DOCSLIB.ORG

The Pleasures of Challenged Perspective: Rashomon at Montalvo

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Pleasures of Challenged Perspective: Rashomon at Montalvo For Immediate Release Contact: Leah Ammon, (408) 961-5814 March 13, 2013 [email protected] The Pleasures of Challenged Perspective: Rashomon at Montalvo Groundbreaking sculpture by Chuck Ginnever installed on newly-reopened Great Lawn launches Montalvo’s 2013 Art on the Grounds program SARATOGA, Calif. – Montalvo Arts Center is pleased to announce that on Wednesday, March 13, with the reopening of its newly replanted Great Lawn, an important work of art will go on view to the public: Rashomon , an installation created by contemporary sculptor Chuck Ginnever . Hailed by art critic Kenneth Baker as “one of the most significant and little-celebrated innovations in late 20th century art,” Rashomon is organized by the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, California, in cooperation with Gayle Maxon- Edgerton, Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is presented to the public as part of the 2013 season of Montalvo’s Art on the Grounds program. “It is an honor to bring Rashomon to Montalvo,” said Executive Director Angela McConnell. “The guiding vision for Art on the Grounds is to orchestrate thought-provoking interactions between visitors and contemporary art in unexpected settings. With this installation, we reaffirm our aim to be one of the Bay Area’s most ABOVE: Rashomon , by Chuck Ginnever, is an installation of 15 identical geometric forms. engaging sculpture parks.” “As part of our On the Road program—a satellite exhibitions series developed with partner venues throughout the Bay Area—we sought a new venue for the Rashomon exhibition after it closed at the ICA last month. I immediately thought of Montalvo,” said Cathy Kimball, Executive Director and Chief Curator at the ICA. “The setting on Montalvo’s Great Lawn is ideal. Ginnever’s ultimate intention was for the work to be presented out of doors.” A contemporary of artists Sir Anthony Caro, John Chamberlain, Mark di Suvero, and Eva Hesse, Chuck Ginnever – MORE – is a prolific and engaging artist known primarily for his large-scale abstract sculpture in welded steel and bronze. Ginnever’s work directly engages with notions of subjectivity and perception, and questions our presuppositions about rationality and universal views. As Kenneth Baker has written, “much important sculpture of our era has concerned itself with tensions between the bodily and mental grasp of the real. Rashomon goes to the heart of that matter.” The installation consists of 15 identical geometric forms, each three feet tall, with 15 unique sides and eight balancing points. Fashioned out of bands of steel, the pieces have been made without right angles or parallel lines. They are installed at Montalvo in an organically-shaped grouping. For the viewer, the pleasure of experiencing Rashomon is a two-fold exercise in challenged perspective: moving through the installation, shifting vantage points cause one to read forms alternately as two- dimensional shapes with flattened planes, and three-dimensional objects in space. The viewer is furthermore challenged to weigh the perception of the individual pieces as unique objects against the intellectual knowledge they are exactly identical. Ginnever explains, “my work sits motionless and is only activated by the viewer moving around it—only then does it start to perform.” This inspires slow and deliberate engagement with the work, and encourages visitors to savor each new moment of uncertainty. The title of the work is borrowed from Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film of the same name in which the mutually contradictory testimony of four eyewitnesses to a violent crime demonstrates the inherent unreliability of subjective experience. As John Yau, writing for the web publication Hyperallergic, observed, “the gap between sight and memory—between the object and how we remember it in the mind’s eye—is one of Ginnever’s preoccupations.” According to Kimball, Ginnever’s fascination with shifting perspectives dates back to his childhood in San Mateo, where, as a boy, he observed the movement of fog banks across the hills. “The passage of light and shadow across the landscape impressed upon him at an early age that each individual’s perception of the world is highly personal and always in flux.” This investigation of perspective is especially relevant to Flourish: Artists Explore Wellbeing, Montalvo’s programmatic theme for 2013-2014. “I am delighted to welcome Rashomon on our grounds,” said Kelly Sicat, Director of Montalvo’s Sally and Don Lucas Artists Residency Program. “I believe the experiential nature of Ginnever’s work will engage visitors with wonder as they move through the sculpture hoping to capture its illusive form. Through that quest to identify the similarities in each perspective, a deeper understanding of the nature of perception, reason, and imagination will be achieved–valuable tools in the pursuit for happiness and wellbeing.” Rashomon was originally produced by the artist as a maquette for a monumental 13-foot-high series. To date, Page 2 of 3 the artist has created three of these full-scale sculptures, which were last on view