perverse. Noun 1. , aestheticism Aestheticism Late 19th-century European arts movement that centred on the doctrine that art exists for the sake of its beauty alone. It began in reaction to prevailing utilitarian social philosophies and to the perceived ugliness and philistinism of the industrial age. , and melancholia MELANCHOLIA, med. jur. A name given by the ancients to a species of partial intellectual mania, now more generally known by the name of monomania. (q.v.) It bore this name because it was supposed to be always attended by dejection of mind and gloomy ideas. Vide Mania., reign in his oeuvre. This exhibition includes roughly four thousand of his photographs from the '60s to the present as well as rare handmade albums from his early career and "Xerox Shashin-Cho," photocopied photographs elegantly bound in the traditional Japanese style, which Araki distributed to friends, critics, and people selected at random from the phone book. Travels to the National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen, July 21-Oct. 1, 2006.--DR Eileen Gray Design Museum September 17, 2005-January 8, 2006 Curated by Libby Sellers Eileen Gray stands as one of the signature designers of the early modern era, her iconic status confirmed by the sheer quantity of knockoffs of her E. 1027 chrome-and-glass table available (cheap!) on the Internet. An intimate of Le Corbusier and member of the avantgarde group that formed around the magazine L'Architecture Vivante in the mid-'20s, Gray was, in her own time, well known for striking lacquer lacquer, solution of film-forming materials, natural or synthetic, usually applied as an ornamental or protective coating. Quick-drying synthetic lacquers are used to coat automobiles, furniture, textiles, paper, and metalware. work and now-vanished International Style interiors. She remains, however, an elusive figure--a condition attributable both to the sexism of the first generation of modernist historians and to Gray's penchant for destroying her own sketches. This retrospective of furniture, models, drawings, and archival material from 1905 to 1945 promises to further cement her position in the modernist pantheon.--Kevin Pratt [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Henri Rousseau Tate Modern November 3, 2005-February 5, 2006 Curated by Christopher Green, Frances Morris, and Claire Freches Although born in 1844, Henri "le Douanier" Rousseau very much belongs to the history of modernism. It is thus fitting that Tate Modern should mount a show primarily of his jungle paintings, with their mixture of animal violence, impossible flora, and dreamlike fantasy. The first substantial presentation of Rousseau's work to be held in Britain in eighty years, it benefits from considerable new research into the "exotic" in Paris by the Courtauld's Christopher Green and should be a revelation to a new public of this astonishing a·ston·ish tr.v. as·ton·ished, as·ton·ish·ing, as·ton·ish·es To fill with sudden wonder or amazement. See Synonyms at surprise. , far-from-naive painter. Travels to the Grand Palais, Paris, Mar. 13-June 19, 2006; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, July 16-Oct. 15, 2006.--Richard Shone Jonathan Monk Institute of Contemporary Arts The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is a modern art centre on The Mall in London, England. It is located within Nash House, which is part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch and contains galleries, a theatre, two cinemas and a bar. October 14-December 4 Curated by Jens Hoffmann Jonathan Monk loves first-generation Conceptualists like family: unconditionally and without compunction about teasing them for their foibles. The autobiographical tilt of the British artist's output ensures its comic, critical impurity im·pu·ri·ty n. pl. im·pu·ri·ties 1. The quality or condition of being impure, especially: a. Contamination or pollution. b. Lack of consistency or homogeneity; adulteration. c. , whether in photographs taken on a car journey with his mother whenever she checked the route, wall texts inviting the viewer to dubious future assignations, or animations of both Sol LeWitt's gouache cubes and a Rubik's Cube. Monk's first London retrospective will repurpose the ICA's lower gallery as storage and its upper gallery as a daily-changing display space, destabilizing the institution while showcasing the bulk of his nimble historical maneuvers. An accompanying catalogue features an interview between Monk and Hoffmann.