SITE SANTA FE OPENS SIXTH INTERNATIONAL BIENNIAL
Still Points of the Turning World
July 9, 2006 – January 7, 2007
Opening Weekend Celebrations Friday, July 7 through Sunday, July 9, 2006
CURATOR: KLAUS OTTMANN
SITE Santa Fe
1606 Paseo de Peralta,
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Wed-Sat. 10 am5 pm;
Fri 10am7 pm; Sun,126 pm.
Reduced admission for students & seniors; SITE members free. Free admission on Fridays
For more information about opening weekend and tickets, please call SITE Santa Fe at 505-989-1199 or visit www.sitesantafe.org
SITE Santa Fes Sixth International Biennial opens to the public on July 9. Intensity, experimentation, and visceral presence are the hallmarks of Still Points of the Turning World. Ottmann’s themeless exhibition aims to offer a more immediate experience of art. His intention with this Biennial is to present rather than represent, to bring art and people together, to stimulate rather than direct imagination. As Ottmann explains, I would like this Biennial to be about the artists, not about the curator. It is an expression of the curator’s faith in the ability of art to stand without curatorial aid, and in the viewers to be the authors of their own experience.
For this purpose, Ottmann dramatically reduced the number of artists to 13. Each artist has a separate room, which invites the viewers to immerse themselves directly into their creative visions. Furthermore, Ottmanns exhibition will include live performances by artists Patty Chang, Jonathan Meese, and Thorns Ltd.
Participating artists:
MIROSLAW BALKA*, JENNIFER BARTLETT, PATTY CHANG*, STEPHEN DEAN, PETER DOIG*, ROBERT GROSVENOR*, CRISTINA IGLESIAS*, WOLFGANG LAIB, JONATHAN MEESE, WANGECHI MUTU*, CARSTEN NICOLAI, CATHERINE OPIE, THORNS LTD* (Snorre Ruch, Jon Wesseltoft, and Finn Olav Holthe)
* indicates works created specifically for the Biennial (for a complete press release, visit www.sitesantafe.org )
Biennial Curator Klaus Ottmann
Klaus Ottmann, an independent curator and scholar based in New York, is the author of numerous articles, essays, and books on art and philosophy, including The Genius Decision: The Extraordinary and the Postmodern Condition; James Lee Byars: Life, Love, and Death, and The Essential Mark Rothko.
Ottmann has curated over forty exhibitions, including Life, Love, and Death: The Work of James Lee Byars, (Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 2004); Wolfgang Laib: A Retrospective (Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC,2002-04); and Mark Morrisroe: My Life. Polaroids 1977-1989 (Wesleyan University, 1996), among others. He is currently working on a book on the philosophy of the French painter Yves Klein.
Opening Weekend Celebrations
The public opening of the Biennial will be include exciting array of special events to be held from Friday, July 7 through Sunday, July 9, 2006. For more information about opening weekend and tickets, please call SITE Santa Fe at 505-989-1199 or visit www.sitesantafe.org
Catalogue
Accompanying the exhibition will be a full-color, hard-bound catalogue with an introduction by Laura Heon, essay by Klaus Ottmann, and artists pages, as well as complete installation photographs, in two volumes with slipcaseVolume One: 176 pages, Volume Two: 96 pagesto be published by SITE Santa Fe and distributed worldwide by Distributed Art Publishers (D.A.P.), 11.5″ x 8″.
Support Still Points of the Turning World is made possible in part with generous support from an anonymous donor; Jeanne and Michael Klein; Linda and William Herrmann; Lannan Foundation; Anne and John Marion; UBS; Sothebys; Agnes Gund & Daniel Shapiro; Marlene Nathan Meyerson; and Millstream Fund, as well as other generous donors. Special thanks also to: the City of Santa Fe Arts Commission and the 1% Lodgers Tax; New Directions/New Donors for the Arts: A Ford Foundation Cultural Initiative; New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for the Arts; Etant donnés: The French-American Fund for Contemporary Art, a program of FACE; and The American-Scandinavian Foundation.
SITE Santa Fe
SITE Santa Fe, 1606 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, NM 87501, Hours: Wed-Sat. 10 am5 pm; Fri 10am7 pm; Sun,126 pm. Reduced admission for students & seniors; SITE members free. Free admission on Fridays, made possible by a grant from The Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston.
Press Contact:
Anne Wrinkle, PR & Marketing Manager
T. 505.989.1199; F 989.1188
SITE Santa Fe, 1606 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, NM 87501
wrinkle@sitesantafe.org, www.sitesantafe.org
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Klaus Ottmann
ko@nyc.rr.com
