calendario eventi  :: 

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23/5/2013

Three exhibitions

Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis

This summer, CAM presents major exhibitions by celebrated American and international artists that mark a series of firsts—Lari Pittman: A Decorated Chronology, the preeminent Los Angeles-based painter's first solo U.S. museum exhibition in nearly twenty years, and Mika Taanila: Tomorrow's New Dawn, the renowned Finnish contemporary artist and documentary filmmaker's first solo museum exhibition in the U.S. In addition, the Museum's Front Room series will feature prominent new installations by Kerry James Marshall.

Lari Pittman: A Decorated Chronology

As the centerpiece of its summer 2013 season, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM) presents the first solo U.S. museum exhibition of Los Angeles-based artist Lari Pittman in nearly twenty years. On view May 24 through August 11, 2013, Lari Pittman: A Decorated Chronology is also the first comprehensive presentation of Pittman’s work in the Midwest. One of the most preeminent artists working today as well as a longtime educator, Pittman is a major influence on contemporary painting. Comprising thirty large-scale paintings and a twenty- four-part works on paper series, the exhibition will primarily feature newer work from the mid-2000s to the present. In addition, a number of seminal earlier works, essential for understanding the trajectory of Pittman’s practice and borrowed from major museums and private collections across the United States, will also figure prominently.

Pittman’s work is internationally celebrated for its use of exuberant color and painstaking detail to address contentious subjects such as sexuality, desire, and violence. His paintings combine a visual breathlessness with a sophisticated formal logic to intertwine the personal and the political. Lari Pittman: A Decorated Chronology shares its name with Pittman’s series of early paintings (A Decorated Chronology of Insistence and Resignation, 1992–1993) in which the artist expanded his practice in both content and form—often portraying a cast of gender-ambiguous figures engaged in expressive and licentious acts alongside images of consumption. From the exhibition’s earliest painting, Thanksgiving (1985), to recent work that explores more personal themes as well as painting’s relationship to the greater landscape of art history, Lari Pittman: A Decorated Chronology illustrates and celebrates the development of Pittman’s expansive practice over the past thirty years.

Lari Pittman: A Decorated Chronology is organized by the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and curated by Kelly Shindler, Assistant Curator. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog.
Lari Pittman (b. 1952, Los Angeles) lives and works in Los Angeles. His work has been shown in more than 40 solo exhibitions, including at Le Consortium, Dijon, France (2013) and Villa Arson, Nice, France (2005). Traveling exhibitions include Once a Noun, Now a Verb (Spacex Gallery, Exeter, UK; Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK; ICA, London; and Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva; 1998); and Lari Pittman (Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; and Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; 1996–97). Pittman has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including This Will Have Been: Art, Love, and Politics in the 1980s at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston (2012); Documenta X, Kassel, Germany (1997); and the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1997, 1995, 1993, 1987). Pittman was featured in Season Three of the PBS documentary series, Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century and is the recipient of the Skowhegan Medal (2002) and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant in Painting (1993, 1989, 1987), among many awards. Pittman received a BFA and an MFA from California Institute of the Arts. He is Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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Mika Taanila: Tomorrow's New Dawn

The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM) presents the first solo U.S. museum exhibition of Finnish contemporary artist and renowned documentary filmmaker Mika Taanila. On view May 24 through August 11, 2013, Mika Taanila: Tomorrow’s New Dawn will present a number of significant videos and installations created over the past decade as well as several important new works for the first time.

For more than twenty years, Taanila has created works in film, video, photography, sound, and installation that investigate various technological developments and the innovators behind them. He uses the documentary form to consider and often critique the implications of humanity’s drive towards advancement, frequently emphasizing the failure of utopian visions to fulfill their promises and questioning the costs associated with progress.

