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“The Quiet Revolutionary”: Honoring Librarian Rosemary Furtak

Posted May 9, 2012 at 3:27 pm — Filed under:

Rosemary Furtak, 1986

Last week we celebrated a beloved colleague, Rosemary Furtak, who retired recently after a 29-year career at the Walker. Countless curators, scholars, writers, artists, designers, and others—both inside and outside the art center—have a special fondness for the Walker Library, which houses more than 35,000 publications in a wonderfully hushed, secluded underground space. This is thanks largely to Rosemary and the infectious enthusiasm she brought to her profession as a librarian–and, more to the point, to her role in establishing and building the library’s collection of some 1,600 artist’s books.

It was for her work in both of those capacities that she received a Distinguished Service Award from the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS) at its 2012 conference, held last March in Toronto. “In the early 1980s, Rosemary was among the few art museum librarians who recognized a fundamental difference between artists’ books and others, and who segregated them into special collections areas that would eventually become known as ‘Artists’ Book Collections’,” noted Janice Lea Lurie, head librarian at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, in presenting the award. “The idea that artists’ books are different, or as Rosemary stated, they are ‘books that refuse to behave like other books’, was a visionary step, as no well-defined precedents in the early 1980s existed for establishing artists’ book collections. Consequently, Rosemary was a pioneer in this area, which later became part of the “collection development” mainstream of the late 1980s and early ’90s.”

In their nomination letter, Lurie and a host of other ARLIS colleagues wrote of the ongoing impact of Rosemary’s “early and visionary leadership” not just in art museum librarianship, but also in the books arts community and “the strongly rooted ‘book-scene’ culture of the Twin Cities.” They cited her as both a “well-known local personality in the art, library, and book arts circles” and “a highly respected and beloved figure internationally”; and, finally, noting her “very quiet way” and “great modesty”—something that endeared her to so many—they proposed for her the title of “The Quiet Revolutionary.” More than 30 of Furtak’s fellow art librarians and other colleagues in book arts and museums supported the nomination.

Many of us at the Walker already miss Rosemary’s sharp insights and vast knowledge, not to mention her connoisseurship of chocolate and her sartorial flair (on any given day she could easily take the award for best-dressed Walker staffer). We will also sorely miss her miniature exhibitions of artists’ books, an ongoing series presented in a specially built display case right outside the library. Fortunately, all of these exhibitions dating back to 2005 have been documented in photos–click here to see the full collection on Flickr.

For more on Rosemary and the artists’ book collection – including 13 great examples of works—see this interview from 2008, conducted as she was co-curating the exhibition Text/Messages with Walker curator Siri Engberg; and her article, “Adventures in Collecting, originally published in Walker magazine.

Recent artist's book display, organized by Rosemary Furtak

 

 

 

 

Selections from John Waters’ Library

Posted April 13, 2012 at 2:29 pm — Filed under:

Filmmaker/author John Waters — who guest curated the Walker’s Absentee Landlord exhibition — was recently invited to San Francisco where he extended his curatorial prowess to a new Reading Shop in the city’s Mission district.

The shop is part of Kadist SF (counterpart to Kadist Art Foundation based in Paris, France)—a mixed-use 1,400 square foot nonprofit art space on the corner of Folsom and 20th. Since last March when Kadist SF opened it quickly became popular in the local art scene for its flexible, laid-back, and definitely riveting program of exhibitions, events, artist/art magazine residencies, and, notably its reading room. The room would open Saturdays 11 am to 5 pm, inviting visitors to come by and check out more than 100 international art magazines not often available elsewhere. The visibility of these imports brought the public nearer to critical dialogues on art happening from Vancouver to Tel Aviv, and for the most part pretty far beyond the main distribution channels of arts discourse.

This month, in response to the Reading Room’s steady increase of visitors, Kadist SF expanded it into the Reading Shop—a reading room/bookshop. It not only stocks art magazines but also highlights independent publishers, and invites notable cultural producers to curate selections from their personal libraries. Waters was the first guest. He was given free hand to compose a list that includes novels such as David Gates’ Jernigan and Patrick White’s Voss, Jean Genet’s biography by Edmund White, and several writings by Waters’ himself (some of which you’ll find in stock at the Walker Art Center shop, too). The books bring new insight into the ways in which fiction has influenced the filmmaker’s work.

