Art Happens

The 2012 deCordova Biennial Curators Dina Deitsch and Abigail Ross Goodman take on Art | Basel

2011-12-05T11:29:00.001-08:00

Co-curators of The 2012 deCordova Biennial, Dina Deitsch and Abigail Ross Goodman, blogged about their experiences at Art Basel Miami over the weekend for Art New England. Learn more about what they saw, what they liked, and where they went.

Read more on Art New England's blog.

Hannah Visits the Tang

2011-12-01T13:34:00.001-08:00

Fall Curatorial Intern, Hannah Mode, recentlyvisited the Tang Museum at Skidmore College. Here are some of her thoughts. To read more onthis topic, please visit hannahpmode.tumblr.com.

Whiting Tennis

Washer/Dryer, 2010

Plywood and house paint

Each 40 ½ x 27 7/8 x 24 ¼ inches

A few weeks ago,I had the pleasure of returning to beautiful Saratoga Springs, NY, home to theTang Museum at Skidmore College (where I spent four years studying as anundergrad). Like deCordova, the Tang boasts an innovative exhibition space and anexciting curatorial program that provides each viewer with a unique, thoughtfulart experience. On this trip, I was especially looking forward to seeing theexhibition, Opener22: Whiting Tennis.

Whiting Tennis

The New Green, 2007

Wood, paint, and Visqueen

56 1/8 x 20 x 33 7/8 inches

Opener 22 is Tennis’ first solo museum exhibitionand features sculpture, painting, drawing, and collage from the past twelve years. TheSeattle-based artist is heavily influenced by everyday structures in the Northwestand often includes recognizable visual clues in his work that point to familiaritems, like sheds, bits of plywood, signs, even mailboxes. Tennis breathes newlife into discarded, overlooked objects by fusing many materials into a singlework of art.

Drawing is thebase of Tennis’ practice, and he also creates woodblock prints that he cuts andcollages together. I especially enjoyed the way the texture of the drawings andcollages emphasizes the landscape of the Northwest, and creates relationshipswith similar surfaces of the sculptures.

Whiting Tennis

Boogeyman, 2007

Plywood and hot melt tar

83 x 44 x 32 inches

Courtesy of Derek Eller Gallery, New York

Two outdoorsculptures - Boogeyman (a blackstructure about seven feet tall) coated in what looks like tar, stands outsidethe main entrance, while title, asmaller, shingled piece rests on the back patio in the same mysterious, yetfamiliar vein as the sculptures in the gallery. In addition, painted woodreplicas of a washer and dryer are on display in a birch grove on the museumgrounds and serve to round out the exhibition. I love the thought of comingacross these two domestic objects in nature, like escaped housebound creatures.

Whiting Tennis

Washer/Dryer, 2010

Plywood and house paint

Each 40 ½ x 27 7/8 x 24 ¼ inches

Ian Berry, MalloyCurator of the Tang Museum, organized Opener 22 in collaborationwith the artist.

Hard Work

2011-10-20T11:27:00.000-07:00

If there is one thing on everyone’s minds these days, it’s jobs. Roughly 1 out of every 11 Americans is unemployed; Obama’s Jobs Bill just got voted down; the Occupy Wall Street movement has spread to squares and campuses across the nation; and news segments endlessly discuss potential economic plans for job creation. In her infinite wisdom, Curator Susan Cross has channeled this timely and contentious discourse (and its historical roots) into her show, The Workers, on view at MassMoCA through March 2012. In it, labor emerges as the dominant theme that is taken up in different contexts by the 25 international artists and filmmakers featured. Here, the artists talk about work while making work. Adrian Paci’s 2007 video of a mass of laborers stranded in the middle of an empty runway, poignantly addresses the plight of the migrant worker; Mary Lum’s billboard project of personally stamped brown paper bags (whose work will also be featured in The 2012 deCordova Biennial) elevates and personalizes the worker; while other projects like Sam Durant’s sculptural gallows remember a darker history of labor activism. More than just a timely reflection – The Workers showcases the variety of perspectives and thinking about industry, economy, and the jobscape today.


Adrian Paci, Centro di Permanenza Temporanea, 2007, video still

Mary Lum, Made with Pride by Terry Russell, 2011

PLATFORM 7 – now up!