Tomorrow’s New Dawn presents the North American premiere of The Most Electrified Town in Finland (2012), Taanila’s groundbreaking work about the construction of the world’s most powerful nuclear power plant in western Finland—the first to be built in the West since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. This expansive, three-channel video installation arrives at CAM following its world premiere at dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany, in summer 2012, where it received critical acclaim. Also featured in the exhibition is Six Day Run (2012), a single-channel video installation about a Finnish runner’s participation in a grueling New York City race in which athletes run continually for six days on minimal sleep in order to achieve what spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy describes as “self-transcendance.” Tomorrow’s New Dawn also includes a new body of experimental photograms titled Black and White Movies (2013), inspired by climactic scenes in major Hollywood film productions, as well as several other works that illustrate the significant gallery practice that Taanila has developed over the past decade. On August 8, CAM will also host a public screening of the artist’s award-winning documentaries, The Future Is Not What It Used to Be (2002), about the electronic music pioneer and idiosyncratic inventor Erkki Kurenniemi, and Futuro—A New Stance for Tomorrow (1998), about the space-age Futuro House designed by architect Matti Suuronen in the 1960s.

Mika Taanila (b. 1965, Helsinki, Finland) lives and works in Helsinki. Solo and two-person exhibitions include Mika Taanila: The Most Electrified Town in Finland,, KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (forthcoming, fall 2013); On The Spot #4, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany (2008); Zone d'éclipse totale, Dazibao, Centre de photographies actuelles, Montréal, Canada (2007); Une histoire saccadée (with Erkki Kurenniemi), Institut Finlandais, Paris (2006); Hotel Futuro, Spacex Gallery, Exeter, UK (2005); and Mika Taanila: Human Engineering at Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich (2005). Taanila’s films and installations have been featured at more than 200 international film festivals and exhibitions, including dOCUMENTA13, Kassel, Germany (2012); Arctic Hysteria: Trance States, Visions, and Hallucinations in Contemporary Finnish Art, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, NY (2008–2010; traveled to Vaasa, Finland; Salamanca, Spain; Helsinki; and Budapest, Hungary); sixth Shanghai Biennale (2006); third Berlin Biennial (2004), Manifesta 4, Frankfurt-Am-Main, Germany (2002); Ars Electronica / Cyberarts 2002, O.K. Centrum für Gegenwartskunst, Linz, Austria (2002); and the seventh International Istanbul Biennial (2001).

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Kerry James Marshall
May 24 - July 7

This summer, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM) presents a project by Kerry James Marshall— regarded as one of the most important American artists of the past twenty years—as part of its ongoing Front Room series. Based in Chicago, Marshall is known for work in a broad range of media informed by African-American life and history, popular culture, and art history. On view May 24 through July 7, 2013, his project at CAM will be a new, multidimensional installation specifically created for CAM’s Front Room space. It is scheduled to coincide with the June 2013 opening of the Saint Louis Art Museum’s new East Building expansion, where one of Marshall’s most significant works, Watts 1963 (1995), will be on view.

Marshall’s project at CAM examines ideas about scientific transformations of nature as they apply to race and humanity. Various components of the installation—trellis structures, floral forms, a tile wall, and a stone path—suggest a garden and provide a framework for other elements, including two photographs and two ornate mirrors engraved with text. The text on the mirrors is from a letter sent by Thomas Jefferson in 1815 to Francis C. Gray, a lawyer and poet, elaborating on a proposed scientific process by which an African American and a white American could be progressively cross-bred to produce a white American citizen. Marshall’s use of this provocative text creates a complex relationship between his man- made garden and images of urban uses of and encroachments upon nature, creating links between botanical and philosophical ideas of hybridity.

Kerry James Marshall (b. 1955, Birmingham, Alabama) lives and works in Chicago. Later this year, his work will be the subject of a major solo exhibition at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Belgium, and the exhibition In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall, at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. Marshall is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, an NEA Visual Art Fellowship, and many other awards. He has had previous solo exhibitions at the Vienna Secession (2012); the Vancouver Art Gallery (2010); the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (2008); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2003); and the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (1998).

Image: Mika Taanila, The Most Electrified Town in Finland, 2012. Three-channel looping HD video installation, color, 5.1 sound, 15 minutes. Courtesy the artist and Kinotar. Photo: Jussi Eerola.

Press contact:
Ida McCall 314.535.0770 x311 / imccall@camstl.org

Opening Night: Summer Exhibitions
Friday, May 24
Patron Preview: 5:30 PM
Member Preview: 6:00 PM
Public Reception: 7:00–9:00 pm

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
3750 Washington Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63108
Hours: 11-6 Wed / 11-9 Thu & Fri / 10-5 Sat & Sun

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