I asked curator Devon Bella about the Reading Shop’s culture, content, and the prompt to invite Mr. Waters:

Brooke: What is the story behind the Kadist Shop? Why did it open, what’s stocked, who does it serve?

Devon: The Reading Shop launched on the premise, and expansion of, Kadist’s Reading Room. It is a hybrid of a store and a library. As a program, the Reading Shop loosely addresses the current state of publishing, but in the most expansive and speculative sense — by making available selected art books and international magazines, creating space for public use, and responding to interested readers. It borrows various conditions from bookstores and libraries, and expands on them in order to heighten the culture of art publishing locally.

The Shop comprises a rotating selection of magazines and books – two racks of international art periodicals, one shelf dedicated to publications from an independent art publisher, and a table full of books culled from a personal library. All of the magazines hanging on the racks for the past few weeks are far too many to mention (I only order one copy per magazine), but in collection they represent an expansive view of contemporary practices in art publishing internationally. They include: Pages (Rotterdam and Tehran), It’s Nice That (London), Picnic (Tel Aviv), No Order (Milan), Graphic (Seoul), Fillip (Vancouver). This season we also opened with a survey of J&L Books, a small art press founded in 2000 by artists Jason Fulford and Leanne Shapton, alongside the library of filmmaker and artist John Waters.

In San Francisco, there are very few resources to peruse art publications from other countries, with only a small handful of art distributors circulating magazines for the entire US. Yet during the last decade, English has informally become a trade language of the international art world, so dozens of magazines from Europe and Asia that once printed in their local language were made increasingly legible for US readers. All this to say, the Reading Shop is an endeavor to intensify local art discourse by making known, and disseminating artistic and cultural perspectives from other city centers, from Seoul to Tel Aviv to Rotterdam, because each magazine produces, and is produced within, a context, and the experience of browsing and discovery has so much potential for cross-pollination.

Brooke: Could you talk a bit about the titles? How are they selected?

Devon: For each title, I always like to explore the visual characteristics, the editorial voice, and its seriality. I’m interested in how a publication date is also punctuation of time, and for magazines, in particular, how they evolve, or dissolve, from one issue to the next. Some of my favorite magazines over the last five years are no longer in circulation, and I find this impermanence really thrilling in the case it germinates further titles and new networks of producers, writers, etc.

A couple of my favorite magazines are produced by artists with wildly different editorial approaches:

Toilet Paper (Milan) is a high-production, lo-brow, text-free magazine combining commercial photography with dream-like narratives directed by the artist Maurizio Cattelan and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari (Le Dictateur). It follows in the wake of Cattelan’s cult publication Permanent Food, with every issue produced under a provocative, hyperrealist theme. What really fascinates me about it though, is the online counterpart, where the absurd scenes one muses on in print are animated, and come alive for the screen. The magazine exists in a state of flux, in new space between print and the internet. Not to mention, even the fine print is curious, where one expects to find the typical names of contributors, editors, etc– TP credits include “stuntman,” “party boy,” and “ice cream whippers” (!!!)

Pages is a bilingual English and Farsi- magazine started in 2004 by artists Nasrin Tabatabai and Babak Afrassiabi, both Iranian-born conceptual artists based in the Netherlands. Pages publishes roughly twice-yearly with ruminations on Iranian art, culture, architecture, theater, history, and politics. It functions as a platform for dialogue between artists and writers from Iran and elsewhere, and in the process conveys a complex understanding of the region, a realm that remains primarily uncharted territory for mainstream media outlets.

Brooke: How does Selections from the Library of John Waters jibe with programming currently at Kadist (if it does)?

Devon: The library, as it operates within the context of the Reading Shop, is a lateral, programmatic shoot, with John’s library formalizing his various roles as a writer, filmmaker, artist, collector, and storyteller. Waters is the ultimate bibliophile, and I wanted to show the books he has read over a lifetime; it is an elaborate index of pulp, subversion, and bravura, where the substance of each title and the life of John Waters are intricately woven together, inhabiting a reflective, interior space of John himself. In comparison, I wonder if his exhibition at the Walker now also inhabits this kind of space, as it uses the very same formula.

