Opening this Saturday at Los Angeles’ Regen Projects is an exhibition by Season 1 artist Matthew Barney, featuring drawings from his latest work, Guardian of the Veil, as well as photographs from his earlier work Cremaster 3, establishing a point of departure from his Cremaster Cycle.
In the performance Guardian of the Veil (from “Il Tempo del Postino,” reported here back in July), Barney used remnants from the Cremaster Cycle combined with a new narrative based on elements from Norman Mailer’s novel, Ancient Evenings. In the Guardian of the Veil, the narrative follows a protagonist who died in a fire and begins his journey through the seven stages of death toward eternal afterlife. This examination of eternal life is in opposition to the trajectory of the Cremaster Cycle. The latter examines and follows a developing life from its inception to its inevitable end and the conflict presented in Guardian of the Veil is thereby set.
Drawn on black paper using graphite and petroleum jelly, the drawings from Guardian of the Veil convey Barney’s inimitable, almost surrealistic hand. As a vehicle for the narrative, the fantastical and exuberant drawings function as a story-telling device. In one drawing, a decorated bull is seen mounting a Chrysler Imperial car buried in an Egyptian pyramid, seemingly its final resting place. Pictorially conflicting imagery of eternal life after death and the creation of life leading to its ultimate demise is apparent and at odds.
An opening reception for Matthew Barney will take place this Saturday, December 15th, from 6 to 8pm. The exhibition is on view until January 20, 2008.
On view at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Sydney, Australia are two major exhibitions by Art21-featured artists: Shahzia Sikander and Tim Hawkinson. In conjunction with both of these shows, Art21 video profiles on each of these artists are running on a loop in the museum’s Resource Room.
Shahzia Sikander opened last month at the MCA and includes a major site-specific work which the artist created directly on the gallery wall.
Sikander’s work is characterised by its precision of line and delicacy of touch: from tightly structured miniature paintings to larger, more loosely formed watercolours in which pigments stain and bleed into one another. Historical tradition meets contemporary interpretation, incorporating both figurative and abstract elements. Since 2001, Sikander hasalso worked with digital animation, setting her miniatures into physical motion. Images break apart and reform in new hybrid permutations, while sound adds a further dimension.
Sikander was recently granted the prestigious MacArthur Award last year. She was recognised by the MacArthur Foundation for “merging the traditional South Asian art of miniature painting with contemporary forms and styles to create visually compelling, resonant works on multiple scales and in a dazzling array of media.”
Shahzia Sikander is on view at the MCA until February 17, 2008.
Yesterday, Art21 featured artist Tim Hawkinson (Season 2) opened his first Australian exhibition, Mapping The Marvelous, at the MCA.
Hawkinson has received widespread recognition for his ingenious constructions of everyday objects, often large-scale kinetic and sound-producing works, whose intricate and playful constructions engage with the human body and portraiture, incorporating mechanical components and materials such as latex, plastic, cardboard and string.
Showcased works are sculptures, photo collages and drawings from the mid 1990s to the present, all of which refer to the obsessive human need for order and containment, using maps and charts, volumes and measurements to document the world in all its excess.
The exhibition introduces Hawkinson’s extraordinary new creations—among them a bat created from shredded black plastic bags and twistie ties—as well as inflatable self-portraits, monstrous beings and fantastical structures that chatter, whistle, rotate and spin.
Mapping the Marvelous is on view through March 5, 2008.
Beautiful Losers, the new film about contemporary art and urban creative culture—primarily springing from an East- (NYC) and West-coast (San Francisco/LA) do-it-yourself ethos—that follows the book and exhibition by the same name, will hit theaters in Spring 2008. The film showcases a roster of artists whose work, inspired by the subcultures of skateboarding, surf, punk, hiphop, and graffiti, brought them together from the early 1990’s on. It also features exclusive footage of Margaret Kilgallen and Barry McGee shot by Art21. Other artists profiled in the documentary include Ed Templeton, Jo Jackson, Chris Johanson, Geoff McFetridge, Mike Mills, Steve Powers, Harmony Korine, Shepherd Fairey, and more.
Watch the trailer here.