CCS Bard presents
From 199A to 199B:
Liam Gillick
and Anti-Establishment
June 23–December 21, 2012
Opening: Saturday, June 23, 2012, 1–5pm
CCS Bard 20th Anniversary Weekend
Center for Curatorial Studies and
Hessel Museum of Art
Bard College, PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000
T 845 758 7598
ccs [at] bard.edu
The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard), which is celebrating its 20th Anniversary year, has announced the opening of two major summer exhibitions: From 199A to 199B: Liam Gillick, curated by Tom Eccles, CCS Bard Executive Director, and Anti-Establishment, a group exhibition curated by Johanna Burton, CCS Bard Graduate Program Director. The opening reception for both exhibitions will take place on Saturday, June 23, 2012 from 1–5pm, as part of CCS Bard’s Anniversary Weekend.
On view at the Hessel Museum of Art, From 199A to 199B: Liam Gillick, is a survey of Gillick’s work from the early 1990s that pushed for a new awareness of how art institutions function. Curated by Tom Eccles, CCS Bard Executive Director, this exhibition includes many works that are being shown for the first time in the United States. The exhibition will revisit a formative period of Gillick’s production in Europe—particularly France, Germany, Italy, and England—prior to his move to New York in 1998. It will offer a specifically selected survey of Gillick’s seminal projects and installations that challenged the orthodox presentation and reception of art and its methods and practices during the 1990s. Considering the relationship between the artist, the institution, and the audience as mutually co-dependent in the creation of meaning, Gillick created situations in which the outcome was incomplete without involving the institution and questioning the expanded role of the exhibition visitor.
Curated by Johanna Burton, CCS Bard Graduate Program Director, and on view in the CCS Bard Galleries, Anti-Establishment includes the work of Wynne Greenwood, Trajal Harrell, H.E.N.S. (Arlen Austin & Jason Boughton), Jacqueline Humphries, Brennan Gerard & Ryan Kelly, Chelsea Knight (with Elise Rasmussen), Pam Lins, Scott Lyall, Tere O’Connor, Mai-Thu Perret, Sarah Pierce, Elisabeth Subrin, and YES! Association. The works in Anti-Establishment investigate artistic practices that, in various ways, radically utilize and recommit to the notion of “the institution,” while demanding new functions and effects of them. Institutions are very often discussed via shorthand, conflated with the “establishment”—monolithic, static, and hierarchical societal systems against which avant-garde and countercultural productions can be seen. Yet, this exhibition sets the two apart, arguing for institutions as more limber sites, perpetually de- and re-constructed by those that create, inhabit, and dismantle them.
A series of live events will take place in conjunction with Anti-Establishment on June 23, 2012 and throughout the fall. Details on these events are included below:
Live events
June 23, 2012, 1–5pm
Performances by Brennan Gerard & Ryan Kelly, Chelsea Knight (with Elise Rassmussen), Sarah Pierce, and YES! Association
Location: CCS Bard Galleries
June 23, 2012, 7–9pm
Performances by Trajal Harrell and Tere O’Connor
Location: The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts
Free tickets for these performances are available on www.brownpapertickets.com.
September/October 2012
Performances by Trajal Harrell and Sarah Pierce
Location: CCS Bard Galleries
Fall 2012
Conversation with Trajal Harrell, Brennan Gerard & Ryan Kelly, and Tere O’Connor
Location: The Kitchen, NYC
CCS Bard’s Anniversary Weekend will also feature the Why New Forms? Curatorial Conference, taking place on Friday, June 22 and Saturday, June 23, 2012 at the Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard College. The Conference has been organized by CCS Bard alumni/ae Dan Byers, The Richard Armstrong Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, and Ruba Katrib, Curator of the SculptureCenter in New York City. Free tickets for the conference are available on www.brownpapertickets.com.
New publications
CCS Readers: Perspectives on Contemporary Culture
In 2012, CCS Bard commences a new reader series, in which all manner of projects (artistic, discursive, thematic) can be approached under a cohesive but limber banner. Simple in design and modestly produced, the series, co-published with Sternberg Press, facilitates wide-ranging modes of thinking about art and culture from a variety of perspectives. The emphasis is textual and accommodates, among other things, transcribed conferences at CCS Bard; loosely extended experimental curatorial projects to be staged at the Center; or, in some cases, materials and discussions conceived and executed collaboratively between CCS Bard and other institutions internationally. Topics for the first several volumes include: the notion of interiority with regard to museums, conventions of the psyche, and domesticity; new forms of institutional critique, enacted via the institution itself; and current debates around “speculative realism.”