…

In a way, yes. In the Walker’s parallel gesture of inviting Waters’ private art collection and his own artistic work to be thoughtfully positioned in public space, there’s this intimate look into the construction of a consciousness (some sliver of it). Inevitably the checklist and layout lends insight to Waters’ influences, affections, politics, and jokes. But while the exhibition may expose, somewhat indexically too, this interior mind space, I think there’s a lot of intrigue in the way curating becomes a provocative art form for Waters.

“Can artwork sexually attract each other?  Does minimalism make pop horny?  Does pornography elevated to high art lose its erotic power?  Does size matter or can a tiny joke compete with a maximalist icon?  Can art ever be “funny” without losing academic enthusiasm?  Would Fischli/Weiss and Roman Signer fight over who’s more droll?  More Swiss? And even more importantly, if all these works had to live together would Carl Andre ever be able to laugh?” – John Waters



The exhibition is imbued with his filmic language and contemporary art world critique. Walking through the galleries, you do find yourself, like Devon said, in this new fantastic context where John Waters the filmmaker, the writer, the artist, the collector, and the storyteller intersect. I’d like to know more of the visitors’ perception of what it was like to come to the Walker and experience this artist/curator sensibility. It’s so important to grant space for artists’ curatorial expressions, especially as the notion of curator is so radically changing, and it’s totally wonderful that Kadist SF is doing that.

Scavenger Fun with Lifelike’s “Fixture” Artworks (and Yes, There’s a Prize)

Posted at 12:08 pm — Filed under:
“Fixture: Model 12Y85,” by David Lefkowitz

Real life ranges far and wide and happens in unexpected places — so too with the Lifelike exhibition, which includes a number of artworks placed outside the Walker’s galleries, Jonathan Seliger’s milk carton and Robert Therrien’s table-and-chair set being two outsized examples. However, the “fixture model” paintings by David Lefkowitz and ashtray sculptures by Ruben Nusz are not so immediately apparent; not only are these two series of artworks life-sized, but they’ve been distributed throughout the Walker in various nooks and crannies and other unobtrusive places. A natural set-up for a scavenger hunt, yes?

First up is the hunt for Lefkowtiz’s diminutive oil paintings, partly because the artist is giving a free gallery talk  here next Thursday, April 19. Altogether, he installed 21 of these trompe l’oeil works depicting electrical outlets, thermostats, control panels, and other electrical wall fixtures, but we opted to go easy with this first round of clues, below: six of the seven are for the “fixtures”  in the Lifelike galleries. See the FAQ below for details, and watch for the ashtray hunt in early May!

1. One of the works in Lifelike features a somewhat gloomy setting—you could shed some light on it with a lamp “plugged in” to the nearby Fixture: Model #0 1???.

2. Fixture: Model #12S41 appears to be grimy, but it’s nowhere near as gross as the evolving fruit on display above it.

3. A large swath of species from the agaricales: agaricus order directs the eye up and over to Fixture: Model #91SM1.

4. It’s hard to tell, but a woman seems to find Fixture: Model #12RY8 more interesting than her offspring.

5. If you were to plug a toaster into Fixture: Model #12F72, a nearby work has something that could make use of it.

6. Could Fixture: Model #12KT7 be an emergency control panel for the adjacent artwork?

7. Fixture: Model #12PS1 is well-camouflaged by real-life counterparts in the Cargill Lounge.


SCAVENGER HUNT FAQ

WHAT is the the prize?
A $25 gift card for the Walker Shop.

WHO’s eligible to win?
Those who correctly locate all seven artworks will be entered in a drawing.

HOW do I enter?
Write a detailed description of the location for each artwork, or send photos that either identify the individual pieces or show their location.

WHERE do I send my entry?
Email it to chyna.bounds@walkerart.org or tweet it to @walkerartcenter with hashtag #lifelike.

WHEN? By Friday, April 27.

 

From the Archives: Jud Nelson’s Hefty 2-Ply

Posted April 5, 2012 at 3:11 pm — Filed under:

On view through May 27 as a part of Lifelike, the 1,500-pound Hefty 2-Ply made quite a splash when it first landed at the Walker in 1981. 