--Martin Herbert Kerry James Marshall Kerry James Marshall (October 17, 1955- ) is an artist born in Birmingham, Alabama. He grew up in South Central Los Angeles and now lives in Chicago and teaches at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Camden Arts Centre The Camden Arts Centre is a Grade II listed building sited in the London Borough of Camden, London, England, between the areas of Hampstead and Kilburn. It is the largest arts centre venue in North London, although by no means is it the largest arts venue per se. November 25, 2005-January 29, 2006 Curated by Deborah Smith History painting seems relevant again, with younger artists diving into the narrative waters en masse. So the timing's perfect for this survey of Kerry James Marshall's paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. Marshall has often been pigeonholed as naive or too American, which may explain why this is his first British solo show. Yet his painting is not just political, but sharply experimental in its treatment of surface and illusion. Perhaps this drew Luc Tuymans to write for the catalogue, which also includes an essay by Valerie Cassel Oliver. Travels to BALTIC, Gateshead, Feb. 4-Apr. 23, 2006; New Art Gallery Walsall, England, May 12-July 2, 2006; Modern Art Oxford, July 25-Oct. 22, 2006.--Katy Siegel Degas Degas To release and vent gases. New building materials often give off gases and odors and the air should be well circulated to remove them. Mentioned in: Multiple Chemical Sensitivity , Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec: London and Paris 1870-1910 Tate Britain October 5, 2005-January 15, 2006 Curated by Anna Gruetzner Robins, Martin Myrone, and Richard Thomson Another "modern life" exhibition from the well-fished lake of the fin-de-siecle places two of France's most French artists alongside Britain's most international. Degas's prescient and controversial L'Absinthe, 1875-76, sets the pace for an exploration of cafes, dance halls, cabarets, and scenes of sexual congress by twenty artists of the period. Alert British artists in Paris are, unusually, given equal emphasis, and Degas's friendship with Sickert will surely be seen as crucial for the later revitalization of British art. One can only hope that the aesthetic temperature reaches the fever of the curators' thematic, sociohistorical, and even sensational intent. Travels to the Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Feb. 18-May 14, 2006.--RS [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] OXFORD Angela Bulloch Modern Art Oxford October 8-December 18 Curated by Suzanne Cotter cot·ter n. 1. A bolt, wedge, key, or pin inserted through a slot in order to hold parts together. 2. A cotter pin. [Origin unknown. , Reid Shier shi·er adj. A comparative of shy1. , Hendrik Driessen, and Matthias Hermann Though Angela Bulloch was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1997, this exhibition is her first substantial showing in Britain since then. Bulloch explores her concern with perceptual systems in a variety of media: light and sound works sensitive to ambient conditions; viewer-activated furniture and pixel boxes that reconfigure imagery from the films of Kubrick, Antonioni, and farkovsky. Each of these investigations should receive their due at the four venues involved in this presentation of Bulloch's work from 1991 to the present. Interrelated in·ter·re·late tr. & intr.v. in·ter·re·lat·ed, in·ter·re·lat·ing, in·ter·re·lates To place in or come into mutual relationship. in shows will be mounted at the Vienna Secession (Sept. 15-Nov. 13), the De Pont Foundation, Tilburg, the Netherlands (Jan. 14-May 7, 2006), and the Power Plant, Toronto (June 24-Sept. 4, 2006).--Michael Archer PARIS Dada Centre Pompidou October 5, 2005-January 9, 2006 Curated by Laurent Le Bon, Leah Dickerman, and Anne Umland Of all the isms that fed modernism, Dada might be the hardest to pin down. Not only did the movement turn up in several countries, but it spanned performance and poetry, painting and--perhaps the ultimate Dada art form--collage. Recent exhibitions have pursued depth over breadth, chasing after strains of Dada in New York and Japan. The Pompidou does the opposite, showing a staggering one thousand works by fifty artists, including films by Rene Clair and Marcel Duchamp. Just don't expect a single argument or vision: This survey promises to be as messy as the movement itself. Travels to the National Gallery, Washington, DC, Feb. 19-May 14, 2006; Museum of Modern Art, New York, June 16-Sept. 11, 2006.--Jori Finkel LYON Biennale d'Art Contemporain de Lyon Varlous venues September 14-December 31 Curated by Nicolas Bourriaud and Jerome Sans "What is the tense of artwork today?" Curators Sans and Bourriaud make this question the focus of Lyon's next biennale, which charts temporal experience in art--the slowness of painting, the speed of the digital arts, and the virtual nature of computer time. Some sixty artists--including Daniel Buren, Yoko Ono, Sophie Calle, Philippe Parreno, and Rirkrit Tiravanija--use time as a medium, building material, and mode of engagement. Wim Delvoye even presents the evolution of the La Vache Qui Rit cow through his own collection of cheese labels. Plus, as an exercise in "teleporting," the biennale will produce simultaneous events in Glasgow, Frankfurt, Milan, Zurich, and Paris.