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24/3/2011

Three Exhibitions

Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus

Double Sexus: Hans Bellmer and Louise Bourgeois

Double Sexus: Hans Bellmer and Louise Bourgeois, an exhibition that explores the connections and distinctions between these two influential and historically significant artists, will make its U.S. debut at the Wexner Center for the Arts. On view March 26–July 31, 2011, the show features the provocative, sexually charged work of Hans Bellmer (1902–1975)—a German artist known for his drawings, photographs, and sculptures—and Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010), the famed French-born sculptor known for her psychological investigations of the human form. Bourgeois was the recipient of the Wexner Prize in 1999. She passed away last year at the age of 98.

Wexner Center Director Sherri Geldin notes, “Having first seen Double Sexus in Berlin last year, I was struck by both its concept and installation—a brilliant selection and juxtaposition of work by Louise Bourgeois and Hans Bellmer, illustrating the remarkable affinities between them. The exhibition reveals truly uncanny parallels in their exploration and manipulation of the human body to challenge entrenched social conventions, often by embracing imagery and ideas once considered taboo. Though we’ve shown a handful of sculptures by Bourgeois over the years, here was an opportunity to provide our audiences with a richer, more in-depth experience of her work while also introducing them to a somewhat lesser known artist peer.”

Though Bellmer and Bourgeois were both expatriates who associated with surrealists in the 1930s, the two never met (Bellmer was a German émigré to France, Bourgeois a French émigré to the U.S.). Despite this, their work shares many striking formal and thematic similarities. Taking its name from Henry Miller’s novel Sexus, the exhibition highlights both artists’ investigations of sexuality, desire, gender, and the body, exploring fantasies and fears, the ambiguity of sex organs, and the links between eroticism and creativity. This exhibition, which marks the first dialogue between their work, features more than 50 works in sculpture, photography, and works on paper, with pieces as early as 1934 and as recent as 2008.

The show is divided into five sections, with the work of the two artists juxtaposed throughout:

Dolls and Protheses includes one of Bellmer’s manipulated, dismembered, and reconstituted dolls, as well as photographs of these doll-like forms in various scenarios. Bourgeois’s disembodied fabric forms and bronze sculptures like Henriette (1985), which function as a commentary on archetypal gender roles, will be also be on view. For both artists, dolls and prostheses signal vulnerability and helplessness while also operating as symbols of healing and regained autonomy.

Doubling and Pairing explores the act of creation—single-sex duplication and different-sex procreation—an idea present in nearly all of Bellmer’s works and a significant number by Bourgeois. Additionally, both artists deal with the concept of sexual hybridity in hermaphrodites or androgynous figures through which they examine the mingling of male and female characteristics such as genitalia.

forme/informe surveys the artists applications of the idea of the “formless” (the shapeless, illogical, worthless, meaningless) which has come to be a significant concept in understanding 20th-century art. The deliberately ambiguous forms created by Bellmer and Bourgeois also evoke a variety of bodily associations.

Diana of Ephesus takes the Greco-Roman goddess Artemis or Diana often associated with fertility, virginity and the hunt as an important source of inspiration for both artists. Works such as Bellmer’s La Toupie (The Top) (1965/68) or Bourgeois’s Nature Study (1984/2001) draw on a specific version of the goddess that emphasizes her role as a symbol of fertility by depicting her with multiple breasts.

Histoire de l'oeil (Story of the Eye) takes its name from the famed 1928 erotic novella by Georges Bataille which used the relationship between sexual acts and the idea of a penetrating gaze as its central metaphor. Bellmer illustrated a new edition of the novel with explicit photographs, etchings, and drawings depicting the sexual exploration of the body. These are paired with very late works by Bourgeois that also explore the metaphoric connections of penetration in sex and sight.

Double Sexus was organized by Udo Kittelmann, Silke Krohn, and Kyllikki Zacharias at the Nationalgalerie, Berlin, in cooperation with the Wexner Center. It was on view in Berlin in spring and summer 2010, and at Gemeentemuseum in The Hague in fall 2010 through early 2011.

A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies this touring exhibition

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Human Behavior: Nathalie Djurberg with Music by Hans Berg

Nathalie Djurberg, who won the prestigious Silver Lion for Promising Young Artist at the Venice Biennale in 2009, makes her Ohio debut with an exhibition at the Wexner Center surveying some of the most important developments in her work from 2006–2009. This constellation of works, on view March 26–July 31, 2011 in an exhibition titled Human Behavior: Nathalie Djurberg with Music by Hans Berg, includes four stop-motion animation films and five sculptures that together demonstrate the range and recent evolution of her practice.

