 09/01/05 Artforum
In Artforums September 2005 issue: Breadth in Venice: The 51st Venice Biennale. Six distinguished contributors chart the highs and lows in the current installment of the grandest of all grand exhibitions. Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Alison M. Gingeras, and Elisabeth Sussman provide surveys of the sprawling exhibitions in the Arsenale and Giardini. For Buchloh, Ed Ruschas paintings in the United States pavilion--one of which graces Artforums September cover--mark Ruschas definitive ascension to the status of one of the truly great artists of his generation. Complementing these overviews, Daniel Birnbaum, Anne Pontégnie, and Scott Rothkopf report on three star attractions among this years record number of offsite projects: Olafur Eliassons sublime installation on the Island of San Lazarro; the first ever Central Asia pavilion; and Karen Kilimniks jewel box of an exhibition at the historic Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa. Working in situ in Venice--a city that, perhaps more than any other, feels at once truly historic and a phony imitation of itself--Kilimnik was able to fully exploit her singular knack for negotiating the mysterious reciprocities between our so-called reality and the fictions that have come to define it.--Scott Rothkopf In this issue, Artforum also looks ahead to the coming season with a survey of more than fifty shows opening worldwide. Get a glimpse of Robert Rauschenberg at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Thomas Hirschhorn at the ICA, Boston; Andrea Zittel at the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; Angela Bulloch at Modern Art Oxford; Jörg Immendorf at the Nationalgalerie, Berlin; and many more. And: On The Matter of Time--art historian Hal Foster and Richard Serra discuss the artists major new site-specific installation of eight sculptures at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Industrial space was largely defined by the frame and the grid. Contemporary space is much looser, smoother, faster--about movement rather than framing. Its more related to skin, to surface, to extension. Thats a big difference--scenography replacing tectonics.--Richard Serra Plus: Andrea Fraser revivifies that shopworn label institutional critique, offering fresh insights about its history and the continuing validity of its practices at a time when museum and market have grown into an all-encompassing apparatus of cultural reification. On assignment in Munich, Rachel Harrison joins the parade celebrating Paul McCarthys LaLa Land Parody Paradise. I couldnt help but wonder, she writes, if the king of debased extravaganza, the master of desublimation, could pull off a reclamation ritual at the citys Haus der Kunst, former repository for the art of the Third Reich and notorious site of Hitlers speeches. As it turned out, I wasnt disappointed. And reviewing the October editors new über-textbook Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism, Richard Meyer finds a densely argued, if tellingly biased, survey thats poised to become the definitive introduction to the field. Also in September: Henriette Huldisch and Chrissie Iles discuss the films of Robert Beavers; Glenn Ligon introduces the work of Dave McKenzie; Ann Temkin marks the passing of Walter Hopps; Robert Storr reflects on a recent show of the overlooked contender Ron Gorchov; Carol Armstrong reviews Lee Friedlander at MoMA; Brigid Doherty and Carroll Dunham take on Max Ernst at the Met; and Donald Urquhart runs down his Top Ten. Visit Artforumonline at http://www.artforum.com To subscribe, visit http://www.artforum.com/subscribe Visit artguide--Artforums free directory to the international art world, listing art fairs, auctions, and current gallery and museum shows in over 400 cities--at http://artforum.com/guide |
