NEW WORKS: 07.2
Through September 9, 2007
Artpace
445 North Main Avenue,
between Savings and Martin streets,
San Antonio, Texas
Wednesday through Sunday, 12-5 PM,
Thursday, 12-8 PM, and by appointment
Artpace San Antonio is pleased to announce New Works: 07.2, presenting new projects by resident artists Stefano Arienti (Milan, Italy), Eduardo Muñoz Ordoqui (Austin, Texas), and Lorraine O’Grady (New York, New York). Selected by The Art Institute of Chicago’s James Rondeau, these three artists call the viewer to observe, experience, and reflect by transcending meaning, time, and boundaries through mixed media, photography, film, and sculpture.
Stefano Arienti‘s Artpace exhibition focuses on the use of printed materials and the distortion and diversion of mass-produced images. Combining the organic with the written word, Arienti invites the viewer to wade into thousands of pounds of grain piled in semi-circular waves to discover altars of cut and manipulated books hidden beneath. Through an exploration of basic art-making techniques and the playful and poetic disruption of intended meaning, Arienti postulates how an image’s physical composition, subtly and minimally toyed, can both elide value and affect wonder.
Cuban-born Eduardo Muñoz Ordoqui‘s photographs transcend time, linking the past and the present through their dreamlike and memory-laden imagery. His residency project consists of ten gelatin silver photographs based on the life of Muñoz Ordoquis grandfather, a Cuban exile. Layering images from his familys archives, tactile materials, and portraits of present-day environments, Muñoz Ordoqui blurs the distinction between the past and present, the political and personal.
Lorraine O’Grady‘s work as an artist, writer, critic, and professor of African American studies presents hybridized notions of beauty and identity to re-diagram the politics of diaspora. Since the early 1980s, O’Grady has challenged racial and sexist ideologies in performances and photo-installations that combine opposition to philosophies of division and exclusion–as in her guerrilla appearances as Mlle Bourgeoise Noire with its whip-wielding renditions of negritude poetry–and humanist studies of women beyond history–as in her diptych photographs likening the artist’s family to Nefertiti’s. At Artpace, O’Grady unites these artistic tendencies in a eulogy to the recently closed Davenport Lounge, one of San Antonio’s primary multi-ethnic sites for the generation of counterculture. The installation, which recalls sights and sounds of the now-darkened club, alludes to sharp conflicts between power and popular culture while also evoking the haunting sadness of loss and memory.
About the Curator
As the Frances and Thomas Dittmer Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, James Rondeau has organized solo exhibitions with artists such as Stan Douglas, Marlene Dumas, Olafur Eliasson, Thomas Hirschhorn, Mark Manders, and Shirin Neshat. Prior to joining the Art Institute in 1998, Rondeau was the Curator at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, where he coordinated numerous exhibitions, including The LeWitt Collection, Byron Kim, and Pipilotti Rist. Rondeau has served as both a curator and panelist for Art Basel Miami Beach, and he was a commissioner and co-curator of Robert Gober’s presentation for the United States Pavilion of the 49th Venice Biennial, Italy in 2001.
Exhibition Information
New Works: 07.2 is made possible by Linda Pace Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art; City of San Antonio, Office of Cultural Affairs; Nimoy Foundation; The Brown Foundation, Inc.; and Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy, with additional support from the Texas Commission on the Arts.
About Artpace
Artpace San Antonio serves as a laboratory for the creation and advancement of international contemporary art. Artpace believes that art is a dynamic social force that inspires individuals and defines cultures. Our residencies, exhibitions, and education programs nurture the creative expression of emerging and established artists, while actively engaging youth and adult audiences.
Artpace is located downtown at 445 North Main Avenue, between Savings and Martin streets, San Antonio, Texas. Free parking is available at 513 North Flores. Artpace is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday, 12-5 PM, Thursday, 12-8 PM, and by appointment. Admission is free.