Djurberg’s work examines the entire spectrum of human behavior, unflinchingly revealing the inhumanities and abuses of power that too often characterize our interactions with one another. Her art brings together time-honored traditions of puppet theater and more recent techniques of stop-motion animation in a forum for social commentary that is both historically grounded and thoroughly contemporary.

The subjects she addresses in her videos are undoubtedly prompted by real incidents reported nearly every day in the news: massacres of innocent civilians in wartime, racial discrimination under colonial and post-colonial regimes, or sexual abuse by those in positions of power. The music is scored by her only close collaborator, composer Hans Berg.

Notes Sherri Geldin, Director of the Wexner Center, “The artist treats uncomfortable—even repellent—subjects in quite horrific detail, yet somehow manages to maintain the humanity of perpetrators and victims alike. This is ultimately what makes her art so radical, socially courageous, and compelling.”

The videos on view will be: New Movements in Fashion (2006; 9 mins., 28 secs.), The Natural Selection (2006; 11 mins., 28 secs.), It’s All About Painting (2007; 4 mins., 57 secs.), and The Experiment (Greed) (2009; 10 mins., 45 secs).

Notes Chief Curator Christopher Bedford, who organized this show, “Through her consistently topical, often brave work, Nathalie Djurberg asks some of the most challenging questions being posed in contemporary art. This exhibition will demonstrate the artist’s pursuit of a core set of social questions, as well her distinctive use of stop-motion animation, a medium for which her work has become a benchmark.”

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Pipilotti Rist: The Tender Room

A pioneer of video art, Pipilotti Rist makes her solo debut in Columbus with a newly commissioned multimedia project titled Pipilotti Rist: The Tender Room for the Wexner Center, on view March 26–July 31, 2011. This site-specific, multimedia environment will incorporate Rist’s recent ideas into a wholly new work, featuring her signature use of lush color, with video projections, vibrant window treatments, seating elements, a restroom video installation, and a chandelier designed by Rist. She will draw inspiration from her first feature-length film, Pepperminta (2009), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The exhibition will also feature a projection of the single-channel video Open My Glade (Flatten) outside the Wexner’s east entrance.

Rist takes familiar subjects, such as the body, and divorces them from traditional representations through her clever, and transformative, use of color and signature manipulations of the camera. Devoting herself to the task of complicating and enhancing the visual environment, Rist blurs the boundary between fantasy and reality, and her immersive installations invite viewers to linger in the space.

Notes Chief Curator Christopher Bedford, “We are thrilled to host the solo Columbus debut of Pipilotti Rist, and to have been able to support the production of an ambitious new work that extends the reach of one of the artist’s most significant projects to date, Pepperminta. We look forward to seeing, and sharing, her new environment in our galleries.”

In recent years, Rist has created similar immersive environments such as Pour Your Body Out (2009), commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Tyngdkraft, var min vän (Gravity, Be My Friend) (2007).

The center will produce an exhibition catalogue documenting the new installation to be available in early June with essays by Christopher Bedford and Lynne Tillman, an interview with the artist by Kristin Brockman, and extensive installation photography.

Rist will discuss her installation for the Wexner Center and other recent works with author and critic Lynne Tillman at 7:30 pm on Friday, March 25 during the exhibition opening event.

This exhibitions is recommended for mature audiences.

Image: Nathalie Djurberg, It’s All about Painting (still), 2007. Clay animation, digital video 4 mins., 52 secs. Edition of 4. Music by Hans Berg. Courtesy of Zach Feuer Gallery, New York, and Giò Marconi, Milan

Press contact
Karen Simonian (614) 292-9923 or KSimonian@wexarts.org
Tim Fulton (614) 688-3261 or TFulton@wexarts.org

The Spring Exhibitions Opening Celebration will be held Friday, March 25 (member preview 6–7 pm, general public 7–9 pm).

Wexner Center for the Arts
1871 North High Street at 15th Avenue and North High Street Columbus Ohio 43210-1393
Gallery hours are Tuesday–Wednesday and Sunday 11 am–6 pm; Thursday–Saturday 11 am–8 pm; closed Mondays.
Admission is $5; free for Wexner Center members, college students, and visitors 18 and under; free Thursdays from 4 to 8 pm and the first Sunday of the month.

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