50,000 Beds:
A Project by Chris Doyle at Artspace,
Real Art Ways, and The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
July 20 to September 23, 2007
Who’s Sleeping Where?
Artspace (New Haven), Real Art Ways (Hartford), and The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (Ridgefield) have joined forces for their first-ever collaboration spanning all three institutions this summer.
Artspace (New Haven), Real Art Ways (Hartford), and The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (Ridgefield) have joined forces for their first-ever collaboration spanning all three institutions this summer.
50,000 Bedspresents new video works by a diverse group of forty-five artists–each piece based on a room in a different hotel, motel, or inn across Connecticut. The exhibition focuses on the hotel room as a site filled with narrative potential and the content reflects a diverse range of artistic responses and themes.
Artspace opens Friday, July 20, from 6 to 8 pm (on view through September 15). Artists include: David Borawski, Nayda Collazo-Llorens, Moyra Davey and Jason Simon, Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson, Melissa Friedling, Gene Gort, Nina Katchadourian, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Adam Niklewicz, John Pilson, Gil Scullion, Grzegorz Surman, Eve Sussman, Chris Wilcha, and Amy Yoes.
Real Art Ways opens on Saturday, July 21, from 6 to 9 pm (on view through September 23). Artists include: Tyler Coburn, Liz Cohen, Jorge Colombo, Neil Goldberg, Aaron Katz, Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry, Megan Michalak and Sarah Sharp, Jeffrey Miller, Ricardo Miranda Zuniga, Shannon Plumb, J. Morgan Puett, John Sanchez, Erika Van Natta, Anne Weber, and Pawel Wojtasik and Terry Berkowitz.
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum opens on Sunday, July 22, from 3 to 5 pm (on view through September 3) with a 2pm panel discussion featuring Chris Doyle in conversation with participating artists Chris Wilcha, Marina Zurkow, and the team of Megan Michalak and Sarah Sharp. Artists include: Karina Aguilera-Skvirsky, Amy Barrett, Brent Green, Jacqueline Goss and Andrew Gori, David Ellis, Braden King, Oliver Herring, Simon Lee and Jim White, Josh Marston, Paul McGuirk, Laurel Nakadate, Tim Rutili, Dread Scott, Judi Werthein, and Marina Zurkow.
In order to fully appreciate the project and see all forty-five videos, viewers will be encouraged to visit each venue during the summer; visitors who experience the entire exhibition will receive a free catalogue!
Doyle has allowed the participating artists to drive the content of the exhibition. He comments on the challenge of mounting a single exhibition across three venues, “50,000 Beds is a collective experiment; and like any experiment, the results are unpredictable. The challenge of building a single show for three distinct sites lies in combining pieces that play off each other within each venue, as well as having the three parts work together. Several themes emerged from the commissioned work, and those themes weave in and out of all three locations.”
50,000 Beds was realized with the support of the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism, the National Endowment for the Arts, the LEF Foundation, and the Furthermore program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund. Artspace and Real Art Ways receive general exhibition support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. 50,000 Beds has also been made possible by the generous donation of building materials by Ridgefield Supply Company and rooms by the participating hotels, motels, and inns across Connecticut. WFUV–90.7FM and wfuv.org – Public Radio from Fordham University–is the official media sponsor of the exhibition receptions.
Contact: Pamela Ruggio Phone: 203.438.4519 Email: pruggio@aldrichart.org
For more information about the project please visit www.50000beds.net