--Jean-Max Colard Translated from French by Jeanine Herman. NANTES Lygia Clark Musee des Beaux beaux n. A plural of beau. Arts de Nantes October 7-December 31 Curated by Suely Rolnik In the late '70s, Lygia Clark and Brazilian psychoanalyst Suely Rolnik wrote a text on "relational objects" that became fundamental to the artist's later work, which focused on the development of a non-verbal therapy. Appropriately, Rolnik has now tackled the difficult task of examining the last twenty-five years of Clark's oeuvre. The exhibition comprises paintings, sculptures, and photographs, including a small number of artworks that predate 1963, the year that signaled a progressive abandonment of the object in Clark's practice. The core of the show, however, is a documentary of fifty-two interviews conducted by Rolnik in which a range of people involved with Clark's late work talk about their involvement with the Brazilian artist.--Carlos Basualdo [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] NIMES, FRANCE France (frăns, Fr. fräNs), officially French Republic, republic (2005 est. pop. 60,656,000), 211,207 sq mi (547,026 sq km), W Europe. John Baldessari Carre d'Art, Musee d'Art Contemporain October 19, 2005-January 6, 2006 Curated by Marie de Brugerolle John Baldessari's oeuvre reflects the entire unfolding of West Coast post-modernism. First, he sets all of his canvases ablaze in order to reject painterly formalism and reclaim those modernist "others," information technology, the image, and the word. Second, he develops an acsthetic language out of massmedia image fragments. Third, he comes full circle, rehabilitating formalism as such, but within a context of media studies and linguistics. It should be interesting, then, to see what the sixty-six paintings, photographs, and films on view might mean both for the French--who provided Baldessari's work with a large part of its theoretical foundation--and for fellow artists, including Lawrence Weiner and Douglas Gordon, who contribute to the catalogue.--Jan Tumlir LINZ, AUSTRIA Matt Mullican Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz October 21, 2005-February 19, 2006 Curated by Stella Rollig Known for his personal cosmologies, hypnosis performances, and invention of gnomic gno·mic adj. Marked by aphorisms; aphoristic: gnomic verse; a gnomic style. gnomic Adjective Literary signs, Matt Mullican explores the multiple, and sometimes zany, connections between consciousness and language. This survey features some twenty-five works in diverse materials (including paper, glass, cloth, ceramic, and wood) and in various scales (from small drawings to roomsized installations) dating from the late '80s to today. Visitors will have the opportunity to gain an overview of the artist's complex approach to the idea of "models." By making material his relationship to architecture and cities, as well as mapping networks of mental ideas, Mullican's models open onto both the psychology of space and the spatialization of thought.--T.J. Demos TURIN T1 Turin Triennial tri·en·ni·al adj. 1. Occurring every third year. 2. Lasting three years. n. 1. A third anniversary. 2. A ceremony or celebration occurring every three years. of Contemporary Art Varlous venues November 11, 2005-March 19, 2006 Curated by Francesco Bonami and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev Rabelais's grotesque, voracious giant always on the move supplies a model for contemporary globalization globalization Process by which the experience of everyday life, marked by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, is becoming standardized around the world. Factors that have contributed to globalization include increasingly sophisticated communications and transportation in "The Pantagruel Syndrome," the title of Turin's first triennial. T1--the abbreviation abbreviation, in writing, arbitrary shortening of a word, usually by cutting off letters from the end, as in U.S. and Gen. (General). Contraction serves the same purpose but is understood strictly to be the shortening of a word by cutting out letters in the middle, seems to draw inspiration from Schwarzenegger's Terminator films (Gov. Arnold as today's Pantagruel?)--is organized in two parts. The first shows new work by seventy-five young artists (like Trisha Donnelly, Christian Jankowski, and Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla); the focus here is on information, with ten cocurators serving as "correspondents" from different global hotspots. The second features retrospectives of the work of Doris Salcedo and Takashi Murakami. No doubt a gargantuan task to pull off.