"Hefty 2-Ply" on view as part of "Lifelike" (with Rudolph Stingel’s oil painting "Untitled (after Sam)," from 2006.

The Walker commissioned Jud Nelson in 1979 to make a piece for its permanent collection; it took nearly two years to carve it from marble. Known for his depictions of everyday items — Shirts IV: Van Heusen and Chair are also part of the Walker collection – the artist opted to make a garbage bag bursting with familiar throwaways from the latter half of the 20th century.

Nelson at work on "Hefty 2-ply" in his New York Studio, 1980.

He started by roughing out its form from Italian Carrera marble, using a hammer and chisel, then refined the piece with rotary grinders and finished the details with dental drills fitted with diamond bits. Several items, including products from Coca-Cola, General Electric, and Kitty Klean, date the sculpture to a distinct period and are all identifiable — by the artist, at least — within its bulges and wrinkles.

The artist installing his work in July, 1981.

Nelson, an alumnus of Bethel College and the University of Minnesota, was on hand to install Hefty 2-Ply in Gallery 7 (now the Medtronic Gallery), and the sculpture was unveiled in a special ceremony as part of the Walker’s 10th  anniversary celebration of its Barnes building on July 12, 1981.

Cartoon from the "Minneapolis Star," July 16, 1981

More than 12,000 people showed up for the festivities — some 8,000 more than were anticipated – and Hefty 2-Ply‘s debut stirred up further press and interest, such as this cartoon from the Minneapolis Star.

At the Walker's 10th anniversary celebration

As with so many of the painstaking replicas in Lifelike, the realism of Hefty 2-Ply has a special kind of allure. And while it’s tempting to touch – alas, the the usual museum rules apply to this favorite Walker artwork. 

 

 

International Women’s Day: Leading Ladies in the Walker’s Collection

Posted March 8, 2012 at 6:19 pm — Filed under:

With registrar Joe King and registration technician Evan Reiter we took a trip to art storage to see the first 5 works by women to enter the Walker’s collection.

"Still Life" (1945) by June Corwine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

June Corwine
Still Life (1945)
Oil on canvas
Accessioned May, 1946


Joe King, the Walker's Registrar, with "Rose Planes" (1945) by Irene Rice Pereira.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Irene Rice Pereira
Rose Planes (1945)
Oil on parchment
Accessioned September, 1946


Evan Reiter, the Walker's Registration Technician, with "Rocking Chair Gossips" (1945) by Clara Mairs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clara Mairs
Rocking Chair Gossips (1945)
Oil on composition board
Accessioned December, 1947


"The Door" (1947) by Evelyn Raymond.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Evelyn Raymond
The Door (1947)
Mahogany
February, 1948

 

"Der Tod im Wasser" (20th century) by Käthe Kollwitz.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Käthe Kollwitz
Der Tod im Wasser (Death from Drowning) (20th century)
lithograph on paper
Accessioned December, 1949

About That F#@%ing Frank Gaard T-Shirt…

Posted March 6, 2012 at 11:37 am — Filed under:

Frank Gaard, "I Love the Fucking Walker," 2005. Collection Philippe Vergne and Sylvia Chivaratanond

One day in early 2005, I spotted Frank Gaard getting off the bus on Hennepin Avenue. Toting a pink-painted plank under his arm, he was headed my way, to the temporary offices Walker staff was occupying during construction of the new expansion. We greeted, and he showed me what he had: a going-away present for Philippe Verne, then senior curator and Visual Arts department head. It was a sign that read, “I love the Fucking Walker.”

Vergne, who is now director of the Dia Art Foundation in New York, had invited Gaard to participate in a billboard project on Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis; Gaard’s work was part of a series that included pieces by Matthew Barney, Takashi Murakami, Yoko Ono, and Laylah Ali.

In an email, Vergne says Gaard submitted the original art for the project, but the billboard company rejected it. He jokes:

The billboard company did not want to print it and install it because of the word “love.” They thought the word was offensive and might shock young sensibilities. As we all know, love is a dangerous, uncontrollable emotion that leads people to behave in ways that might disrupt social order.

It smells too, at times.