at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University in 2000. RASHOMON BY CHUCK GINNEVER What: A perspective-bending sculpture installation When: Wednesday, March 13 through Sunday, September 15, 2013 Where: The Great Lawn of Montalvo Arts Center, 15400 Montalvo Road, Saratoga Admission: The grounds of the Montalvo Arts Center are open for free to the public daily from 8am-6pm M-F; 9am-5pm Sat-Sun. For more information about accessibility, please visit www.montalvoarts.org/about/visit/ . Quotes above from Kenneth Baker are taken from his article “Ginnever's 'Rashomon' suite in San Jose,” San Francisco Chronicle , November 23, 2012. Quote above from John Yau is taken from his article “The World According to Charles Ginnever,” Hyperallergic.com , posted January 13, 2013. # # # Montalvo Arts Center is an oasis of culture and nature whose mission is to create and present arts of all types, nurture artists, and use our historic Villa, buildings, and grounds in innovative ways that engage people in the creative process. Located in Silicon Valley's Saratoga hills, Montalvo occupies a Mediterranean-style Villa, built in 1912 by Senator James Duval Phelan, surrounded by 175 stunning acres, including the campus of our international Lucas Artists Residency Program. Senator Phelan bequeathed the villa and grounds to the people of California for the encouragement of art, music, literature and architecture, a mandate that Montalvo has carried forward ever since its founding. For more information about Montalvo Arts Center, call (408) 961-5800 or visit www.montalvoarts.org . The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is an energetic art space located in downtown San Jose dedicated to making contemporary art accessible and exciting to audiences of all ages and backgrounds. The ICA has long been committed to presenting exhibitions that include visually compelling and conceptually challenging contemporary art, as well as a variety of educational programs intended to help our audiences reflect upon these works. Exhibitions are presented in three galleries and the space is activated by opening receptions, First Friday gallery walks, programming in the front windows, panel discussions, printmaking workshops in the on-site Print Center, brown bag lunches and impromptu conversations in the galleries. Founded in 1980, the ICA is a member-supported, non-profit organization. For more information, please visit www.sjica.org . Chuck Ginnever was born in San Mateo, California, in 1931. After traveling and studying photography and sculpture in Europe and California in the early 1950s, Ginnever moved to New York City and completed his MFA at Cornell University in 1959. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe and is part of numerous important private and public collections including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University; Runnymeade Sculpture Garden in Woodside, California; Storm King Center in Mountainville, New York; and the Southern Vermont Art Center in Manchester. A California native, Ginnever currently resides in Putney, Vermont. For further information, please visit the artist’s website at www.chuckginnever.com . Gayle Maxon-Edgerton , GME LLC, Santa Fe, New Mexico, is Exclusive Artist Agent for Chuck Ginnever. Page 3 of 3 .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Interview Transcript
    STORM KING ART CENTER ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM DAVID COLLENS January 23, 2018 July 18, 2018 July 31, 2018 August 13, 2018 August 22, 2018 Interviewed by Sarah Dziedzic Storm King Oral History 007 © 2018 Storm King Art Center Use of Oral Histories in the Storm King Art Center Archives The Storm King Art Center Archives welcomes non-commercial use of the Oral History Program Special Collection in accordance with the Storm King Archives Use and Reproduction Policy [provide link.] The following transcript is the result of a recorded oral history interview. The recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the person interviewed and the interviewer. The reader is asked to bear in mind that this is a transcript of the spoken word, rather than written prose. The Archives requires that researchers give proper credit when citing oral histories, including Oral history interview with ___________ (date of interview), pages _____, Oral History Program, Storm King Art Center Archives. Only the transcript may be used for citations. The recordings associated with this interview may be made available upon request. Timestamps corresponding with original audio files are included in the transcript at one-minute intervals. For commercial use of any sort, including reproduction, quotation, publication, and broadcast in any medium, distribution, derivative works, public performance, and public display, prior written permission must be obtained from the Storm King Art Center Archives. Permission will comply with any agreements made with the person interviewed and the interviewer and may be withheld in Storm King’s sole determination. Please contact the Storm King Art Center Archives with any questions or requests at [email protected] Thank you! Support for Storm King Art Center’s Oral History Program and Archival Program is made possible by generous lead support from the Henry Luce Foundation.