2011-07-26T06:26:00.000-07:00

Tory Fair just finished her sculptures on the Pollack Terrace. The installation, Testing a World View (Again) is the 7^th iteration of our ongoing PLATFORM series and is the first to address this fantastic terrace space! The installation features four identical cast figures of the artist’s body in a nice pink resin with aluminum leafing. Placed on and around the terrace in surprising ways (note the wall…), Fair asks us to test our own world view with our bodies and minds!

On Saturday, August 6^th visitors are given an opportunity to listen and try out their own line of questioning. There is a Platform Discussion with Tory Fair and documentary filmmaker Robb Moss, where the two will chat about other strange interactions between the body and nature. There is also Yoga in the Park where visitors can use this opportunity to see how their bodies respond to only to the movement of the positions but the space of the sculpture park.

--Jenny

Abby and Brian installing

Tory directing

Tory with her cast

View from the Terrace, photo by Tony Luong

Little Rhodie

2011-07-11T13:19:00.000-07:00

This week I found myself in Wakefield, RI, visiting the historic Hera Gallery. A pioneer in alternative exhibition spaces and one of the earliest women’s cooperative galleries in the US, Hera is unusual in having been established in a non-urban setting – and just a stone’s throw from the water. You really couldn’t ask for a nicer locale!

Currently on view is a selection of works from member artists featuring this particularly excellent staged photograph of sculpted cake icing (as a fan of Ace of Cakes, I couldn’t help but love this) and some smart constructions by Michael Yefko.

Mara Trachtenberg

En route back to Boston I dropped by the David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown in Providence where outgoing curator Maya Allison and AS220 director Neal Walsh curated a sharp round up of Providence painting. Shawn Gilheeney took the back wall and transformed it into a ghostly, layered mural of a decaying landscape while Lisa Perez takes paint into the sculptural with fantastic constructions that play off the wall with color and form. Local writer Greg Cook has a nice write up about it on his ever-fantastic blog.

Shawn Gilheeny

Lisa Perez

And finally, you can’t leave Brown’s art building without stopping in at the stairwell (which you’ll need to do anyhow if you need the bathroom), which Brown art and art history students have been tagging for years. A wise and fun take on the hallowed halls of academia…

- Dina Deitsch

Botanical Take-Over: deCordova on the Greenway – part II

2011-07-11T10:58:00.000-07:00

A prevailing theme in contemporary outdoor sculpture is the relationship between nature and culture. Urban Garden, deCordova’s latest off-site public art exhibition is located in the heart of downtown Boston on the Rose Kennedy Greenway between Pearl and Congress Streets, nestled between city, park, and water, and the perfect location for just such an exploration. James Surls’ Walking Flower Times the Power of Five (2010), Tom Otterness’ Tree of Knowledge (1997), and John Ruppert’s Pumpkin Series (1996) transform this green-scape into a fantastical garden. The monumental gourds and towering flowers appear as large and unyielding as the steel and glass buildings that surround them. Urban Garden is organized by Nick Capasso, deCordova’s Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs, and will be up from June 2011 to October 2012.

--Jenny Gerow

James Surls, Walking Flower Times the Power of Five, 2010

John Ruppert, Pumpkin Series, 1996

NATURE SPECIAL - deCordova on the Greenway, Part I

2011-06-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

Opening crowd at Boston Harbor Islands Pavilion

July 16^th was a day of spectacles. Along with the Stanley Cup touring through Boston streets and bars came another exciting unveiling in Boston—Nature Special, a video installation in the brand new Boston Harbor Islands Pavilion on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Curated by associate curator Dina Deitsch, Nature Special features five videos about our mediated relationship to the great outdoors by artists Jim Campbell, Sam Easterson, William Lamson, and Suara Welitoff. The installation inaugurates a guest-curated video program, a fantastic way to expose audiences to new ways of interacting with public art and a program that we hope continues well into the future. Shown on two 8 x 10 foot low-resolution LED screens, the installation is housed in the structurally and ecologically beautiful new Pavilion designed by the architectural and design firm Utile that transforms the greenway into compelling destination to welcome visitors to the Boston Harbor Islands national park area.

Boston Harbor Islands Pavilion

Don’t miss Sam Easterson’s video of the burrowing owl peering out of its little home. The footage was created by a micro-video camera and like many Easterson videos places us within the viewpoint of the animal. Visitors to the Pavilion will be mesmerized late into the night by this little bird!

