The traveling exhibition Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art makes its way to the Joseloff Gallery at the Hartford Art School from April 4 – June 10. Eighteen artists and collectives are represented, including Allora and Calzadilla (Season 4) and Andrea Zittel (Season 1).
From the official press release:
Balancing environmental, social, economic, and aesthetic concerns, sustainable design has the potential to transform everyday life and is reshaping the fields of architecture and product design. Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art explores the influence of this design philosophy on artists who combine a fresh aesthetic sensibility with a constructively criticalapproach to the production, dissemination, and display of art. The exhibition includes existing works, commissions, and previously presented work that has been “recycled,” spotlighting ways in which artists are building paths to new forms of practice. Many of the artists work collaboratively and leaven serious social aims with playful, off-the-grid spark, updating the Bauhaus notion of form following function or more recent Beuysian social sculpture. Their approaches range from the metaphorical to the pragmatic, sometimes serving as models for audience activism.
An extensive, accompanying catalogue is also available, with artists’ texts, interviews, and a podcast. For gallery hours and further information, please visit the Hartford Art School website.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008, is the last day to apply for participation in Task, a recurrent performance by Season 3 artist Oliver Herring. This iteration is organized by the Frye Art Museum, the Tacoma Art Museum, On the Boards, and the Seattle Public Central Library where the performance will be held on Saturday, June 28, 2008. Herring will select 35 applicants of various ages, professions and backgrounds for this day-long interactive. Visit the Frye Museum website to download an application. Selected applicants will be notified by the Frye no later than May 1.
Herring has staged Task at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (2006); Plaza de Toros in Santa Cruz de Tenerife (2003), the Former Federal Security Bank in Lake Worth, Fla. (2003); L’Ecole Supérieur National des Beaux Arts, Paris (2002); and theMasonic Temple at the Great Eastern Hotel, London (2003). The Seattle Public Library performance will be the first staged indoors, and involving multiple organizations. The Hirshhorn Museum continues to offer a podcast of their 60 participants discussing the experience.
Herring recently performed Task at the University of Maryland where he is the Spring 2008 Artist-in-Residence in the Department of Art. His residency will conclude on Wednesday, April 2nd with a public performance that coincides with the opening of a video installation titled Basic, a new component of an ongoing series by the same title. A series of playful videos that are the product of collaborations between the artist and strangers, Basic is on display at the University Art Gallery from April 2-26, 2008.
Another guest blogger, Kat Parker, posted on March 12th, 2008 about this show so I wanted to let you know about a great opportunity to learn more about Gordon Matta-Clark and his work. MCA Curator Lynne Warren will lead a tour through the exhibition and discusses his work and process on April 1st at noon.
On view at the museum is a first full-scale retrospective in 20 years of the work of Gordon Matta-Clark, organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art and curated by Whitney curator Elisabeth Sussman.
As their press release states, “This retrospective celebrates the brilliance and radical nature of his work in various media: sculptural objects (most, notably, from building cuts), drawings, films, photographs, notebooks, and documentary materials. The Chicago presentation features additional never-before-displayed archival material from this project. The MCA presentation is coordinated by MCA Curator Lynne Warren.”
Gordon Matta-Clark is one of the original founders of White Columns – where I was lucky enough to be part of for many years. Gordon Matta-Clark: “You Are the Measure” is on view Through May 4, 2008.