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Herzog & de Meuron, Walker Art Center, April 2005 (detail)
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The 2005 A4 has been redesigned both inside and out. With an available 3.2 FSI® direct injection engine and S4 inspired suspension, the all-new A4 is the perfect blend of power and control. Visit
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Feds Finger Anti-Bush Exhibit
(AP, April 13)
Secret Service agents investigated a Columbia College exhibition of stamp art after receiving a complaint about the show's political overtones. Al Brandtner's Patriot Act depicts George Bush with a gun to his head. Over the past year, agents have also investigated a high-school student and arrested a couple wearing anti-Bush T-shirts.
Koolhaas Wins Mies van der Rohe Award
(Art Daily, April 13)
Rem Koolhaas and Ellen van Loon have been awarded the prestigious Mies van der Rohe Award 2005 for their design of the Netherlands' embassy in Berlin. The jury, chaired by Zaha Hadid, cited the building's "unprecedented concept of trajectory." The award, granted every two years by the EU, carries a cash prize of 50,000 euros.
Beecroft Big in Berlin
(The Guardian, April 11)
Controversial conceptual artist Vanessa Beecroft's largest performance to date took place at Berlin's New National Gallery, one of the city's most prestigious buildings. Entitled VB55, the piece involved 100 nude women wearing see-through tights. Police were called in after scuffles broke out amongst viewers anxious to see the performers.
Rockefeller Pledges $100 Million to MoMA
(NY Times, April 13)
David Rockefeller has pledged a cash gift of $100 million to New York's Museum of Modern Art. The money will be allocated for museum programs after an $858 million building campaign. In his lifetime, the 89-year-old Rockefeller's gifts to the museum, founded by his mother Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, will total $200 million.
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The Louvre moves Mona Lisa more »
Frida Kahlo trove discovered after museum renovations more »
Police raid drug lord's home, find missing Picasso painting more »
Crowd plunders Serpentine exhibit more »
Arabian art biennial is cultural wild card more »
Woman to give birth in gallery more »
Teresa Heinz Kerry drops $4 million on Warhol Museum more »
Italian industrialist makes splash with Venice art palace purchase more »
Underground cartoonist R. Crumb charms Londoners more »
Growing suspicions after Chinese artist Chen Yifei's death more »
Note: Some online publications require registration to access the articles. If you encounter a registration screen, try akreader1 as the user name and password.
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Henrik Olesen / Chuck Close / Frank Stella / Andy Warhol
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Walker Art Center, Minneapolis: New to You
Characterized by going to extremes while also covering the middle, the Walker Art Center is a living, breathing intersection of history and the future, with a dynamic emphasis on what is happening right now. Since the founding in 1879, a stream of incarnations has spawned several museums, a sculpture garden, a performing arts program, and a glorious film archive. Just imagine what will develop in the confines of its impressive $70 million expansion by the uber-cool Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. While doubling the interior space, the chicly crumpled and off-axis metal and glass box includes new galleries, workrooms, a 385-seat theater, and lounges, and occupies a network of terraces, plazas, gardens, and expansive parkland.
The Walker's curatorial program is breathtakingly eclectic, overlapping permanent collection shows with special exhibitions. The Shape of Time is the most art historical, constructing a tripartite survey of the 20th century avant-garde. Urban Cocktail is probably the hippest, with commissioned works from rising stars and the contemporary canon. Shadowland: An Exhibition as a Film is the most enlightening, exploring the reciprocal influences between painting and film. Chuck Close: Self-Portraits: 1967-2005, opening in July, is the most sentimental, since his was the first exhibition in the then-new 1971 building. ANDY WARHOL/SUPERNOVA: Stars, Deaths, and Disasters, 1962-1964 may be the sexiest, while Kiki Smith's new work slated for early 2006 is sure to be the most controversial.
The film and video programs also range from the contemporary to the classic, reflecting any genre or subgenre you can think of, from documentary films to short artist's videos. Upcoming screenings include In the Realms of the Unreal (an acclaimed documentary on reclusive Outsider genius Henry Darger) and Cinemateca: Contemporary Film from Latin America. The performing arts' curators, too, have an unparalleled commitment to commissioning new works from the international art world, demonstrating a preference for all things interdisciplinary — from Philip Glass to Tracy + the Plastics. (SND)
The Walker Art Center opened its new building to an estimated crowd of 10,000 people this past weekend. The Reaction from locals, arts professionals, and cultural tourists was a resounding chorus of praise.
