New Works: 05.2: Jorge Macchi, Hills Snyder, Anton Vidokle
ARTPACE SAN ANTONIO
LEFT: Hills Snyder CENTER: Jorge Macchi RIGHT: Anton Vidokle.
Artpace San Antonio announces the opening of new projects by 05.2 resident artists Jorge Macchi (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Hills Snyder (Helotes, TX), and Anton Vidokle (New York, NY), selected by guest curator Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, Curator, Latin American Art, Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, TX. For New Works: 05.2, Pérez-Barreiro has selected a group of artists whose works alternately address the poetic possibilities of the everyday (Jorge Macchi), the architectural echoes of failed utopian ideals (Anton Vidokle), and the labyrinthine nature of life (Hills Snyder).
The completion of new works was celebrated at the Artists Dialogue and Opening Reception, Thursday, July 7, 6:00-8:30pm. New Works: 05.2 is on view through September 11, 2005.
About the Artists
Multi-media artist Jorge Macchi presents a video installation and two print projects that explore the interdependence of verbal, visual, and sonic narratives. These works employ a formal language that oscillates between dynamism and stillness, progression and perpetuity. The Ends, a five channel video piece, investigates musical compositions arranged by chance. Macchis print works explore the contradiction of simultaneous stillness and movement. His Ten Drops flipbook simulates the ever-widening concentric circles of drops falling on the surface of water. In The Ascension, a book resembling sheet music devoid of notes, Macchi plays with the possibilities of movement and sound represented in two dimensions.
Hills Snyders work often requires intellectual investment and sometimes compels psychological surrender. Visitors must check their preconceptions at the gallery door to uncover multiple layers of meaning concealed within the spaces, objects, images and texts that comprise Book of the Dead. This installation envelops viewers in an uncanny experience of wonder, terror, and bliss. Rather than merely altering an existing environment, in this project Snyder constructs experience. Themes of life, death, hope, longing, rebirth, and redemption interweave with the artists recurring emphasis on participants positions of moral, social, and personal responsibility.
Anton Vidokle engages architectural and art historical traditions that evoke the persistence and failures of utopian ideals. At Artpace, Vidokle presents Optica, the final component of a three-part project based on an iconic Mexico City metro station. While his previous two works transform the buildings façade, Óptica turns the cameras gaze inside out, recreating the buildings modular surface with a massive grid of sixty television screens. Juxtaposing historical utopian intent with contemporary dystopia, Óptica evokes the information and surveillance overload characteristic of our age. It spotlights a place where nothing really happens, yet only architectural infrastructure remains unchanged.
About the Curator
Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro was born in Spain and educated in Britain, where he received a PhD in Art History and Theory from the University of Essex, England in 1996. Since 2002 he has served as the Curator of Latin American Art at the Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin, where he recently curated Lo feo de este mundo: Images of the Grotesque. Previously, he served as the Director of Visual Arts at the Americas Society, New York, NY and while there organized projects with Iran do Espirito Santo, Rivane Neuenschwander, Lygia Pape, Geraldo de Barros, and others. Prior to his appointment in New York, Pérez-Barreiro worked at the Casa de América in Madrid, Spain.
New Works: 05.2 is supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Related Events
Brown Bag Lunch: Wednesday, August 17, 2005, 12-1pm
Break away for an art-filled lunch! Join Artpace Education and Curatorial Associate Kate Green for a gallery walk-thru of New Works: 05.2 followed by a box lunch and group discussion. Lunch is provided by Sip ($6.50). Call Artpace for menu and reservations (210 212 4900).
Also on View at Artpace: Hudson (Show)Room
Trisha Donnellys (San Francisco, CA) drawings, videos, and audio works require both acute observation and a leap of faith. This exhibition is the enigmatic artists first solo institutional show, and is composed of works from 2002 through the present. Each work will build upon the next to stretch notions of absolute truth and reflect upon the role of sound and history in her innovative practice. On view through July 17, 2005.
John Pilson’s (New York, NY) videos and photos address the relationship between people and their everyday surroundings. The artist wryly explores the psychology of architecture through videos staged in banal office buildings; in one employees break the monotony by leaping over partitions, in another a superintendent humanizes his charge by turning out the lights and retiring to his quarters. These works, as well as Pilsons still images of nature and things cohabiting with modernist structures, reveal hidden histories, and the way that spaces can define and shape. On view July 28 October 16, 2005. Opening Reception July 28, 6:30 8:00 pm.
About Artpace
Artpace San Antonio serves as an advocate for contemporary art and as a catalyst for the creation of significant art projects. We seek to nurture emerging and established artists and to provide opportunities for inspiration, experimentation, and education. Our programs support the evolution of new ideas in contemporary art and cultivate diverse audiences while providing a forum for ongoing dialogue.
Artpace is located downtown at 445 North Main Avenue, between Savings and Martin streets, San Antonio, Texas. Free parking is available on the corner of Savings and N. Flores streets. Artpace is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday, 12-5 PM, Thursday, 12-8 PM, and by appointment. Admission is free.
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Programs at Artpace San Antonio are made possible through the generous support of corporate partners, individual donors, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Kronkosky Charitable Foundation, Texas Commission on the Arts, the City of San Antonio, Office of Cultural Affairs, the Edouard Foundation, and the San Antonio Area Foundation.