But Gaard says the piece wasn’t his submission for the billboard project. Vergne, he remembers, was set to leave to head up an art center in Italy (it ultimately fell through, and he returned as chief curator), and Gaard wanted to present him with a parting gift. Painted on a “a piece of wood [he] found in a dumpster,” Gaard says it was “inspired by Philippe’s ability to see the Walker both ways, as an impediment and as a thing that can provide solace to people.”

While the piece isn’t in the Walker’s current Gaard show, it is in the Shop, reproduced on t-shirts:

Gaard says Vergne wanted to have the artwork appear on shirts years ago, but it wasn’t to be. “I think I signed a permission slip,” Gaard remembers. But now that they’re made, what’s Vergne’s response?

He emails: “I love this Fucking T-shirt.”

Frank Gaard: Poison & Candy is on view through May 6, 2012.

CAA in LA: Notes

Posted March 1, 2012 at 5:07 pm — Filed under:

“A few people have donated their bodies to the project to be eaten by mushrooms.” – Jae Rhim Lee, visual artist/designer/researcher.

The College Art Association celebrated its 100th year with more than 5,000 people gathered in downtown LA last Wednesday through Saturday for “the world’s best attended international art conference.”  The city’s convention center buzzed with art talk, escalators, iPads, coffee shakes — most of our energy was sustained by the one Starbucks in a mile perimeter — and some stir-craziness at being in sunny 750 Los Angeles where the sessions better be good to keep us (notably the snowbirds) from hitting the beach.

Martin Kersels gets the audience to participate in his presentation for "Performance Evaluations."

Pablo Helguera cuts the lights for his talk in “Live Forever: Performance Art in the Changing Museum Culture.”

That they were. One of the most exciting reasons to go to the CAA conference is for the new research and artist projects presented (several of which were beamed in by Skype this year). With topics including “Artists in Times of War and Revolution,” “Performance Evaluations,” “Information Visualization as a Research Method in Art History,” and “Mobile Spectatorship in Video/Film Installations,” the discussions and papers brought new insight to some of the programs and initiatives at the Walker involving crossing borders, performing arts/visual arts, online publishing, and audience engagement.

Some artist and curatorial work I’m still thinking about:

Supply Lines: Visions of Global Resource Circulation (2011-2012).  An in-depth research project—exhibition and multimedia web platform—that investigates socio-spatial influences impacting perception and control of natural resources. It was initiated by artist/theorist/curator, Ursula Biemann, and the work is produced by artists, geographers, architects, and art historians from numerous cities throughout the world from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, to Eugene, Oregon. Emily Eliza Scott, a scholar and artist currently at Zurich University of the Arts involved as part of the Concept Group for Supply Lines, presented the project in the CAA session, “Investigatory Art 1969–2010: Technological Innovation, Sociability, and Immediate Experience.” Scott cited several inquiries underway. She pointed to photojournalist Uwe Martin’s study of the private sector’s response to the global food crisis by his looking at massive land grabs in the western lowlands of Ethiopia for foreign agricultural investment. And to architect Paulo Tavares’ interest in the geopolitics of frontier zones, particularly in resource extraction infrastructures pillaging the upstream lands of the Amazon Basin. Supply Lines is an amazing example of a collaborative, interdisciplinary, wide-reaching project that will use the web as a research hub in tandem with an exhibition. It is expected to launch in early 2013.

Another Life: The Digitised Personal Archive of Geeta Kapur and Vivan Sundaram. A project led by Asia Art Archive’s researcher, Sabih Ahmad, and presented by him in the CAA session, “Internationalizing the Field: A Discussion of Global Networks for Art Historians.” The archive documents contemporary Indian art since the 1960s through the extensive collections of Delhi-based Geeta Kapur, an art critic and curator, and Vivan Sundaram, one of India’s biggest installation artists.  Like many of Asia Art Archive’s recognized projects to document and make accessible research on contemporary Asian art, this digitized collection will provide the public with much material on India’s art scene that would otherwise never be seen—including artwork, writings, lectures, sketches, slides, exhibition catalogues, newspaper clippings. Kapur kept an unpublished manuscript on painter Tyeb Mehta, and saved her correspondence on curated shows. Sundaram filed concept notes of events he organized. And both have hundreds of images of works by artist friends, exhibitions they went to, and photographs of the Indian art community. AAA’s so far digitized nearly 10,000 items/documents/images. In contrast to “the national art history”—knowledge channeled through art historical frameworks constructed by major national institutions, Ahmad emphasized the alternative, or “vernacular” art histories that exist in these personal archives. And that Kapur and Sundaram are known for “paving the way for discursive shifts in Indian art practice” makes this an invaluable and much anticipated resource that I can’t wait to check out.

