Wexner Arts May-June 2009 : Page 2

onview Through Sunday, July 26 Catch Air Robin Rhode Raised in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa, and now based in Berlin, Robin Rhode has emerged in the last decade as a highly influential artist. From an acute personal perspective shaped by South Africa’s history of racial discrimination, he highlights the push and pull between the liberating force of the individual’s imagination and the confines of media-driven stereotypes. This substantial solo exhibition—the artist’s first in a U.S. museum and the Wexner Center’s first organized by Senior Curator Catharina Manchanda—brings you a firsthand look at a wide range of his intriguing work. In many of his best-known projects, Rhode draws crude, life-size outlines of everyday objects on house facades or city streets and interacts with them as if they were the actual physical objects. Here, he charts his development with some 20 key examples of his photographic storyboards, animations, and films. In some he focuses on street activities such as gambling, drinking, or theft. Others stage sequences in which he appears as an imaginary sports superstar, music performer, or magician. Eager to engage the Wexner Center’s architecture, Rhode has also developed an installation specifically for our lower lobby. There and throughout the show, you’ll see how the artist gives a radical twist to techniques such as illusionism and site specificity, reenergizing them as fresh and potent tools. organized by the wexner center. ExhibiTiOnS AD m ISSION p r ICES Free members college students (with valid ID) under 18 $5 general public Free on the first Sunday of the month and every Thursday after 4 pm. WAl K - IN TO ur S Saturdays at 1 pm Thursdays at 5 pm Free with gallery admission See highlights of all three exhibitions on guided tours with Wexner Center docents. There’s plenty of time for questions and discussion— and reservations are never required. Just walk in and take a tour. Major support provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. William Forsythe discusses the Synchronous Objects web project with a visitor. William Forsythe: Transfigurationsmade possible with support from the National Endowment for the Arts as part of American masterpieces: Three Centuries of Genius and from the Contemporary Art Centers network, administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), with major support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and additional support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Additional support provided by the Battelle Endowment for Technology and human Affairs. Also made possible through the Wexner Center residency Award program. Support for The Forsythe Company provided by the city of Dresden and the state of Saxony; the city of Frankfurt am mainand the state of hesse; and mrs. Susanne Klatten. Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, reproduced coproduced by The Forsythe Company with the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design and the Department of Dance at The Ohio State university. Additional funding provided by The Forsythe Company, The Forsythe Foundation, The Ohio State university Office of research, rotterdamse Dansacademie/Codarts, and Tanzplan Deutschland, an initiative created by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Installation views, Photos: Kevin Fitzsimons suppoRt foR catch air: robin rhode andy waRhol foundation foR the visual aRts suppoRt foR william forsythe: transfigurations battelle endowment foR technology and human affaiRs See more installation images on our web site, plus photos and videos from opening events with the exhibitions’ artists.

OnView

Catch Air Robin Rhode

Raised in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa, and now based in Berlin, Robin Rhode has emerged in the last decade as a highly influential artist. From an acute personal perspective shaped by South Africa’s history of racial discrimination, he highlights the push and pull between the liberating force of the individual’s imagination and the confines of media-driven stereotypes.

This substantial solo exhibition—the artist’s first in a U. S. museum and the Wexner Center’s first organized by Senior Curator Catharina Manchanda—brings you a firsthand look at a wide range of his intriguing work.In many of his best-known projects, Rhode draws crude, life-size outlines of everyday objects on house facades or city streets and interacts with them as if they were the actual physical objects. Here, he charts his development with some 20 key examples of his photographic storyboards, animations, and films. In some he focuses on street activities such as gambling, drinking, or theft. Others stage sequences in which he appears as an imaginary sports superstar, music performer, or magician. Eager to engage the Wexner Center’s architecture, Rhode has also developed an installation specifically for our lower lobby. There and throughout the show, you’ll see how the artist gives a radical twist to techniques such as illusionism and site specificity, reenergizing them as fresh and potent tools.

Organized by the wexner center.


COOP HIMMELB(L)AU Beyond the Blue

The innovative approach of COOP HIMMELB(L)AU permeates buildings, ideas about urban planning, and even the name of this influential Austrian architectural firm. “Coop” signals the firm’s identity as a cooperative. “Himmelb(l)au” offers the double meanings of “sky blue” (with the “l”) and “sky building” (without). Launched in May 1968, COOP HIMMELB(L)AU has never yielded the radical fervor of its founding moment and consistently rejected preconceived notions of design across 40 years of exquisite, experimental plans and constructions. Among its recent projects are the double cone structure of the new BMW center (BMW Welt) in Munich, the eye-catching addition to the Akron Art Museum, and the dramatic headquarters for the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.

The Wexner Center is proud to host the U.S. debut of this exhibition from MAK in Vienna, one of the world’s leading museums of contemporary art and design. In it, you’ll have the opportunity to study several projects in depth in large-scale models and to survey small models of many more projects displayed on an oversize model table.
Recalling an urban landscape plan, this display strategy evokes the firm’s belief in architecture’s need to address spatial possibilities, while also reflecting design principal Wolf Prix’s passionate critique of contemporary urban planning.Choreographed light and film sequences add to the rich visual experience. Jeffrey Kipnis, professor of architecture at Ohio State, is the exhibition’s consulting curator.

Organized by Mak, vienna.


Wexner Center Residency Award

William Forsythe transfigurations

Vanguard American choreographer—and 2002 Wexner Prize recipient— William Forsythe has revolutionized classical ballet for our time with his bold, contemporary works. In recent years with the establishment of The Forsythe Company as an independent platform for his work, he’s extended his choreographic thinking into new forms such as installations for gallery and public spaces, video, digital media, and publications. For Forsythe, these projects are part of a larger sphere of interest he terms “choreographic objects.”

Transfigurations is the first presentation of a significant body of Forsythe’s installation projects in this country. In it, you’ll see how the dance maker and performer, developing his concepts through working from the body, is now projecting his ideas into new mediums and new ways of presentation.A highlight of the show is City of Abstracts, an interactive video installation that invites viewers to “dance” with their spiraling, stretched forms. You’ll also see Forsythe’s poignant sculptural installation Monster Partitur, four more of his key video works, and the new web project Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, reproduced, which Forsythe developed at Ohio State in collaboration with Maria Palazzi, director of the interdisciplinary Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD), and Norah Zuniga Shaw, director of the dance and technology program in the university’s top-rated Department of Dance.
The curator of this exhibition is Charles Helm, the Wexner Center's director of performing arts.

Organized by the wexner center.

Previous Page  Next Page

Publication List