    [Show full text]
  • Minimal Art and Body Politics in New York City, 1961-1975 By
    Minimal Art and Body Politics in New York City, 1961-1975 by Christopher M. Ketcham M.A. Art History, Tufts University, 2009 B.A. Art History, The George Washington University, 1998 SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ARCHITECTURE: HISTORY AND THEORY OF ART AT THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY SEPTEMBER 2018 © 2018 Christopher M. Ketcham. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created. Signature of Author:__________________________________________________ Department of Architecture August 10, 2018 Certified by:________________________________________________________ Caroline A. Jones Professor of the History of Art Thesis Supervisor Accepted by:_______________________________________________________ Professor Sheila Kennedy Chair of the Committee on Graduate Students Department of Architecture 2 Dissertation Committee: Caroline A. Jones, PhD Professor of the History of Art Massachusetts Institute of Technology Chair Mark Jarzombek, PhD Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture Massachusetts Institute of Technology Tom McDonough, PhD Associate Professor of Art History Binghamton University 3 4 Minimal Art and Body Politics in New York City, 1961-1975 by Christopher M. Ketcham Submitted to the Department of Architecture on August 10, 2018 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture: History and Theory of Art ABSTRACT In the mid-1960s, the artists who would come to occupy the center of minimal art’s canon were engaged with the city as a site and source of work.
    [Show full text]
  • Exhibition Gazette (PDF)
    ARTIST-RUN GALLERIES IN NEW YORK CITY Inventing 1952–1965 Downtown JANUARY 10–APRIL 1, 2017 Grey Gazette, Vol. 16, No. 1 · Winter 2017 · Grey Art Gallery New York University 100 Washington Square East, NYC InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 1 12/13/16 2:15 PM Danny Lyon, 79 Park Place, from the series The Destruction of Lower Manhattan, 1967. Courtesy the photographer and Magnum Photos Aldo Tambellini, We Are the Primitives of a New Era, from the Manifesto series, c. 1961. JOIN THE CONVERSATION @NYUGrey InventingDowntown # Aldo Tambellini Archive, Salem, Massachusetts This issue of the Grey Gazette is funded by the Oded Halahmy Endowment for the Arts; the Boris Lurie Art Foundation; the Foundation for the Arts. Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Helen Frankenthaler Foundation; the Art Dealers Association Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965 is organized by the Grey Foundation; Ann Hatch; Arne and Milly Glimcher; The Cowles Art Gallery, New York University, and curated by Melissa Charitable Trust; and the Japan Foundation. The publication Rachleff. Its presentation is made possible in part by the is supported by a grant from Furthermore: a program of the generous support of the Terra Foundation for American Art; the J.M. Kaplan Fund. Additional support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Grey Art Gallery’s Director’s Circle, Inter/National Council, and Visual Arts; the S. & J. Lurje Memorial Foundation; the National Friends; and the Abby Weed Grey Trust. GREY GAZETTE, VOL. 16, NO. 1, WINTER 2017 · PUBLISHED BY THE GREY ART GALLERY, NYU · 100 WASHINGTON SQUARE EAST, NYC 10003 · TEL.
    [Show full text]
  • Inventing Downtown
    ARTIST-RUN GALLERIES IN NEW YORK CITY Inventing 1952–1965 Downtown JANUARY 10–APRIL 1, 2017 Grey Gazette, Vol. 16, No. 1 · Winter 2017 · Grey Art Gallery New York University 100 Washington Square East, NYC InventingDT_Gazette_9_625x13_12_09_2016_UG.indd 1 12/13/16 2:15 PM Danny Lyon, 79 Park Place, from the series The Destruction of Lower Manhattan, 1967. Courtesy the photographer and Magnum Photos Aldo Tambellini, We Are the Primitives of a New Era, from the Manifesto series, c. 1961. JOIN THE CONVERSATION @NYUGrey InventingDowntown # Aldo Tambellini Archive, Salem, Massachusetts This issue of the Grey Gazette is funded by the Oded Halahmy Endowment for the Arts; the Boris Lurie Art Foundation; the Foundation for the Arts. Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Helen Frankenthaler Foundation; the Art Dealers Association Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965 is organized by the Grey Foundation; Ann Hatch; Arne and Milly Glimcher; The Cowles Art Gallery, New York University, and curated by Melissa Charitable Trust; and the Japan Foundation. The publication Rachleff. Its presentation is made possible in part by the is supported by a grant from Furthermore: a program of the generous support of the Terra Foundation for American Art; the J.M. Kaplan Fund. Additional support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Grey Art Gallery’s Director’s Circle, Inter/National Council, and Visual Arts; the S. & J. Lurje Memorial Foundation; the National Friends; and the Abby Weed Grey Trust. GREY GAZETTE, VOL. 16, NO. 1, WINTER 2017 · PUBLISHED BY THE GREY ART GALLERY, NYU · 100 WASHINGTON SQUARE EAST, NYC 10003 · TEL.