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Rinko Kawauchi
Paris
Fondation Cartier
Now through June 5
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The color photographs made by Rinko Kawauchi toe the line of the kawaii, or cute, aesthetic popularized by her fellow Japanese artists Chinatsu Ban and Aya Takano. Kawauchi's images are studies of the ordinary in pastel hues — a cruel and tender diary of objects that include watermelon rinds, exploding fireworks, blood-stained gauze pads, and butchered chickens. Generally composed in squares, when viewed as a series, the images form muted yet dramatic arrangements, surprisingly inspired by the humdrum. Championed by Little More publisher Masakazu Takei, Kawauchi pays careful attention to the quiet moments in life. (CYL) |
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Radio Days
Amsterdam
De Appel
Now through April 30
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Realizing the concept of curator-as-disc jockey, the latest participants in the De Appel Foundation's Curatorial Training Programme have assembled an impressive international group of artists, curators, musicians, and cultural critics, who take turns ruling the Amsterdam airwaves. Pulling a page from P.S.1's addictive online radio station, the exhibition is globally available via the Radio Days' website, allowing listeners to experience sonic art in an alternative space of their choice. Access the archive to hear the inaugural show of On Kawara's iconic One Million Years (Past and Future), and stay tuned for Sophie Calle's New York-to-Cali road trip, No Sex Last Night, airing later this month. (AK) |
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Tracey Moffatt: Adventure Series
Brisbane
Institute of Modern Art
Now through April 23
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Tracey Moffatt's Adventure Series is sure to make any connoisseur of kitsch fall head over high-wedged heels. When Moffatt, an unabashed fan of The Rovers (Australia's answer to Gilligan's Island and The Love Boat), began these 2004 photographs, she thought the shoot would be a breeze, but even imitations of the tight jeans of discos past demand buckets of cash, beautiful people, unflagging energy, and the occasional kangaroo. Moffatt's toil was well worth the effort, however, and her cheeky photographs, laid out in storyboard format, unfurl exotic vignettes of nostalgia and melodramatic woe — soapy, sexy Technicolor love triangles at their finest. (ML) |
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Corey McCorkle: Jesus Christ Says She is The Sun
Bern
Kunsthalle Bern
Now through May 22
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As the title of this show implies, Corey McCorkle has an interest in the spiritual — though a slightly askew one. Transforming architectural elements of the space, McCorkle uses a form of artistic shamanism to revitalize it. He installs carpeted seating, where participants are locked in a lotus position, and subtly shifts the direction of floorboards in a sacred, circular form. More dramatically, he alters the geometric skylights, blackening one and playing a game with the panels of another. Adding mystery to the tainted temple, McCorkle airs a DVD of call girls with covered eyes, constructs a wooden mosaic table, and floats helium-filled silver pillows until they collapse. (PL) |
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Cai Guo-Qiang Inopportune
North Adams
Mass MoCA
Now through October 2005
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Artist Cai Guo-Qiang believes that beauty can be found in violence, even in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Middle East troubles. Best known for his site-specific installations using massive amounts of fireworks, the centerpiece of this exhibit is a series of nine suspended cars that signify the effects of a car bomb explosion. Hundreds of sequenced, luminous rods traversing the vehicles represent the expended energy, turning the huge space into a dreamlike light show. A video installation shows another car bursting with firecrackers superimposed on Times Square — brilliantly fusing the ancient explosive Chinese art with the modern neon of America. (SR) |
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New Humans
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New Humans
The New Humans create sonic art performances, pushing aural and visual expression to a gesamtkunstwerke, or all-encompassing synthesis. Founding members Mika Tajima and Howie Chen, along with one or two rotating members, construct site-specific installations informed by minimalism and Op art, in which they play noise and experimental music. Their first production was at Tajima's Columbia 2003 MFA thesis show, with a 250-foot trail of rugby stripe binding the group. Traversing the space diagonally, they stood at the nodes of a massive sound wave, strumming guitars. The resulting noise became the sonic expression of their geometric structure.