--Nico Israel BARCELONA Gunter Brus Museu d'Art Contemporanl de Barcelona October 14, 2005-January 15, 2006 Curated by Manuel J. Borja-Villel and Monika Faber Unlike his peers, Viennese Actionist Gunter Brus knew how to stop. In 1969, Rudolf Schwarzkogler fell out a window to his death; Otto Muhl and Hermann Nitsch were still orchestrating body-analytical rituals into the '70s. But Brus sensed the limits of his selfmutilating actions as early as 1970 and decided to convey radicality through more cerebral means. This 140-piece retrospective traces his rebellious spirit from the '60s to the present, including actions, stage designs, paintings, writings, and idiosyncratic id·i·o·syn·cra·sy n. pl. id·i·o·syn·cra·sies 1. A structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group. 2. A physiological or temperamental peculiarity. 3. "Image-Poems," a combination of visionary drawings and acerbic texts. The catalogue, which features Brus's aphoristic aph·o·rism n. 1. A tersely phrased statement of a truth or opinion; an adage. See Synonyms at saying. 2. A brief statement of a principle. , Karl Krausian prose, promises to posit the former enfant terrible as Actionism's most inspired member.--Caroline Schneider [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] BASEL Willem de Kooning Kunstmuseum Basel September 17, 2005-January 22, 2006 Curated by Bernhard Mendes Burgi The '60s and '70s were not happy years for Willem de Kooning. At the height of his fame, the aging painter often disappeared for days at a time on drinking binges that would culminate in hospital stays. Even good days often began with a bottle of J & B. Was the "blubbery blub·ber 1 v. blub·bered, blub·ber·ing, blub·bers v.intr. To sob noisily. See Synonyms at cry. v.tr. 1. To utter while crying and sobbing. 2. " style of those years a relative low point, a long prequel pre·quel n. A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative takes place before that of a preexisting work or a sequel. [pre- + (se)quel.] to the (now much better known) abstractions of the "dry" '80s? Or do its slovenly slov·en·ly adj. 1. Untidy, as in dress or appearance. 2. Marked by negligence; slipshod. See Synonyms at sloppy. slov , lascivious las·civ·i·ous adj. 1. Given to or expressing lust; lecherous. 2. Exciting sexual desires; salacious. [Middle English, from Late Latin lasc images of women and emulsified landscapes represent de Kooning's true "late style," before the onset of Alzheimer's? With about forty major works made between 1960 and 1980, curator Bernhard Mendes Burgi gives European audiences a chance to assess the artist's most dissipated, least prolific decades.--Alexi Worth Wolfgang Laib Fondation Beyeler November 27, 2005-February 27, 2006 Curated by Philippe Buttner and Ulf Kuster The poet of milk stones and pollen squares, Wolfgang Laib is, at fifty-five, the youngest artist--and the first installation artist--to receive a solo exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler, a world-class collection of modern masterworks that became its own public museum in 1997. The Renzo Piano building, with its translucent white-glass roof, should be a beautiful setting for about thirty of Laib's fragile, tactile installations made since the '80s, including not only milk and pollen works but examples of his beeswax beeswax: see wax. beeswax Commercially useful wax secreted by worker honeybees to make the cell walls of the honeycomb. A bee consumes an estimated 6–10 lbs (3–4. "houses" and ziggurat-shaped towers. Artists honored with special showings at the Beyeler tend to be dead masters--Monet, Picasso, Rothko--or living legends--Kelly, Johns. This inserts Laib, however gently, into a grand pantheon.--Frances Richard BERN Bern or Berne (bĕrn), canton (1990 pop. 937,365), 2,658 sq mi (6,883 sq km), W central Switzerland. The second most populous and second largest canton of the country, Bern comprises three sections—the Bernese Alps, or Franz Gertsch Kunstmuseum Bern/Museum Franz Gertsch, Burgdorf November 13, 2005-March 12, 2006 Curated by Reinhard Spieler and Samuel Vitali The Swiss Photorealist painter Franz Gertsch has recently enjoyed a muchdeserved reconsideration, and on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday, the Kunstmuseum Bern and the Museum Franz Gertsch have assembled a retrospective. Coinciding with a renewal of interest in Photorealism photorealism, international art movement of the late 1960s and 70s that stressed the precise rendering of subject matter, often taken from actual photographs or painted with the aid of slides. and the recent currency of this painterly mode among younger artists, Gertsch's revival becomes all the more relevant. The shows include some sixty canvases: from early favorites like At Luciano's House, 1973, and his "Patti Smith" series (1977-79) to a new painting, Silvia III, 2003-2005. One can also survey Gertsch's woodcuts, gouaches, and watercolors. Travels to Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Apr.