Asia Art Archive’s research project, "Another Life: The Digitised Personal Archive of Geeta Kapur and Vivan Sundaram." Quantitative summary of project inventory.

Jae Rhim Lee’s Infinity Burial Project (2009-present).  This one was the most far out of artist projects (and presenter papers) I encountered. Working at the intersection at art, science, and culture, Lee, interested in the environment and the impact our toxic dead bodies have on it, invented this burial suit embedded with edible “infinity” mushrooms that would eat the corpse, and transform it into compostable material.  The artist’s proposal was a focus of Abou Farman’s presentation in the CAA Session, “Live Forever: Performance Art in the Changing Museum Culture.” Farman, speaking about artists whose selves (not just their work) completely embody the artistic concept of impermanence or immortality, asked, “Where is today’s afterlife art? … Whatever happened to the afterlife as a public artistic medium?” He situates his interest in post-secular aesthetics in artist works, and artists themselves, pushing the question of how such performative work figures into the logic and structure of art institutions. The Walker recently took up a similar issue with its acquisition of Dahn Vo’s Tombstone for Phùng Vo (2010) that will be installed in the Sculpture Garden until the artist’s father dies and the stone is then shipped to his grave site in Denmark.

Jae Rhin Lee in her Infinity Burial Suit.

OtherIS. This online video database, curatorial platform, and news digest brings visibility to artists from U.S. sanctioned countries: Belarus, Burma, Cote d’Ivoire, Congo, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe. It was presented by curator Sandra Skurvida in the session, “Artists in Times of War and Revolution” organized by the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey. Skurvida, insisting on the exemption of art exchanges from economic sanctions, discussed two OtherIs exhibitions/screenings she was involved with last year. TV/Dinner, a series of videos by artists working in the above-mentioned countries, launched at Tania Bruguera’s Immigrant Movement International (Queens, NY) and was then screened in NYC cafes and restaurants that served food from these places. For Iran via Video Current which opened at Thomas Erben Gallery (NY), New York-based Skurvida worked with Tehran-based curator Amirali Ghasemi to each program a selection of videos focusing on Iran, and through the process posed the issue of representation in transnational art production by critically considering the ways in which their projects intersected and diverged.

Sohrab Kashani’s The Adventures of SuperSohrab, 2011. On OtherIS.

OMNI-ZonaFranca.  A Cuban artist collective committed to engaging with communities in Havana through their work in performance, installation, sound, and poetry.  They founded the National Rap Festival, a recurring poetry marathon—Poesia Sin Fin, and a “cosmic-lab” where they regularly meet to collaborate with other artists and activists. They’ve held weekly community nights where action poetry becomes a mechanism of healing, showed each others work in local art spaces, and have set up public interventions amidst people waiting in long lines at public places like bus stops and markets. Founded in the nineties, OMNI-ZonaFranca is one of the few groups in Cuba that have been able to sustain an artistic practice for so long, smartly navigating the law against what the state refers to as “social dangerousness.” In Coco Fusco’s wrap-up for the CAA session, “Breaking Laws in the Name of Art: New Perspectives on Contemporary Latin American Art,” she showed slides listing the kinds of art Cuba accepts and does not accept (for example, does: “evidence of material hardship in order to celebrate the ingenuity of Cubans in face of adversity,” and does not: “critiques of the internal security apparatus”).  Despite the restrictions and arrests the OMNI group has dealt with, they continue to take risks with their work. Look forward to knowing more about them.