Nature Special will be on view in the Boston Harbor Islands Pavilion each evening from 7pm-11pm, Jun 16, 2011 - Oct 31, 2011.

Sam Easterson, Burrowing Owl, 2010

Jenny Gerow

Curatorial Intern

Hudson Valley Expedition

2011-05-04T12:24:00.000-07:00

Now that spring has actually arrived, I ventured forth to the Hudson Valley to make some visits that had been long-postponed by our recent terrible winter weather.

First I spent a whole day with artists Ken Landauer and Julianne Swartz, a married couple who share a custom-built home and studio in Kingston, NY. In addition to visiting their studios to see works-in-progress by both artists (and enjoying a delicious home-cooked lunch!), I also discussed the possible loan of Ken’s outdoor sculpture King, originally created in 2007 for the Socrates Sculpture Park in New York. This beautiful and poignant work involves a king-sized bed, fitted with extremely expensive and elegant Pratesi linens, set within a Plexiglas and steel architectural reliquary box. Later that day, we visited the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz to see the exhibition Thick and Thin: Ken Landauer and Julianne Swartz, a sharp and beautiful juxtaposition of their work by curator Brian Wallace. Back in 1994, I had co-organized the group exhibition The Computer in the Studio with Brian, which was installed both at deCordova and at the now-defunct Boston Computer Museum. Julianne Swartz will soon install a major public art piece for the High Line in New York, and in the fall of 2012 deCordova will present her first large-scale museum solo exhibition, Julianne Swartz: How Deep is Your.

Jon Isherwood in his studio

On Day 2 I visited sculptor Jon Isherwood at his studio in Hudson, New York. Jon works primarily in stone, and I had seen his work exhibited extensively in galleries, museums, and sculpture parks both here in America and in England (he was born in England but is now an American citizen). I’d been meaning to meet up with him for quite a while. I was most impressed by his studio, and by the artwork that filled it. Jon and I are now in discussions about possible loans to the deCordova Sculpture Park. Jon runs the sculpture program at Bennington College in Vermont, and is also deeply involved with the Digital Stone Project in New Jersey, a non-profit atelier that offers cutting-edge resources for artists to learn and apply digital sculpture technologies in their work.

DeWitt Godfrey, Picker Sculpture, at The Fields

I then spent the afternoon strolling the landscape at The Fields Sculpture Park at the Omi International Arts Center in nearby Ghent, New York. The Fields exhibits works by both internationally-recognized and emerging sculptors on 60 acres of fields, forest, and wetlands. During my visit I saw spectacular sculptures by (among many others) Mel Kendrick, Tony Cragg, Bernar Venet, and Orly Genger. I also ran into some old friends, so to speak – sculptures by artists Philip Grausman, Mary Ann Unger, and Dove Bradshaw that had previously been exhibited at deCordova! And, I was particularly interested in seeing a major installation by DeWitt Godfrey, who will be creating a monumental work for our Sculpture Park in summer, 2012.

Philip Grausman, Leucantha, at The Fields

Mary Ann Unger, Misericordia, at The Fields

Bernar Venet, installation of Arcs, at the Fields

Nick Capasso

Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs

Western Ho!

2011-04-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

I realize that driving 2 ½ hours west of Boston isn’t exactly reaching the great frontier but in the aptly titled Purple Valley, in the shadow of Mt Greylock, one could find a veritable world full of art treasures. North Adams alone could fill a week – with its vibrant studio scene, street front galleries, and of course, the largest contemporary art space in the US – Mass MoCA. And right down the road is the ever bucolic Williamstown, a theater-haven in the summer, and art haven all year round between the Clark and the Williams College Art Museum (WCMA).

In a hurried, or as we like to say, efficient, trip, the Biennial team made a number of studio visits this month but also had a few moments to visit both Mass MoCA and WCMA where we were stunned by scale and brilliance in the first and smart art historical thinking in the second.

Michael Oatman: All Utopias Fell, 2010

With galleries scaled to the ginormous size of contemporary art (as well as old, unused New England factories) Mass MoCA is expanding its campus even further with a new installation by the Troy, NY-based Michael Oatman. Known for his collages and collection-savvy installations, Oatman goes 10 steps further in All Utopia Fell – an installation of epic proportions that begins with a precarious climb up a three-story catwalk and ends with an elaborate narrative of an Airstream trailer flying too close to the sun and now holding solar panels.