-June 2006; Kunsthalle Tubingen, July-Oct. 2006.--DR ZURICH Nedko Solakov Kunsthaus Zurlch September 2-November 13 Curated by Mirjam Varadinis With characteristic conceptual specificity and comic brio, Bulgarian artist Nedko Solakov mounts his own personal "Salon des Refuses." Comprising nearly one hundred works in painting, photography, drawing, and video left unsold after twenty-plus years of gallery shows, Solakov's conceptual exercise thumbs its nose at the dictatorship of capital that increasingly overdetermines the discourse surrounding contemporary art. His assemblage of "leftovers," significantly sited an hour from art-mecca Basel, highlights how the market and institutions sometimes butt heads on the importance of objects. It also rescues some of Solakov's quirky, poetic, and poignant works from their undeserved un·de·served adj. Not merited; unjustifiable or unfair. un  de·serv hibernation in his studio and gallery back rooms.--Elizabeth Thomas [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] STOCKHOLM Here Comes the Sun Magasln 3 Stockholm Konsthall August 27-December 4 Curated by Daniel Birnbaum, Rosa Martinez, Jerome Sans, and Sarit Shapira When is a Konsthall not a Konsthall? When it is Magasin 3 in Stockholm. Guided by an inimitably plucky pluck·y adj. pluck·i·er, pluck·i·est Having or showing courage and spirit in trying circumstances. See Synonyms at brave. pluck vision that resists definition, M3 has been staking out its own territory in contemporary art since 1987. Last year, four associate curators--Daniel Birnbaum, Rosa Martinez, Jerome Sans, and Sarit Shapira--joined the staff, and their inaugural exhibition, "Here Comes the Sun," materializes in late summer, just as the Scandinavian sun begins its slow disappearing act. Nine international artists, from Israel's Avital Geva to Germany's Tobias Rehberger to Spain's Pilar Pilar strong-minded female leader of a group of guerrillas in the Spanish Civil War. [Am. Lit.: Hemingway For Whom the Bell Tolls] See : Female Power Pilar Albarracin, dip into the really big questions concerning cosmology and time. The result should bring to light a spectrum of work that lives up to Magasin 3's habit for dispensing with the routine.--Ronald Jones MALMO, SWEDEN Olafur Eliasson Malmo Konsthall/Lunds Konsthall September 10, 2005-January 22, 2006 Curated by Lars Grambye and Asa Nacking Clearly preferring to take things day by day, Olafur Eliasson follows up his installation at the Venice Biennale--a dark jewel of a pavilion on San Lazzaro island that duplicates and then distills the Mediterranean sun's effects from dawn to dusk into a fourteen-minute cycle--with a series of rooms in Malmo presenting gradations of natural and manmade light. Here, the solar and synthetic accumulate into one seamless spectrum, even becoming indistinguishable--such that Eliasson's usual probing of perception, by underscoring our projections onto the natural world, now turns to that world's augmented reality. A complementary exhibition in nearby Lund revolves on small-scale works and display models, upping the ante on his endeavors of self-awareness and providing a kind of periodic table for his enterprise.--Tim Griffin VADUZ, LIECHTENSTEIN Fred Sandback Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein November 18, 2005-February 5, 2006 Curated by Friedemann Malsch and Christiane Meyer-Stoll In a lecture last year, Andrea Fraser observed that Fred Sandback's work makes her cry. Sandback's spare installations of twine twine: see cordage. indeed elicit a strong response: Engaging or annoying, they rarely inspire indifference. This show, organized in cooperation with the artist's widow, Amy Sandback, brings the Fred Sandback revival, inaugurated by Lynne Cooke at Dia: Chelsea in 1996, to an apogee. Including some fifty sculptures from 1967 to 2003 in wool, string, and metal, as well as graphic media, and a catalogue with contributions by the artist and such luminaries as Sol Le Witt and Olafur Eliasson, it should make a strong case for Sandback's achievement. Travels to the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Mar.-May 2006; capcMusee de Bordeaux, Feb.-May 2007.