The first book in the series, Interiors, edited by Johanna Burton, Lynne Cooke, and Josiah McElheny, includes newly commissioned essays and projects as well as reprinted texts by Anni Albers, Doug Ashford, Gaston Bachelard, Angelo Bellfatto, Nova Benway, Gregg Bordowitz, Johanna Burton, Theresa Choi, Beatriz Colomina, Lynne Cooke, Moyra Davey, Tom Eccles, Diana Fuss, Jennifer R. Gross, Elizabeth Grosz, Roni Horn, Jenny Jaskey, Susanne Küper, Elisabeth Lebovici, Nathan Lee, Zoe Leonard, Dorit Margreiter, Josiah McElheny, Helen Molesworth, Georges Perec, Juliane Rebentisch, David Reed, Lisa Robertson, Joel Sanders, Virginia Woolf, and Amy Zion. The book will be released at a reception at Bard College following the opening of Anti-Establishment and From 199A to 199B: Liam Gillick on Saturday, June 23, 2012.
Red Hook Online Journal
The second issue of Red Hook reflects a discussion unfolding deep within CCS Bard, where questions of accountability have been rising to the fore. Post-Szeemann, anti-disciplinary bluster marked a productive moment when CCS Bard was founded 20 years ago. But the enduring folklore of the curatorial maverick now seems a high price to pay for a little hubris back in the nineties. No one is advocating canons and commandments, yet a push for more transparently formulated positions and priorities seems an invigorating idea. Topics in this issue include the wonder and the horror of non-descriptive criticism, curators who don’t curate, institutional critique à la canadienne, and the legendary Nordic artist unions. Contributors include Jennifer Allen, Vincent Bonin, Johanna Burton, Stuart Comer, Lauren Cornell, Joerg Heiser, Trude Iversen, Falke Pisano, Dieter Roelstraete, Philip Ursprung, Danna Vajda, Wendy Vogel, and Kaelen Wilson Goldie.
Red Hook will be changing in format: as of now, links go live as content is uploaded. Some of the above projects will be completed over coming months, to overlap with material just commissioned. Including Nathan Lee’s investigation of “Paper Curating,” a project by artist duo Arlen Austin & Jason Boughton, and a collaboration with Suhail Malik addressing the infamous gender ratios in curatorial programs.
Red Hook is a biannual online journal reflecting the key concerns of its host institution. Commissioned essays and projects by a wide span of cultural producers explore questions pertinent to the larger field of curating, but are notably anchored by the pedagogical concerns at stake and under discussion by students and faculty at the Center.
Please see the Red Hook Journal here.
About the Center for Curatorial Studies
The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard) is an exhibition, education, and research center dedicated to the study of art and curatorial practices from the 1960s to the present day.
In addition to the CCS Bard Galleries and Hessel Museum of Art, the Center houses the Marieluise Hessel Collection, as well as an extensive library and curatorial archives that are accessible to the public. The Center’s two-year M.A. program in curatorial studies is specifically designed to deepen students’ understanding of the intellectual and practical tasks of curating contemporary art. Exhibitions are presented year-round in the CCS Bard Galleries and Hessel Museum of Art, providing students with the opportunity to work with world-renowned artists and curators. The exhibition program and the Hessel Collection also serve as the basis for a wide range of public programs and activities exploring art and its role in contemporary society.
The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College opened its doors in 1992. Celebrating its 20th Anniversary in 2012, CCS Bard presents a series of exhibitions by students, as well as a roster of international artists, working in a range of practices.
General information on the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College can be found on its newly re-launched website at: www.bard.edu/ccs.
The CCS Bard Galleries and Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College are open Wednesday through Sunday from 1 to 5pm. All CCS Bard exhibitions and programs are free and open to the public.
Free chartered bus available from New York City for the From 199A to 199B: Liam Gillick and Anti-Establishment openings on June 23. For reservations call 845 758 7598, or write ccs [at] bard.edu.
For more information on getting to Bard College, hotel recommendations, transportation, or further information please call CCS Bard at 845 758 7598, write ccs [at] bard.edu, or visit www.bard.edu/ccs.
