Celebrating 50 years at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Reception: Sunday, April 6, 2014, 1–5pm
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
258 Main Street
Ridgefield, CT 06854
T +1 203 438 4519
On Sunday, April 6, The Aldrich will launch its 50th Anniversary celebration with a series of exhibitions and programs that highlight not only the Museum’s legacy, but also the relationship between the era in which it was founded and our current cultural landscape, at a free opening reception from 1 to 5pm.
With perspective gained through five decades, the three overlapping series of exhibitions focus on the Museum’s formative years:
The first, Standing in the Shadows of Love: The Aldrich Collection 1964–1974—features iconic, historical works by Robert Indiana, Robert Morris, Ree Morton, Robert Rauschenberg, and Robert Smithson that represent the Museum’s early collection acquired by founder Larry Aldrich.
The second introduces new projects by contemporary artists—Taylor Davis, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Michael Joo, and Michelle Lopez—whose work reflects the continuing influence of both art and culture from the 1960s and ’70s, in conversation with the historical pieces.
The third presents new paintings by Jack Whitten, an artist whose work was exhibited during the Museum’s first decade.
Exhibitions
Standing in the Shadows of Love: The Aldrich Collection 1964–1974 (Part 1)
This exhibition includes seminal works by Robert Indiana, Robert Morris, Ree Morton, Robert Rauschenberg, and Robert Smithson—artists supported by the Museum early in their careers—underscoring a 50-year commitment to the timely exhibition of new art.
Taylor Davis: If you steal a horse, and let him go, he’ll take you to the barn you stole him from
Davis’s deep interest in sculpture is based in the way that a viewer’s orientation can be influenced by the perception of both form and language in space. The exhibition includes “built forms,” which are intuitive and often contradictory objects that direct the viewer’s attention between material and form, inside and outside, and movement and stasis; and text-based works that simultaneously engage and distract.
Jessica Jackson Hutchins: Unicorn
Hutchins uses the things around her—clothing, chairs, tables, and sofas—to create objects that craft poetry from the everyday. By inserting ceramic into and onto recognizable forms, she uses abject humor to tenderize her objects/subjects, to humanize art and process. Unicorn features new and recent work, spanning video, collage, monoprints, and sculpture.
Michael Joo: Drift
Joo’s project engages with a deep sense of time and the cycles of creation and entropy inherent in nature and human endeavor. Drift is based on his meditation on Cameron’s Line, an ancient fault that traces the continental collision that initiated the formation of the Appalachian Mountains. The focal point of this exhibition is a massive construction made of Vermont marble that inexorably links the Museum to the surrounding landscape and its history.
Michelle Lopez: Angels, Flags, Bangs
Lopez explores the contested yet generative place where Minimalism and Feminism converge, diverge, and ultimately reunite. The Aldrich presents sculptures that span three bodies of work: the “Blue Angels” series (2011); the “Flags” series (2013); and “Bangs” (2014), a site-specific installation made from elevator blankets that merges the soft felt sculptures of Robert Morris with the stylized female characters of Japanese anime.
Jack Whitten: Evolver
The first solo museum exhibition of Whitten’s painting since 2007, Evolver focuses on new works from 2013 and 2014, a period of ambitious experimentation with, and reinvestigation of, motifs from Whitten’s long and rich artistic practice. In addition, Whitten’s 1971 painting Shadows, from The Aldrich’s early collection, will be exhibited as a touchstone from a seminal stylistic period.
Reception
The free opening, on Sunday, April 6, from 1 to 5pm, will launch The Aldrich’s 50th Anniversary celebration. At 1pm the exhibitions and tented café open to the public. From 1 to 3pm and 3 to 5pm, art-making workshops for all ages will be offered; and at 2pm and 3pm, docents will lead exhibition tours.
Transportation
Free onsite parking is available. Direct round trip transportation to the event will depart from MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens, at 11:45am, returning from The Aldrich at 4:30pm. The shuttle will pick passengers up on Jackson Avenue near 46th Road, around the corner from the entrance to MoMA PS1. Reservations are required for the shuttle. Information: T +1 203 438 4519.
Museum
The Aldrich, now in its fiftieth year, is one of the few independent, non-collecting contemporary art museums in the United States, and the only museum in Connecticut devoted to contemporary art. It is one of only twenty museums in Connecticut and only 318 art museums in the country to be accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. The Museum, located at 258 Main Street, Ridgefield, CT 06877, is dedicated to fostering innovative artists whose ideas and interpretations of the world around us serve as a platform to encourage creative thinking. All exhibitions and programs are handicapped accessible. Free on-site parking. Regular Museum hours are Tuesday through Sunday, noon to 5pm. For more information call +1 203 438 4519 or visit aldrichart.org.
Contact
Pamela Ruggio, Communications Director
T + 1 203 438 4519 / pruggio [at] aldrichart.org