--James Meyer BERLIN Jorg Immendorff Neue Nationalgalerie September 23, 2005-January 22, 2006 Curated by Anette Husch and Angela Schneider Jorg Immendorff, long considered Germany's foremost political artist, has designed a playful architectural complex--a freestanding wall and six pavilions, connected by walkways, all painted stoplight red--for the upper gallery of Mies's glass museum. The installation conceptually references Immendorff's Lidl village of the late '60s, a kind of Fluxus commune conceived when he was an anti-art art student of Joseph Beuys. But this new "red city," with its emblematic detached wall, doubtless refers to the failed dream of an all-red unified Germany. Each pavilion displays a different theme in Immendorff's art, including "Lidl," 1968-70, and his masterpiece, the "Cafe Deutschland" paintings, an allegory of art and politics architecturally united.--Arthur C. Danto [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] HANNOVER/HAMBURG Michel Majerus Kestnergesellschaft November 19, 2005-February 26, 2006 Delchtorhallen Hamburg November 18, 2005-January 29, 2006 Curated by Anne Prenzler The chief irony attending Michel Majerus's tragic death in a plane crash at age thirty-five in 2002 is that his art--eyeball-strafing post-Pop paintings and installations colliding high and low imagery--could have gone on hacking through the mutating forest of signs forever. In Majerus's view, progress was over and everything in our image-riddled culture was equivalent. These exhibitions--key components in an ongoing retrospective that, by 2007, will have spanned five separate institutions--should be appropriately overwhelming. Hannover gets the paintings and Hamburg the installations, giving the headroom never achieved in his lifetime to Majerus's trick of flipping iconographic repletion re·ple·tion n. 1. The condition of being fully supplied or completely filled. 2. A state of excessive fullness. into end-of-history emptiness.--MH COLOGNE George Brecht Museum Ludwig September 17, 2005-January 8, 2006 Curated by Alfred M. Fischer and Julia Robinson George Brecht once described his events as "very private, like little enlightenments I wanted to communicate to my friends who would know what to do with them." Though this reticence has restricted his oeuvre's accessibility, intimacy remains one of his work's greatest strengths. Brecht is inextricably in·ex·tri·ca·ble adj. 1. a. So intricate or entangled as to make escape impossible: an inextricable maze; an inextricable web of deceit. b. linked with Fluxus, but his art is too elusive to be quite nameable. Accompanied by a catalogue edited by Fischer, including the artist's statements and texts, this retrospective comprising two hundred works--books, installations, assemblages, and more, dating from 1957 through the '90s--should bring Brecht wider attention. But the happy few already in on the secret might quietly regret it. Travels to MACBA MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art) , Barcelona, May 2006.--Barry Schwabsky Rosemarie Trockel Museum Ludwig October 29, 2005-February 22, 2006 Curated by Barbara Engelbach COGITO, ERGO SUM cogito, ergo sum (Latin; “I think, therefore I am”) Dictum coined in 1637 by René Descartes as a first step in demonstrating the attainability of certain knowledge. It is the only statement to survive the test of his methodic doubt. . So reads a 1988 machine-knit wool-on-linen picture by Rosemarie Trockel, stitched in a rendition of childish cursive. The artist's appropriation of Descartes's famous dictum unravels its linear logic, recasting the rational subject as dreamy doodler. For the past twenty-odd years, Trockel has similarly undermined hallowed ideologies and confused recourse to easy meaning, employing sculpture, installation, drawing, and video. This comprehensive survey--which includes 131 works and is accompanied by a catalogue with essays by Silvia Eiblmayr, Gregory Williams, Brigid Doherty, and the curator--promises to weave together the strands of Trockel's eminent and multifaceted oeuvre. Travels to Galleria Communale d'Arte Moderna, Rome, May 2006.--Johanna Burton Project Migration Kolnischer Kunstverein October 1, 2005-January 15, 2006 Curated by marion von Osten and Kathrin Rhomberg Today's European Union European Union (EU), name given since the ratification (Nov., 1993) of the Treaty of European Union, or Maastricht Treaty, to the European Community is at once ambitious and reticent, incorporating former Eastern Bloc countries while fortifying itself against African and Asian immigration immigration, entrance of a person (an alien) into a new country for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. Motives for immigration, like those for migration generally, are often economic, although religious or political factors may be very important. . Launched in 2002, "Project Migration" focuses on corresponding cultural change. Following a film and lecture program, this fall will see the opening of a group show curated by Kunstverein director Rhomberg and von Osten, a professor at Zurich's Hochschule fur Gestaltung und Kunst. They've chosen seventy artists, including Kutlug Ataman at·a·man n. pl. at·a·mans A Cossack chief. Also called hetman. [Russian, from South Turkic, leader of an armed band : ata, father + -man, and Ann-Sofie Siden, who confront the economic, political, and aesthetic dynamics of legal and illicit migration. The catalogue includes essays by Stuart Hall, Saskia Sassen, Arjun Appadurai, and Etienne Balibar.