Katharina Grosse: One Floor Up More HIghly, 2001, installation view

But Mass MoCA’s ode to the epic and monumental begins much earlier on with an entrance piece by Federico Diaz – an abstracted deconstruction of the building’s façade via thousands of computer-generated little spheres. Even more impressive is the Katarina Gross installation, One Floor Up More Highly, in Building 5, Mass MoCA’s famous football field-sized space devoted to single artist installations each year. In this round, Gross has seized the space with grit and boldness – quite literally. Her signature dirt piles spray painted with primary colors are punctuated by enormous styrofoam icebergs and the convenient bench, here and there. The space is converted into the stuff of painting – color and light – in a spectacular new way. Nari Ward’s show Sub Mirage Lignum has a similar effect on the 2^nd floor. Connecting the rarely-associated locals of Ward’s native Jamaica and the very New England North Adams, the installation converges on thematics of the sea, tourism, migration, race and poverty with a simply amazing suspended fishing boat and a 30-foot fish trap. We are indeed all lost at sea…

Nari Ward, Nu Colossus, 2011

In the academic enclave of Williamstown, WCMA holds one of the best art collections of any American college. Over the past year, they wisely reinstalled their encyclopedic collection, which is especially strong in contemporary art, under educational themes such as Art about Art, or how an artwork is made and commissioned. In a contemplative space, they’ve even set up a single object – currently Janine Antoni’s timely Deficit, 1991 - for a focused look in a new series called Room for Reflection. There are some wonderful gems of American art from mainstays like Grant Wood, Maurice Prendergast and Edward Hopper that are nicely abutted with contemporary international work. If only we could take the week! But sadly – we rushed back down Route 2 the very next day.

Janine Antoni, Deficit, 1991

‘Till next time-

Dina

Maineline

2011-04-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

Portland, Maine is one of those cities that looks like it fell out of snow globe – kind of spherical, yes, but it’s graced with beautiful water views, a killer culinary scene, and of course, great art. On a recent trip to visit a handful of excellent Mainer artists, the Biennial team stopped in at two very tucked away but smart exhibitions. One was in the silent study room at the University of Southern Maine’s Glickman Family Library (a challenge for a chatty viewer like myself). The Storytellers, curated by Henry Wolyniec, features 8 Maine artists who address the form and content of narrative objects. Highlights included Greta Bank’s (2010 deCordova Biennial Artist) Cashmere Roadkill, a remarkable fusion of Grecian urn painting via meticulous hand-stitched leather-work which comes together in a semi-human figure that signals both the grotesque and beautiful side of humanity. “The piece is the perfect metaphor, the abused flesh fashioned into a statement about abuse” notes Wolyniec. Other notables included Adriane Herman’s Plunder the Influence project that sets out to document people’s bookshelves. The “stacks” site is a must-visit procrastination tool for anyone with a slight hint of intellectual voyeurism in them.

Cashmere Roadkill, detail, by Greta Bank.

The next stop was Portland’s gem – Space – a well-rounded arts space that manages to balance films, music, theater, and fantastic visual art shows making it perhaps one of the strongest alternative art spaces in not only Maine but New England. While we caught the last days of Cannonball Press’s impressive display of fun, cheap prints-for-all, stop in later this month to see The Sketchbook Project, a mobile library of over 10,000 artists’ sketchbooks. Imagine that…

- Dina Deitsch

Colliding at RISD

2011-03-10T12:04:00.000-08:00

Collision Installation View

Last week Dina and I had a full day of visits in Rhode Island, one of the highlights being a stop at the RISD museum to see Collision, organized by curator Judith Tannenbaum and artist Jackie Saccoccio. The installation is an expansive, phantasmagoric cornucopia of visual delights, a result of an experimental exhibition-making concept. The seventeen invited visual artists submitted their work to an improvisational process in order to “break down physical limitations, encourage pairings and layering” and to explore ideas of “open-endedness.” This is a great example of new, smart collaborative projects and is a must-see if you’re in Rhode Island.

