Eighth International Biennial
The Dissolve
June 20, 2010 – January 2, 2011
Opening Weekend Events:
June 18-June 20, 2010
Sarah Lewis & Daniel Belasco, Curators
Adjaye Associates, Exhibition Designer
SITE Santa Fe
1606 Paseo de Peralta
Santa Fe,
New Mexico 87501
www.sitesantafe.org
www.thedissolve.net
Biennial Artists
Robert Breer, Paul Chan, Martha Colburn, Thomas Demand, Brent Green, George Griffin, Ezra Johnson, Bill T. Jones & OpenEnded Group, William Kentridge, Avish Khebrehzadeh, Laleh Khorramian, Maria Lassnig, Jennifer & Kevin McCoy, Joshua Mosley, Oscar Muñoz, Jacco Olivier, Raymond Pettibon, Robert Pruitt, Christine Rebet, Mary Reid Kelley, Robin Rhode, Hiraki Sawa, Berni Searle, Cindy Sherman, Federico Solmi, Kara Walker, with historical works by Edison Manufacturing Company, Fleischer Studios, Lotte Reiniger, and Dziga Vertov.
The artists gathered here, working in many mediums, from painting and sculpture to mixed-media installation, alchemically engage with historical models of moving-picture practices. This exhibition displays 26 works by 30 international contemporary artists juxtaposed with four historical animations dating back to the early twentieth century. It is presented through Adjaye Associates’ architectural interpretation of the diverse viewing environments of the last hundred years. The result is a visual experience seen through a deliberately bifocal lens, inspired by both contemporary aesthetics and the technical developments of the moving image.
The generative impetus to animate is behind the Biennial’s consideration of today’s compelling use of technology at the service of the personal touch. What does this new work tell us about technology and that renewable fount of the creative process, the human imagination? Is there another more urgent question behind this new approach? Perhaps it is the search for an authentic voice in the image overload of the Internet and the hand-held that has brought such artists back to an earlier day, when new technology asserted its challenge to the subjective experience of the body. Whatever the impulse, the result is that technology becomes not an end, but a means to more effectively foreground the primacy of the human imagination.
Funding
The exhibition is made possible in part through generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Burnett Foundation, Agnes Gund, Jeanne & Michael L. Klein, Toby Devan Lewis, Marlene Nathan Meyerson, The Millstream Fund, The Mondriaan Foundation, the SITE Santa Fe Board of Directors, and many other generous donors.
Opening Weekend Events: June 18 – 20, 2010
Opening weekend events include a Patrons’ Preview; the Gala Benefit Dinner; the 2010 Biennial Panel Discussion, moderated by Robert Storr, where curators Lewis and Belasco, exhibition designer David Adjaye, and participating artists Paul Chan, Mary Reid Kelley, and Kara Walker will discuss various perspectives on the exhibition; a special performance by Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company featuring a new commission in collaboration with OpenEnded Group at The Lensic Performing Arts Center, and The Abstract Dissolve, a video screening of related abstract animations, will conclude the weekend. A complete schedule of events and information is located at www.thedissolve.net
Agnes Gund, Honorary Chair
Jeanne & Michael L. Klein, Honorees
Fay & Donald Kirby, Wendy & Peter Trevisani, Gala Weekend Co-Chairs
For support and sponsorship opportunities, tickets & other information, please contact 505.989.1199 or visit www.sitesantafe.org.
Press Contact: Anne Wrinkle, wrinkle@sitesantafe.org tel. 505.989.1199.