--Harald Fricke [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] FRANKFURT James Ensor Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt The Schirn Kunsthalle is Frankfurt's foremost exhibition space located in the heart of the old city next to the Dom (Frankfurt Cathedral). Exhibitions in recent years included retrospectives of Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Frida Kahlo Alberto Giacometti, Bill Viola, and Yves December 17, 2005-March 19, 2006 Curated by Ingrid Pfeiffer This retrospective of around eighty paintings and sixty works on paper draws on the rich history of James Ensor's German reception. Since the 1890s, the Belgian artist's output has been collected by German institutions (several of which are lenders), and its impact is visible from Expressionism to Dada and beyond. Emil Nolde was among those who made pilgrimages to visit Ensor, whose work anticipates the pictorial experiments and anarchosocialist politics of Dada in Zurich and Berlin. One might quibble with curator Pfeiffer's stated aim to present Ensor's oeuvre as an instance of "postmodern stylistic pluralism"--wasn't Ensor (1860-1949), from beginning to end, a desperate, idiosyncratic modernist?--but the show's timeliness is difficult to contest.--Brigid Doherty MUNICH Pier Paolo Pasolini Pinakothek der Moderne The Pinakothek der Moderne is a modern art museum, situated in the city centre of Munich, Germany. Together with the Alte Pinakothek and the Neue Pinakothek it is part of Munich's "Kunstareal" (the "art district"). November 17, 2005-February 5, 2006 Curated by Bernhart Schwenk and Michael Semff Pasolini was twentieth-century Italy's most important and provocative cultural figure. A writer, filmmaker, playwright, and painter, he focused his oeuvre on sexuality, politics, religion, and revolution. One of Italy's first no-globals, he was also among its last romantic visionaries. Murdered in 1975, Pasolini's last years were spent denouncing political corruption and making aesthetically astonishing work, such as the infamous film Salo (1975), which attacked transnational consumer capitalism. The thirtieth anniversary of his assassination (which some suggest he sought) provides the occasion for this first-ever survey of Pasolini's visual and literary art, including rarely seen drawings and paintings, and a film retrospective organized by the Filmmuseum Munchen.--Patrick Rumble Franz Marc Stadtlsche Galerie Im Lenbachhaus September 17, 2005-January 8, 2006 Curated by Annegret Hoberg The Lenbachhaus is home to a major collection of Blaue Reiter art and is sponsor of the monumental Franz Marc catalogue raisonne. It is thus the ideal venue for what will be the largest retrospective of Marc's work since the commemorative exhibition that followed his death in 1916. Nearly one hundred canvases and even more works on paper, sculptures, and design materials--some never before exhibited--provide an opportunity to consider Marc's development chronologically and the-matically. Special attention will be paid, of course, to his coloristic expression of spiritual concerns and his totemic treatment of animals. Annegret Hoberg, who has edited the accompanying catalogue, is also the author of the catalogue raisonne, the final volume of which will be published to coincide with the exhibition.--FR TOKYO Hiroshi Sugimoto Mori Art Museum September 17, 2005-January 9, 2006 Curated by David Elliott Exploiting the camera's ability to copy with an intensity and subtlety that endows lifeless things with living presence, Hiroshi Sugimoto has led Japanese conceptual photography for the past thirty years. Co-organized by the Mori and Hirshhorn museums, Sugimoto's first retrospective presents 145 images from his major series, made between 1974 and 2005. In addition to premiering a series of color photographs, the exhibition includes two new aluminum sculptures based on his 2004 photographic series "Conceptual Forms." Sugimoto has also designed a Noh stage, on which a play will be performed. Travels to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, Feb. 16-May 14, 2006; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Sept. 2006-Jan. 2007.--Midori Matsui |
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