Later that year at Maccarone and in 2004 at Passerby, they performed beneath a huge, 1300-square-foot striped cloth. Recently at Apex Art, they collaborated with video artist Matt Suib to play amidst a sea of televisions, channeling the static glow through an intensely rhythmic din. For the Walker Art Center's re-opening, they performed Grass Grows Forever in Every Possible Direction, first conceived at the Swiss Institute - Contemporary Art. Connected by striped clothing designed by Tajima with United Bamboo, the New Humans performed while bound around a white fluorescent light square — creating a vortex where color and light, noise and rhythm, formed a hypnotic soundscape. (GG)
Gabrielle Giattino is an associate curator at the Swiss Institute - Contemporary Art, New York. The New Humans will be performing next at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center on Sat 5.15.
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Christian Marclay
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Christian Marclay
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| Paul Laster catches up with Christian Marclay, a current artist-in-residence at the Walker Art Center. |
AK: What are some of the things you've accomplished as artist-in-residence?
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CM: The main project was Shake Rattle and Roll (fluxmix), a video installation featuring a selection from the Walker's Fluxus collection. While filming, I performed a concert with my djTRIO project, featuring Toshio Kajiwara and DJ Olive, and played with George Cartwright and Andrew Broder at a local club. I just finished a sound piece for the reopening, titled Museum with the Sound of Its Own Making. My last project will be a film program, to coincide with the Sound Unseen Festival in October.
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AK: Could you have made Shake, Rattle and Roll (fluxmix) anyplace else?
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CM: Maybe I could have used another Fluxus collection, but I don't think I would have found such a supportive environment. The Walker was so generous and tolerant. They not only allowed me to touch these art objects, but they let me make sounds with them.
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AK: How many objects did you use?
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CM: I used 160. Each screen shows ten objects that are manipulated one by one to produce different sounds. The resulting sounds overlap in ever-changing combinations because the loops are not synchronized and are of different length. It creates an aleatory composition.
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AK: What can you tell us about Museum with the Sound of Its Own Making?
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CM: It is a very site-specific sound piece made with recordings documenting the construction of the Walker's expansion. A cross between a field recording and a musique concrète composition, it documents the process of constructing the building. It is a little homage to the work that goes into building such a place.
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AK: What does the title reference?
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CM: It refers to Robert Morris' 1961 sculpture of Box with the Sound of Its Own Making. This important work, a wooden box containing a recording of its making such as sawing, hammering, and sanding, acknowledges the process of making a work of art.
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AK: After interacting with the construction, how do you like the building?
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CM: I really like the building's metallic skin, because it keeps changing texture with the weather conditions. I have seen it look as flat as grey stone on a rainy day and on a sunny day it can shine like faceted glass. The galleries are very elegant and well proportioned. But even more importantly the collection looks fantastic in this new context. The Walker is really a leader in understanding how to display the great variety of mediums that contemporary artists use.
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| Christian Marclay is a visual artist, DJ, and composer. His work has been exhibited at numerous galleries, biennials, and institutions and is the collection of museums worldwide. A performer and sound artist, Marclay has worked with phonograph records and turntables since 1979, collaborating with John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Zeena Parkins, Arto Lindsay, Sonic Youth, and others. A new monograph of his work has been published by Phaidon Press. He is repesented by Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.
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The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography 1960-1982
by Douglas Fogle
Walker Art Center
An extensive survey exhibition merits an equally comprehensive catalog, and this one doesn't disappoint. From Robert Smithson's admission to being "lost in this wilderness of mechanical reproduction," to the milder confessions of Ed Ruscha, Douglas Fogle, associate curator at the Walker Art Center, re-submits for the reader's approval seminal articles by critics originally published in the '70s and primary source texts by artists Richard Prince, Mel Bochner, Cindy Sherman, Sherrie Levine, John Baldessari, Vito Acconci, and many others which elucidate the anti-photographic stance formulated during that era. Fogle draws a detailed map of the seminal digressions taken from the modernist timeline. (MW) |
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Cover image
Herzog & de Meuron, Walker Art Center, April 2005 (detail)
Courtesy Walker Art Center
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Editors
Paul Laster
Shana Nys Dambrot
Andrew Maerkle
Mark Mangan
Shiraz Randeria
Editors-at-Large
Christopher Elam
Mark Barry
Contributors
Lisa Cooley
Tim Evans
Gabrielle Giattino
Jocelyn K. Glei
Leigh Goldstein
Allison Kave
Jessica Kraft
Jane Lerner
Christopher Y. Lew
Melissa Lo
Michelle Weinberg
Matt Wolf
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Production
Anjuli Ayer
Sameer Shah
Mailer Design
Jessica Bauer-Greene
Mark Barry
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