    [Show full text]
  • Athena Tacha: an Artist's Library on Environmental Sculpture and Conceptual
    ATHENA TACHA: An Artist’s Library on Environmental Sculpture and Conceptual Art 916 titles in over 975 volumes ATHENA TACHA: An Artist’s Library on Environmental Sculpture and Conceptual Art The Library of Athena Tacha very much reflects the work and life of the artist best known for her work in the fields of environmental public sculpture and conceptual art, as well as photography, film, and artists’ books. Her library contains important publications, artists’ books, multiples, posters and documentation on environmental and land art, sculpture, as well as the important and emerging art movements of the sixties and seventies: conceptual art, minimalism, performance art, installation art, and mail art. From 1973 to 2000, she was a professor and curator at Oberlin College and its Art Museum, and many of the original publications and posters and exhibition announcements were mailed to her there, addressed to her in care of the museum (and sometimes to her colleague, the seminal curator Ellen Johnson, or her husband Richard Spear, the historian of Italian Renaissance art). One of the first artists to develop environmental site-specific sculpture in the early 1970s. her library includes the Berlin Land Art exhibition of 1969, a unique early “Seed Distribution Project” by the land and environmental artist Alan Sonfist, and a manuscript by Patricia Johanson. The library includes important and seminal exhibition catalogues from important galleries such as Martha Jackson’s “New Forms-New Media 1” from 1960. Canadian conceptual art is represented by N.E Thing, including the exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada, and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design Projects Class cards, both in 1969.
    [Show full text]
  • Sculpture: a Wyoming Invitational
    Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational University of Wyoming Art Museum 2008 Educational Packet developed for grades K-12 Purpose of this packet: To provide K-12 teachers with background information on the exhibition and suggested age appropriate applications for exploring concepts, meaning, and artistic intent of work exhibited, before during, and after the museum visit. Curricular Unit Topic: To examine the breadth and the scope of large scale modern sculpture; artistically, culturally, socially, politically, and to observe its impact on the community and place it occupies. The focus of this educational packet and curricular Sculptors in the Wyoming 2008 Exhibition: unit is to observe, question, explore, create, and reflect. Deborah Butterfield (American, b. 1949) Observe: Patrick Dougherty (American, b. 1945) Students and teachers will observe various large Linda Fleming (American, born 1945) scale sculptures in and outside of the UW Art John Henry (American, b. 1943) Museum, including Prexy’s Pasture, Laramie’s Jun Kaneko (American, b. 1942) parks, university grounds, and in downtown John Kearney (American, b. 1921) Laramie and other sites in Laramie. Students Charmaine Locke (American) will notice the different kinds of materials used Jesus Moroles (American, b. 1950) in the making of the sculptures and they will Charles Parson (American) notice elements of art: the scale and size, lines, textures, colors, composition, balance, proportion, Carl Reed (American, b. 1944) perspective, volume, space, form and concepts. Steven Siegel (American, b. 1953) They will notice how these materials and James Surls (American, b. 1943) principles of art interact with the physical space Ursula von Rydingsvard (German, b. 1942) and the sculptures.
    [Show full text]
  • AUG 1 0 1984 P &
    Government Support of Public Art: Private Art or Artistic Heritage by Michael A. Vargas B.A. California State College, San Bernardino San Bernardino, California June 1982 SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF CITY PLANNING AT MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY May 1984 c Michael A. Vargas, 1984 The author hereby grants to M.I.T. permission to reproduce and distribute copies of this thesis document in whole or in part. Signature of Author Michael A.Vargas D.U.S,P. ,/May,, 1984/ 7/ Certified by J.r) M s o c i, ter e ~ ~v4 so(J hesis *4 rvisor Accepted by Ka~tph ' ken er C ir n, t P. Committee, D.U.S.P. 1ASS~c' OF AUG 1 0 1984 p & 1-~lp , GOVERNMENT SUPPORT OF PUBLIC ART: PRIVATE ART OR ARTISTIC HERITAGE by Michael A. Vargas Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning on May 28, 1984 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of City Planning. ABSTRACT Government authorities support the production of public art more vigorously than ever before. But the role of government in public art production is being debated. Critics accuse government art funding agencies of catering to the artistic tastes of society's upper classes while advocates of governmental support argue that emphasis on high artistic quality and peer review selection process ensure fairness. To date poor descriptions of the variety of public artworks have focussed the debate on vagueries rather than statistical material.
