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In
The Brown Foundation Gallery
Dance with Camera
Joachim Koester
Still from Tarantism, 2007
16mm black-and-white film installation
Courtesy of Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen, and Greene Naftali, New York
Opening reception: August 6, 2010, 7-10pm
On view: August 7-October 17, 2010Dance with Camera is an exhibition that considers artists and dancers who make choreography for the camera. The exhibition features art works in film, video, and still photography that exemplify the ways dance has compelled visual artists to record bodies moving in time and space. Featuring 26 artists and filmmakers, Dance with Camera has been organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, and is curated by Jenelle Porter, ICA curator.
The art works in Dance with Camera showcase the lens as not merely a recording device, but stage and audience simultaneously. The camera creates a unique space for dance. In some instances, choreography is created for the specific space of the camera; in others it is created in editing. The camera, unlike the stage, allows close-ups that bring us near the performer. Editing is used to compress time and create structure, and even to transform relatively static performers into dancers. Still photography freezes time while also expanding the notion of dance as time-based. Dance itself is a mode to explore broader themes of narrative, structure, metaphor, and abstraction. As part of the exhibition, numerous live performances have been scheduled, including one by Deborah Hay which is co-presented by the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts.
Dance with Camera begins in the 1960s with seminal works by Bruce Conner and Bruce Nauman. Conner’s prototypical BREAKAWAY (1966) prefigured music videos, and threads through the recent work of robbinschilds. Early video artists of the 1970s took up dance as a subject, seen in work such as Eleanor Antin’s narrative ballet-themed works, and Charles Atlas’ first works with Merce Cunningham. The camera’s role as documentarian characterizes contemporary works by Mike Kelley, Kelly Nipper, Tacita Dean, and Elad Lassry, among others. Works by Oliver Herring and Flora Wiegmann use dynamic camera views and kinetic editing to make vibrant videos of dancers, and nondancers. The drama intrinsic to stylized, physical movement is captured by Luis Jacob, Joachim Koester, and Uri Tzaig.
In the gallery:
Eleanor Antin, Charles Atlas and Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Ann Carlson and Mary Ellen Strom, Shirley Clarke, Bruce Conner, Tacita Dean, Ed Emschweiler, Hilary Harris, Oliver Herring, Luis Jacob, Mike Kelley, Joachim Koester, Elad Lassry, Bruce Nauman, Kelly Nipper, Yvonne Rainer, robbinschilds + A.L. Steiner, Uri Tzaig, Flora Wiegmann, and Christopher Williams.
At Rice Media Center:
Sharon Lockhart (See Calendar for date and time.)
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In
the Zilkha Gallery
Perspectives 171: Jennifer West
Jennifer West, Smoke, Darts, and Mirrors Film (35mm film leader painted with
candle smoke, taped to a dart board and hit with darts dipped in habanero
sauce, taped with mirrored and opalescent mylar - throwing darts performed
by Lucrecia Roa, Mateo Tannatt, Lesley Moon, Jen Collins, Patrick Cates,
Mariah Csepanyi, Blake Bailey and Jwest), 2010. 39 seconds.
Courtesy the artist, MARC FOXX, Los Angeles, and Vilma Gold, London.
Generously supported and commissioned by the Contemporary Arts Museum
Houston
Opening reception: Thursday, July 15, 6:30 – 9:00 p.m.
Gallery walk-through: Thursday, July 15, 6:30 p.m.
On view: July 16 – September 26, 2010
Working in film and film installation, Jennifer West makes exciting and visually arresting works that blend filmmaking, painting, and performance art. She treats the celluloid as both a medium to record actions and a surface to be manipulated—often with unconventional and disparate substances. Responding to the specific architecture of the venues where she exhibits her work, West projects her films—sometimes as singular painterly entities and other times as multichannel projections—filling the space and giving it shape through a cacophony of color and movement. Perspectives 171: Jennifer West is the first solo museum exhibition for this Los Angeles-based artist and is curated by Valerie Cassel Oliver, CAMH curator.
West’s work is reminiscent of that created by early pioneers of American avant-garde film in the 1960s like Stan Brakhage, Stan VanDerBeek, and Nathaniel Dorsky, who emphasized abstraction and visual experimentation over more traditional documentary and narrative modes. Her works may be psychotropic and hallucinatory, but they are carefully constructed. They rely on both her own painterly skills and the alchemical effects of the substances she employs to transform the film. Usually created without sound, her experimental works reference iconic moments in film, music, and art history.
West uses footage showing performers portraying iconic moments in the history of music and art as well as reenacting classic film scenes. She then obscures the recorded images by having the same performers—often close friends or relatives—physically interact with the film using materials like candy, Kool-Aid, fruit juice, Lysol, perfume, energy drinks, makeup, or skateboard wheels. The original image is often obscured beyond recognition, leaving only rich, pulsating hues. At CAMH, West will feature five film projections created between 2008 and 2010, one of which has been created specifically for this occasion. A limited edition zine, created by the artist, will also accompany the exhibition.
West lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She has exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at MARC FOXX and White Columns, New York, both in 2007; at Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, and Vilma Gold, London, in 2008; MARC FOXX in 2009; and Kunstverein Nuremberg, Germany, and Western Bridge, Seattle, in 2010. She staged her first live performance at the Tate Modern, London, in 2009. Her work has also been featured in numerous museums and galleries throughout the United States and abroad, including an installation at Tate St Ives, Cornwall, UK (2007), which traveled to CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux in France; and presentations at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) (2007); ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany (2007); The Drawing Center, New York (2008), traveling to the Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA; Aspen Art Museum (2008); Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2008); Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (2009); Cubitt Art Gallery, London (2009); Leubsdorf Art Gallery at Hunter College, New York (2009); and the Aspen Art Museum (2010). West’s work is currently on view in Kurt, Seattle Art Museum, and Celluloid. Cameraless Film at the Kunsthalle Schirn in Frankfurt, Germany.
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