April 2004		Vol.23 No.3
A publication of the International Sculpture Center

 
Itinerary

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Niki Hastings-McFall, Too Much Sushi VIII, from “Paradise Now?”

Asia Society
New York
Paradise Now? Contemporary Art from the Pacific
Through May 9, 2004

“Paradise Now?,” the first major presentation in the U.S. of contemporary art from New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, showcases 45 works by 15 leading artists from New Zealand, New Caledonia, Torres Strait Islands, Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji, and Niue. Since Magellan’s crossing of the Pacific in the 16th century, these islands have occupied a vivid place in historical imagination as “paradise” —an idea that still resonates today. The installations, sculptures, videos, paintings, and photographs in this show offer an alternative vision of the islands and their unique multi-culturalism, which is at odds with the idyllic stereotype. The artists in “Paradise Now?” address issues of migration and diaspora, indigenous land rights, cultural heritage, and environmental degradation.
Tel: 212.288.6400
Web site <asiasociety.org>

Bob Emser, Down the Runway

Elmhurst Art Museum
Elmhurst, Illinois
The Sculpture of Bob Emser
Through April 18, 2004

Inspired by the pioneering spirit of aviation and nautical history, Emser’s current body of work focuses on internal structure and how that structure is supported or rendered visible. The references to engineering serve as a metaphor for the artist’s life—Emser spent his early years building and playing with machines and model airplanes, then began his formal education by studying architecture, a field he found too restrictive. During his 25-year career, Emser has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows around the world. His growing reputation stems from his singular vision of wrapping space so that it defines both inside and out.
Tel: 630.834.0202
Web site <www.elmhurstartmuseum.org>

Ernesto Neto, in collaboration with the Fabric Workshop and Museum, The Garden

Fabric Workshop and Museum
Philadelphia
Ernesto Neto
Through May 29, 2004

Neto’s new collaborative work with the Fabric Workshop and Museum extends his earlier experiments with unconventional materials. By delicately carving giant blocks of industrial foam, he has created a cavernous and highly sensual environment of undulating walls and tactile topographies that beckons visitors into its interior. The enveloping shapes and inviting textures of this massive installation stand suspended between architectural and bodily space, creating a strong physical relationship with the viewer that must be experienced rather than merely seen.
Tel: 215.568.1111
Web site <www.fabricworkshopandmuseum.org>

Francesco Vezzoli, The 120 Seats of Sodom

Fondazione Prada
Milan
Francesco Vezzoli
Through May 16, 2004

Inspired by the Italian poet and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, Vezzoli’s Trilogy of Death pays tribute to the cinema, referencing the myths and icons of contemporary visual culture. The first half of the installation re-creates a ’60s movie theater where Vezzoli’s new film Non-Love Meetings—a play on Pasolini’s cinema verité Comizi d’Amore (Love Meetings)—will be screened continuously. The other half of the installation creates “the ghost of a movie theater,” using 120 Argyle chairs (designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and made infamous in the final scene of Pasolini’s last film, Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom). Vezzoli embroidered the seats with portraits of Pasolinian actors and actresses and faced the chairs toward a huge tapestry that recalls the screen that Pasolini used to end his movies.
Tel: +39 2 546 70 515
Web site <www.fondazioneprada.org>

Barbara Cooper, Folia

John Michael Kohler
Arts Center
Sheboygan, Wisconsin
Barbara Cooper: The Persistence of Growth
Through April 25, 2004

Illinois sculptor Barbara Cooper uses wood scraps from the furniture industry to form large-scale sculptures that re-create the incremental process of growth and reflect the passage of time. Cooper laboriously constructs her organic forms from small scraps of wood and uses the process by which trees mature as a metaphor for personal development. At the same time, through her use of remnant materials, she draws attention to the often wasteful and harmful aspects of “development.” Her works may embody the form of a tree, but “all are truncated at the top and bottom as a mirroring of how the industrial world has fragmented and isolated ecological support systems.”
Tel: 920.458.6144
Web site <www.jmkac.org>

Katonah Museum of Art
Katonah, New York
Sol LeWitt: Recent Work
Through April 25, 2004

In 1984, LeWitt described his artistic objectives: “I would like my work to be seen by many people…I would also like to create universal beauty. I would like to produce something I would not be ashamed to show Giotto.” This exhibition of mostly two-dimensional work also includes several maquettes for a new series of sculptures called “Domes.” These structures reflect the artist’s long stays in central Italy and bring to mind Brunelleschi’s cupola for Santa Maria del Fiore, an architectural feat that continues to dominate the skyline of Florence. When realized at full scale, LeWitt envisions these simple graceful forms as being constructed with glazed white brick.
Tel: 914.232.9555
Web site <www.katonahmuseum.org>

Philippe-Laurent Roland, The Death of Cato of Utic, from “Playing with Fire.”

Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York
Playing with Fire:
European Terracotta Models, 1740–1840
Through April 25, 2004


From quick preliminary sketches to finished models, approximately 130 terra-cotta works demonstrate the dash and erudition of Neoclassical sculptors from across Europe. The period saw unprecedented explorations of Greco-Roman antiquity, in which sculptors eagerly took part. The works are grouped thematically, emphasizing the preoccupations of artists at the time—self-portraiture, monuments to famous men, glimpses of arcadia, and the loves of the gods. The exhibition includes works by Canova, Dannecker, Roland, and Sergel.
Tel: 212.535.7710
Web site
<www.metmuseum.org>

Yayoi Kusama, Hi, Konnichiwa (Hello!)