The experience of artists, art historians, curators, and graduate students coming together to share their work and ideas with each other, and exchange discussion in a critical space outside of our usual contexts (university, museum, gallery, media lab, or elsewhere), is certainly worth the yearly trip. Though I completely crashed on Sunday. For next time: nix the high heels, bring an insulated coffee container, and with the many super compelling presentations to choose from it’s essential to subdue that frantic tension between thoughts of “I’m constantly missing out” and “this could get really good” in order to get anything out of it. And to lay off Twitter to avoid being tempted by updates like “Someone is blasting Joan Jett’s ‘I love Rock and Roll’ in the next session room.”#CAA2012.

Harry Cooper tributes Rosalind Krauss in "The Theoretical Turn."

Documenting the Drops: Part 1

Posted at 11:11 am — Filed under:

This past week, the McGuire Theater has been occupied with the unpacking, photographing, and re-rolling of many of the Cunningham backdrops.  The drops came to the Walker folded down and packed in portable touring -friendly hampers and bags (imagine a large sleeping bag in a small scrunch sack).  But now that they are here to stay, they are being rolled flat on long cardboard cylinders, to eliminate creases and stabilize their condition. Although we have already hung several of the drops in theater in preparation for the exhibition Dance Works I: Merce Cunningham / Robert Rauschenberg, this is the first time that any of the drops are being formally photographed by the Walker’s photographers Gene Pittman and Cameron Wittig. 

The Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s Production Director Davison Scandrett has also been on site, documenting some of the drops and other set pieces for the company’s dance capsules.  The Merce Cunningham Trust’s dance capsules will facilitate the licensing and recreation of some of Merce Cunningham’s existing dances, so that even though the company has disbanded, educational institutions and other dance companies can still present Merce’s work. 

The artists represented in this first batch of backdrop photos include Jasper Johns, Afrika, and Marsha Skinner.  The photographers also documented drops by William Anastasi and Robert Rauschenberg, which will be featured in another upcoming post.  

MCDC Production Director Davison Scandrett pulling the Exchange (1978) drop out of the bag. Photo: Abigail Sebaly

 

The unfurling of the Exchange drop, designed by Jasper Johns. Photo: Abigail Sebaly

 

Davison with WAC Registrar Joe King, in front of the Exchange drop. Photo: Abigail Sebaly

 

The backdrop for August Pace (1989), designed by Afrika (Sergei Bugaev). Photo: Abigail Sebaly

 

The August Pace drop coming down. Photo: Abigail Sebaly

 

Photo: Abigail Sebaly

 

Backdrop for Change of Address (1992), designed by Marsha Skinner. Photo: Abigail Sebaly

 

Joe King helping the WAC photographers set up their shots. Photo: Abigail Sebaly

 

St. Vincent Video Takes Inspiration from Ron Mueck

Posted at 10:17 am — Filed under:


The newest video by St. Vincent, who performed here in October, has a distinctly Walker vibe. Set in a white-walled gallery, singer Annie Clark is presented as a gigantic and uncannily realistic sculpture, one the video’s director, Hiro Murai, says is inspired by the work of Ron Mueck, whose Crouching Boy in Mirror is in our Lifelike exhibition. Pitchfork caught up with Murai and asked about the link to Mueck and about why he set the video in a gallery:

Pitchfork: Were you inspired by the artist Ron Mueck?

HM: Yes! People have a natural tendency to read emotions out of faces, so when you see a face that is hyperreal but without the life behind the eyes, it’s really off-putting and intriguing. Mueck’s sculptures are amazing, but the weirdest part was how all these people were huddling around and looking at them. It created this weird dynamic: The sculptures are three or four times bigger than everyone else in the room, and they feel like they have a lot of power, and yet they’re always vulnerable-looking. It felt very voyeuristic and weird.

Pitchfork: Is there something about the gallery context you wanted to translate?

HM: I love museums, but I always thought there was something funny about a group of strangers silently staring at works of inanimate objects together. Each person is having a very personal and maybe even emotional experience, but it’s in the confines of an extremely quiet and sterile room. From a visual standpoint, I liked the idea of setting a video in a space that was like a blank slate.

Pitchfork: What’s the role of the onlookers in the gallery?

HM: I like the idea of reading into people’s faces when they’re not emoting. Some people are fascinated, some are sympathizing. We had some amazing faces in that video. The narrative of the video was about setting up this oppressive dynamic between her and the audience.

Watch “Cheerleader” by St. Vincent:

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