    [Show full text]
  • AVT 301.001 Visual Voices Colloquium Spring 2018, (1 Credit)
    AVT 301.001 Visual Voices Colloquium Spring 2018, (1 credit) Instructor: Harold Linton Art Bluilding, Linton Office - Room 2010 School of Art Office: Room 2050 Phone: (703) 993-4615 E-mail: [email protected] Harris Theater, TR 7:20 – 9:00 pm Speaker schedule/bio’s - pages 3 - 6) “The contemporary artist today is part theorist, performer, producer, installer, writer, entertainer, and shaman creating in material, media, text, and time all of which take shape in real, simulated, and virtual worlds. The characteristics of contemporary art practice change the way we think about the visual arts, which influences what we do in educational settings.” – Graeme Sullivan Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in the Visual Arts. Course Description: Visual Voices Colloquium is the Professional Lecture Series of the School of Art and represents a window into the professional world of art and design. Speakers are chosen with faculty guidance to represent leading and emerging talented practitioners in the disciplines of our curriculum as well as artists whose work lies beyond the subject areas of our program offerings. The purpose of the course and the program is to broaden our students’ exposure and vocabulary to professional work being created today and to simultaneously provide an opportunity for our students to interact with speakers either in small groups before and following our lectures in order that they may have an opportunity to exchange ideas and pose questions to our guest speakers. Discourse: Visual Voices Colloquium is offered each semester throughout the academic year and is equal to 1 credit hour per semester. The schedule of speakers for the Spring 2018 semester is included below with this syllabus.
    [Show full text]
  • Charles Ginnever Born
    CHARLES GINNEVER BORN: 1931 San Mateo, California EDUCATION: 1949-51 San Mateo Junior College, San Mateo, California, A.A. 1953 Alliance Francaise, Paris, France 1954 Universita per Stranieri, Perugia, Italy 1953-55 Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, Paris, France under Ossip Zadkine 1955 Atelier 17, Paris, France, under Stanley W. Hayter 1955-57 California School of Fine Arts (San Francisco Art Institute), B.A. 1957-59 Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, M.F.A. TEACHING: 1957-59 Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 1963 Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY 1964 The New School for Social Research, New York, NY 1964-65 Brooklyn Museum School, Brooklyn, NY 1965 Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art, Newark, NJ 1966 Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH, Artist-in-Residence 1966 Aspen School of Contemporary Art, Aspen, CO, Head of Sculpture Department, Summer Session 1966 Orange County Community College, Middletown, NY, Fall 1967-75 Windham College, Putney, VT, Head of Art Department, 1970-71 1974 Hobart School of Welding Technology Summer Sculpture Program, Troy, OH 1987 Vermont Studio School, Johnson, VT, Summer 1989 University of California, Berkeley. Visiting Artist, Winter 1996 Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT. Visiting professor, Summer AWARDS/COMMISSIONS: 1957 California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco, Sculpture Award 1972 Vermont State Council on the Arts, 4 the 5th (of Beethoven), on exhibit at Southern Vermont Art Center 1974 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship CHARLES GINNEVER - 2 AWARDS/COMMISSIONS: Continued 1975 National Endowment for the Arts,
    [Show full text]
  • Mark Di Suvero's Sculpture: from the Found-Object Sculpture
    Ngt MARK DI SUVERO'S SCULPTURE: FROM THE FOUND-OBJECT SCULPTURE OF THE NINETEEN SIXTIES TO THE MONUMENTAL SCULPTURE OF THE NINETEEN EIGHTIES, A STUDY IN CONTINUITY THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of North Texas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS By Valerie J. Pinkney, B.A. Denton, Texas December, 1992 Pinkney, Valerie J., Mark di Suvero's Sculpture: From the Found-object Sculpture of the Nineteen Sixties to the Monumental Sculpture of the Nineteen Eighties, a Study in Continuity. Master of Arts, (Art History), December, 1992, 88 pp., 9 illustrations, bibliography, 42 titles. This thesis analyzes technical and stylistic aspects of Mark di Suvero's nineteen sixties found-object works, and his monumental I-beam sculptures of the nineteen seventies and eighties to demonstrate their consistency despite the apparent contrasts in form, materials, and process. Primary data, sculpture of Mark di Suvero. Secondary data obtained from major art periodicals, newspapers, and exhibition catalogs. The artist was interviewed by author at the retrospective exhibition in Nice, France, Septermber, 17, 1991. Examination of primary and secondary data reveals a strong continuity by the artist in his approach to his work despite obvious external changes in materials and process. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page List of Illustrations iv Chapter I. INTRODUCTION ............. ................. II. MARK DI SUVERO, BIOGRAPHY ................. 9 III. WORK OF THE SIXTIES ................. 21 IV. WORK OF THE SEVENTIES ................. 48 V. WORK OF THE EIGHTIES ................. 69 VI. CONCLUSIONS ................. 82 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................. 86 iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 1. Hankchampion and Barrell 18 2.
    [Show full text]