Collision Installation View

Abigail Ross Goodman

Co-Curator, 2012 Biennial

HYPERSLEEP

2011-03-01T06:22:00.000-08:00

The Montserrat College of Art Galleries’ alternative display space, Frame 301, is currently exhibiting Corey Corcoran’s installation HYPERSLEEP, which reveals a mysterious human figure stratified with turf, peat, and moss. Corcoran’s blooming structure calls attention to the awe of nature’s uncertainty while investigating its constant regeneration. Corcoran’s first 3D site-specific installation, HYPERSLEEP, engulfs Frame 301 with heaps of biomass, growth, and decay as a terrarium through creation. The window holds a cocooning figure saturated with earth, root systems, and endless unidentifiable matter. This obscure creation spans the entire length and depth of the window, enhancing every viewer’s looking experience.

Completely sculptural in nature, HYPERSLEEP refers to a science fiction term similar to hibernation when life processes are halted completely for some duration. It addresses the artist’s continuous ideas concerning the persistence of life, fluidity of time, and the simple strangeness of nature. Corey is a lending artist to deCordova’s Corporate Program where several of his 2D works have been installed at Corporate Member sites throughout Boston. HYPERSLEEP can be seen from February 7, 2011 through March 11, 2011 at 301 Cabot Street, Beverly, Massachusetts. Frame 301 is accesible to its viewers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

- Lydia Gordon

Corporate Program Assistant

Looping it up in Providence

2011-02-10T06:49:00.000-08:00

Holding the auspicious slot as the inaugural exhibiting artist, Julianne Swartz (deCordova, Fall 2012) opened up the new Cohen Gallery at Brown University with Loop on February 4^th. While I admittedly missed the Artist talk by greatly underestimating Boston-Providence Friday traffic, I did catch a glimpse of this beautiful and witty installation, curated by Jo-Ann Conklin and Natasha Khandekar.

Granoff Center

The Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts officially opened Thursday as Brown’s new interdisciplinary arts center. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, this striking, new tower is meant to encourage “faculty and students to create bold new directions for research, teaching, and production across the boundaries of individual arts disciplines and among artists, scientists, and scholars.” The beauty of this building is that its contents and uses (i.e. shows, courses, etc) will be juried by various committees each semester, allowing for unprecedented department collaboration across all fields. The building’s design reflects this blurring of boundaries with glass reveals between floors and walls that leave a visitor (well, this one at least) guessing exactly what floor she is on…

Julianne Swartz, Camera-Less-Video (2009): Stainless Steel, optical lenses, Plexiglas, hardware

Floor to Ceiling

Swartz’s work is a great first start for the new gallery space, as she is an artist who trades on the slippages in perception and space. The show includes three distinct works: Camera-Less-Video, that flips the view outdoors through a neat play of light and lenses; Floor to Ceiling, two thin metal rods suspended from the ceiling by magnetic force with a beautifully tense gap in between; and finally, the newest work Loop, a tapestry of wire and speakers that quietly and subtly whispers and hums. The result is magical, and the whispers of strangers add a quirky warmth to this shiny, stark building.

Julianne Swartz, Loop, 2011

Loop – on view until March 20^th.

- Dina Deitsch

Sculpture in New York

2011-02-01T06:34:00.000-08:00

In late January, 2011, I traveled to New York to attend the preview party and celebration for the exhibition Ursula von Rydingsvard: Sculpture 1991-2009 at the Sculpture Center in Long Island City, near P.S. 1. This show runs through March 28, and the will appear at deCordova as our major summer sculpture exhibition, May 28 – August 28. I was especially eager to see Ursula’s newest work, Elegantka, an illuminated outdoor resin sculpture. Elegantka was commissioned by an anonymous deCordova patron especially for inclusion in Ursula’s retrospective. It will travel with the show to deCordova (where it will be installed on our Roof Terrace), and then to the Museum of Contemporary Art Clevelandand the Frost Art Museum in Miami. In late 2012, Elegantka will return to deCordova as part of our Permanent Collection.

Elegantka, Ursula von Rydingsvard

Here’s a link to the New York Times review of the exhibition:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/arts/design/28sculpture.html?_r=1&ref=arts

While in New York I also took in several sculpture shows in Chelsea: Mika Tajima at Elizabeth Dee, Patrick Hill at Bortolami, Tony Smith at Matthew Marks, Tony Feher at Pace, Cornelia Parker at D’Amelio Terras, Ghada Amer at Cheim and Read, and a large group show at Marlborough Chelsea (including Ursula!).