Mori Art Museum
Tokyo
Kusamatrix
Through May 9, 2004

Yayoi Kusama first gained recognition in the ’60s by advocating social transformation through happenings, performances, and installations. She was soon in the forefront of Pop art and environmental installation, with soft sculptures and clothes featuring sexual and food-based imagery and installations featuring walls covered with rhythmical patterns. “Kusamatrix,” a new and complex series of environmental installations, offers a unique encounter with the development of her work. While walking through this art-autobiographical web, specially designed for the Mori by the artist, viewers are drawn into a complex fantasy world of polka dots, mirrors, and auditory hallucinations. The exhibition includes her signature installations from the ’60s, as well as videos and three-dimensional environments based on her recent drawings of fashionable young girls, which have never been shown before.
Tel: +81 3 5777 8600
Web site
<www.mori.art.museum>

New York Studio School
New York
Alain Kirili
Through April 24, 2004

This exhibition of eight sculptures and two series of drawings demonstrates the underlying tension between spontaneous process and universalizing expression that has been a constant in Kirili’s work since the ’70s. A remarkable range of moods and interests—from ancient Jewish art to jazz—comes across in this survey, which begins with a dynamic combination of terra cotta and steel from 1976 and ends with Plastinas (2003), a totemic forged iron sculpture made in a traditional blacksmith’s shop. Because Kirili’s collaborations with musicians, poets, and dancers have a become a key aspect of his work, this show will also feature a concert on April 13; the program includes the world premiere of a new work by composer Alvin Lucier directly inspired by Kirili’s sculpture Kirilics.
Tel: 212.673.6466
Web site <www.nyss.org>

Bryan Crockett, Pinkie, from “Mike Kelley: The Uncanny.”

Tate Liverpool
Liverpool
Mike Kelley: The Uncanny
Through May 3, 2004

Kelley, a Los Angeles-based sculptor, performer, and installation artist, began “The Uncanny” more than a decade ago. Taking his cue from Freud, Kelley explores memory, recollection, horror, and anxiety through the juxtaposition of a highly personal collection of objects and realist figurative sculpture. Ranging from ancient Egypt and China to the present day, the works all relate to the idea of the double—the disturbingly realistic representation of the human figure suspended between life and death. Contemporary artists include John de Andrea, Judy Fox, Tony Matelli, Ron Mueck, and Paul Thek. Kelley combines these works with anatomical models, wax figures, and animatronic puppets. The accompanying section, The Harems, consists of 16 groups of objects accumulated by Kelley throughout his lifetime—from marbles and squeeze toys to postcards, album covers, and church banners. Since he continues to add to the work, the exhibition is a work in progress, enacting the uncanny and its attendant compulsions rather than merely representing them.
Tel: +44 151 702 7400
Web site <www.tate.org.uk>

Constantin Brancusi, Muse

Tate Modern
London
Constantin Brancusi: The Essence of Things
Though May 23, 2004

Remarkably this is the first major U.K. exhibition devoted to Brancusi, whose innovative work introduced abstraction and primitivism into Western sculpture. The artist’s serenely simplified sculptures are widely acknowledged as icons of Modernism. His choice of materials, including marble and limestone, bronze and wood, and his individual expression through carving established him as a leading avant-garde figure and influence on later sculptors, from Barbara Hepworth to Carl Andre and Donald Judd. This exhibition of 40 works attempts to capture the essential character of Brancusi’s sculpture, concentrating on his choice of materials, themes, and series. Later this year (June 17–September 19), the show travels to the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Tel: +44 20 7887 8000
Web site <www.tate.org.uk>

Jin Soo Kim, roll—run—hit—run—roll—tick—

University Art Museum, University of California
Santa Barbara
Jin Soo Kim: roll—run—hit—run—roll—tick—
Through May 16, 2004

Kim’s installation of minimal sculptural objects and sound elements continues her exploration into the complex relationship of history, movement, travel, and time. The sounds of ticking clocks, breaking light bulbs, and clanging plates from railroad tracks reverberate through a series a black steel tunnels, reflecting on the transitory nature of contemporary life. In part an extension of Kim’s earlier installations at Northern Illinois University Art Museum, Dartmouth College, and Brown University, roll—run—hit—run—roll—tick— itself completes a geographical and experiential journey. The university venues are important for Kim, who wanted to show the work in sites that she considers transitional. Her tunnel becomes metaphors for change, growth, and passage.
Tel: 805.893.2951
Web site <www.uam.ucsb.edu>

Glenn Kaino, Desktop Operation: There’s no P-place like Home (10th Example of Rapid Dominance: Em City), from the 2004 Whitney Biennial

Whitney Museum of American Art
New York
2004 Whitney Biennial
Through May 30, 2004

Whitney curators Chrissie Iles, Shamim M. Momin, and Debra Singer have organized their selection of works by 108 artists and collaborative groups under the rubric of “An Intergenerational Conversation.” New works by Marina Abramovic, Yayoi Kusama, and Paul McCarthy, among others, are presented in dialogue with pieces by accomplished mid-career artists, including Sam Durant and Yukata Sone, and by emerging figures. The three major subsections—Looking Back, Other
Worlds, and Materiality and Process—shed light (perhaps inadvertently) on popular strategies to escape present-day reality. Whether artists turn to the culture and politics of the late ’60s and early ’70s, construct fantastic worlds tinged with the gothic and the apocalyptic, or immerse themselves in the obsessive minutiae of making, denial seems to be the theme. For the second time, the Whitney has partnered with the Public Art Fund to produce an off-site component of the Biennial, which includes a number of newly commissioned projects.
Tel: 1.800.WHITNEY
Web site <www.whitney.org>