Nick Capasso

Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs

Fashionably Loud

2011-01-13T06:25:00.000-08:00

Over 40 of Nick Cave’s famously fantastic Soundsuits (so named for the noises they make when worn and performed in) are on display in the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida in the exhibition Nick Cave: Meet Me in the Center of the Earth. Sequined, buttoned, crotched from doilies, or patched together from scavenged sweaters, socks, or human hair dyed in impossibly fluorescent colors, the Soundsuits are meticulously crafted by the artist who has been teaching fashion design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for nearly two decades. They are playful, showy, loud, and resemble fantastical Mardi Gras ensembles and elaborate African ceremonial costumes. Made to be worn and danced in, the suits were also accompanied by photographs of the artist wearing them as well as video clips of them in “action.” Definitely fun for all at the Norton.

- Lexi Lee Sullivan

Nick Cave, Soundsuits, mixed media, 2008-2009

Nick Cave, Soundsuits, mixed media, 2009-2009

Going West: Scottsdale and Phoenix, AZ, to hunt down keys; San Francisco and San Jose, CA, American History - now + then

2011-01-03T08:39:00.000-08:00

Jean Shin and Brian Ripel, Lost Vista, installation view, 2010. Courtesy of the artist.

For a short trip to research two exciting upcoming projects for 2012 – a solo exhibition of sculptor Julianne Swartz and a project by Jena Shin and Brian Ripel - I found myself gazing out over the mountains around Phoenix – both from my airplane seat and from the safety of the museum gallery.

The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) opened Jean Shin and Brian Ripel: Unlocking this fall, a smart mediation on the local landscape of Scottsdale, AZ – a city defined as much by its brown mountain range as by its notorious housing bubble and bust. In 2012, SMoCA and deCordova will join forces, with gust curator Rachael Aruaz, to produce the first major museum survey of the work of Julianne Swartz, in the exhibition Julianne Swartz: How Deep is Your. That same year, we will also be featuring a new project by Jean Shin and Brian Ripel.

(left) Gravity House, opened up. (center, right) Brent Green’s Installation (detail)

Another trip highlight was a visit to Arizona State University Art Museum where I saw Brent Green’s mesmerizing and heartbreaking installation Gravity was Everywhere Back Then. The film and large-scale installation of surreal rooms tells the true story of Leonard Wood, who built a house, room by marvelous room, in an attempt to save his wife Mary from a fatal cancer diagnosis. Wood continued to build the house even after Mary passed, in effect, as a built love letter to his late wife.

It was then on to San Francisco to visit the San Jose Museum of Art where they just celebrated the west-coast equivalent of the Boston Cyberarts Festival (!) the Zero-Festival. In honor of their comparable tech community (in that small thing called Silicon Vallery), the Museum organized two fantastic shows: a retrospective of the light-art Leo Villareal and vibrant, brilliantly-titled group show Retro-Tech.


Katya Bonnenfant, 2:57AM Onibaba Anguish from “Vintage Packaging for Animation,” 2009 Digital animation on iPod Touch, mounted in vintage clock

Leo Villareal – Installation as self-portraiture

And finally – what is any trip without a studio visit. This time it was to the illustrious Allison Smith – sculptor and American History buff – who was featured in The Old, Weird America exhibition, organized by the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, that came to deCordova in Summer 2009. Newly transplanted out west with her latest storefront project SMITHS, Allison was gracious enough to share her morning coffee with me and chat things old and American. We look forward to seeing her around these parts again soon!

- Dina Deitsch

SMITHS, Oakland, California

deCordova in the Middle

2010-12-28T08:20:00.000-08:00

The Midwest is full of amazing things – tornadoes, corn, karaoke, friendly people, and plenty of great sculpture. On a recent trip to visit fellow Sculpture Parks we had the pleasure of seeing the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s 100 Acres Sculpture Park. After weathering a tornado (yes we were ushered to the basement of the beautiful IMA along with their staff) we saw projects like Andrea Zittel’s floating Indianapolis Island – a livable structure and research hub and Los Carpinteros’s Free Basket that materializes the path of a bouncing basketball.

Next we flew to Missouri to check out Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis as well as Cedarhurst Sculpture Park in Southern Illinois (only an hour from STL). We were lucky enough to see the concrete being poured for Jessica Stockholder’s new piece at Laumeier – opening in February 2011 - and visit some all-time favorites like Dan Graham’s reflective pavilion, Triangular Bridge Over Water.

St. Louis was overflowing with fantastic sculpture, including this bronze (Bird) by Welsh artist Laura Ford in the newly constructed CityGarden in downtown St. Louis – complete with a great view of the famous Arch.

Our final Midwestern stop was Grand Rapids to see the Frederik Meijer Garden and Sculpture Park. They had a truly monumental exhibition of Dale Chihuly’s glass sculptures that were literally everywhere – on hills, in gardens, and in sinking boats. This exhibition was in addition to the permanent collection sculptures, and one among many highlights was Jaume Plensa’s I, You, She or He 3 figures made of stainless steel letters positioned in conversation with one another.

Our takeaway from this trip (aside from the fact that “Boot-Scootin’ Boogie” makes an excellent karaoke song) – if you like sculpture, the Midwest is a great place to visit.

- Lexi Lee Sullivan and Emily Silet

Nick's London Trip

2010-12-17T06:51:00.000-08:00

From November 29 - December 2, I was in London, meeting with British sculptors, galleries, and museums.

Nick Capasso

Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs

Here are some highlights:

Tuesday, November 29

I met with Claire Shea, Curator at the Cass Sculpture Foundation (formerly Sculpture at Goodwood), which exists to promote the work of contemporary British sculptors. Claire and I had lunch at the Tate Britain to discuss possible Cass/deCordova collaborations.

Claire Shea of the Cass Sculpture Foundation

Mina Salimi, Spell

Claire is standing with Mina Salimi’s sculpture Spell, sited on the parade ground at the Chelsea College of Art and Design. Salimi was the winner of the Cass Prize, an annual 10,000 pound award to a recent MFA graduate of the University of the Arts in London, a consortium of major visual art colleges. The sculpture is made of weatherproof industrial foam, and its forms are based on Persian calligraphy. Many of its parts can be adjusted by viewers.

At Tate Britain, I saw the 2010 Turner Prize show, along with artist Fiona Banner’s massive sculptures based on British fighter jets, the Tate’s 2010 Duveen Commission.

Later that afternoon I met with sculptor Laura Ford at her home and studio in Kentish Town. Sorry, no pictures. Laura will be having a major exhibition of her work next summer at the Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and represented Wales in the Venice Biennale in 2005.

Wednesday, November 30

James Clapper

After a visit with young British sculptor James Capper at his studio in Southwark, he took me to see his sculpture, Sea Light, which was floating on the Thames in front of the Tate Modern. Sea Light uses both wind and solar energy to power a battery that in turn electrically illuminates the sculpture at night. Capper is interested in the aesthetic and technological places where sculpture and engineering meet. Sea Light is part of Drift 10, an exhibition program of sculptures in and along the Thames sponsored by the Henry Moore Foundation.

Ai Weiwei, Sunflower Seeds (detail)

Later that morning, I visited Ai Weiwei’s installation Sunflower Seeds at the Tate Modern. Here, this prominent Chinese artist placed over one hundred million hand-made porcelain sunflower seeds on the floor of the Tate Modern’s massive Turbine Hall. According to Ai, this number is just five times the population of Beijing.

Ai Weiwei, Sunflower Seeds

During the afternoon and evening, I met with sculptor Gary Webb. Gary’s work is very well known in England and throughout Europe - recently the Tate acquired two of his major sculptures - but less so in the United States. I am organizing Gary’s first American solo museum exhibition for deCordova for the summer of 2012, with all new indoor and outdoor work that Gary will create especially for the show.

Gary Webb, Tom's Music

Here’s Gary at his London gallery, The Approach, in Bethnal Green, where he is currently showing new sculptures. Gary is standing with Tom’s Music.

Gary Webb, Miami Poo Pipe

Gary Webb’s Miami Poo Pipe. The surface colors of this sculpture gradually change, controlled by internal heating devices on timers.

Thursday, December 2

I spent the morning traipsing through the uncharacteristically cold, windy, and snowy Kensington Gardens, to see outdoor work by Anish Kapoor. This exhibition, Turning the World Upside Down, is sponsored by London’s Serpentine Gallery.

Anish Kapoor, Sky Mirror, Red, 2007

Anish Kapoor, Non-Object (Spire), 2007

In the far background is the spire of the late-19th century Albert Memorial.

Anish Kapoor, C-Curve, 2007

Whenever I travel abroad, I always try to find some time for a historical site. My visit to the Tower of London, begun in the 1080s by William the Conqueror, stood in stark contrast to several days spent with contemporary sculpture!

The Tower of London

Welcome

2010-12-09T13:25:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Art Happens, the blog of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA. Here you will be able to follow our staff as they travel across New England and beyond in search of new art and artists. You can also visit our website for information about exhibitions, events, and much more.

Our Northern Neighbors: Addison Gallery of American Art + Currier Museum of Art

2010-12-07T12:40:00.000-08:00

November 17, 2010

Curator Allison Kemmerer in a rare moment replacing the pen in Tristan Perich’s installation.

The curatorial department trekked just slightly up north to finally make our pilgrimage to the newly opened Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, MA. The Addison is one of the greatest resources for American Art not only in New England but in the country and, perhaps, the world. So how lucky are we to be just a 30-minute drive to this gem!

We were treated to a tour of their impressive and smartly-designed Sidney R. Knafel Wing by Centerbrook Architects, which houses the Museum Learning Center. Rather than expand their exhibition galleries, the museum thoughtfully added new space to work with school groups (of which they have more than the average museum, being part of Phillips Academy), store their ever-growing collection, and house an art library.

Sheila Hicks

In the Learning Center artist-in-residence Tristan Perich set up a mesmerizing machine drawing (above), which was a great lead into the museum’s current main attraction: Sheila Hicks: 50 Years, a much-overdue and beautifully installed retrospective of this prescient sculptor. But it’s the Addison’s re-hanging of their stellar permanent collection that is a must-see. Mixing iconic paintings by Winslow Homer with contemporaneous photography and a Jackson Pollock is simply an inspired move.

Our next stop was the Currier Museum of Art in beautiful Manchester, New Hampshire. Below is the eye-popping Sol LeWitt mural in the museum’s new wing. Now on view is a rare behind-the-scenes view of museum practice in the incredibly inventive show The Secret Life of Art: Mysteries of the Museum Revealed. We were thrilled by the dissected shipping crate and, yes, inspired by their blog! Just beyond the special exhibitions gallery, though, is another must-see – the Currier’s newest acquisition of Glenn Ligon’s painting, Invisible Man (Two Views), 1991. Be sure to squint to see Ligon’s own silhouette emerge from Ralph Ellison’s text.

(right) Glenn Ligon, Invisible Man (Two Views), 1991

And then, a bit of art from Nature herself – a double rainbow to lead us back to Boston!

What does it mean?

- Dina Deitsch

Farnsworth Art Museum, Center for Maine Contemporary Art

2010-11-16T12:31:00.000-08:00

Tracy Pollock visits the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine

On October 6th we took a trip up the Maine coast to visit Rockland, Maine. After a four-hour-long drive through the rain, we arrived at the Farnsworth Art Museum, a museum that focuses on Maine’s role in American art. The museum houses a large collection of work by Andrew Wyeth, Alex Katz, and Louise Nevelson – all artists that have ties to Maine.

We were particularly interested in viewing a sculpture by Portland-based artist Aaron Stephan that was part of the exhibition Four in Maine: Site Specific. His work, 30 Columns (2010), consists of thirty columns installed outside the museum. The columns are arranged in a snaking line through the lawn and emerge from the ground askew. The white columns, structures laden with historical connotations, are in dialogue with the Federalist buildings that surround them, yet also stand apart since they are not connected to any building, and have no structural function. Stephan often alters everyday items, like chairs and books, in order to create new ways of seeing and understanding these objects.

Our second stop was the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. On view was the exhibition Photographing Maine: Ten Years Later, which includes work by 150 artists, all created since 2000. This broad exhibition demonstrated the wide range of subject matter, techniques, and styles used by Maine photographers to capture elements of their surrounding environment.

Of course, a trip to Maine is not complete without sampling some of its famous lobster. We stopped in Wiscasset at Red’s Eats and filled up on fried food and lobster rolls. This little shack is famous for bringing the entire town to a halt during the busy summer months when hungry tourists wait for hours to get one of Red’s legendary lobster rolls!

- Tracy Pollock