Doug Hall
dal 27/3/2015 al 5/6/2015
Segnalato da
27/3/2015
Doug Hall
Walter Galleries, San Francisco
For the exhibition the artist presents seminal large-scale installation includes three channels of video,two large steel chairs, and a commanding steel-mesh barricade.
Curated by: Hesse McGraw, Rudolf Frieling
Doug Hall’s seminal large-scale installation The Terrible Uncertainty of the Thing Described (1987) includes three channels of video, a functioning Tesla coil, two large steel chairs, and a commanding steel-mesh barricade. The work brings together powerful moving images of nature in turmoil, physically imposing sculptural elements, and startling bolts of electricity that periodically extend from the coil. These explosive and unpredictable moments offer a potent signal that we are subject to the forces of nature and the influence of media.
Taking its title from a phrase in an 18th-century treatise by Edmund Burke on romanticism and the sublime, Hall’s installation sets idealized notions of nature against its often-terrifying reality. The video cuts between documentary and found footage of industrial plants, interiors of utility and research facilities, and intense weather conditions—tornados, floods, fires, electrical storms. The work, originally commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, for Hall’s midcareer survey The Spectacle of the Image (1987), addresses the physical manifestation of power and stages a critique of mediated images.
This exhibition marks the first time The Terrible Uncertainty of the Thing Described has been on view in San Francisco since 1989, when it was presented by SFMOMA in the museum’s original location at the War Memorial Veterans Building. This co-presentation is part of the SFMOMA On the Go., a program that offers an array of art experiences around the Bay Area and beyond, while the museum is closed for major expansion construction.
About the artist
Doug Hall lives and works in San Francisco, where he was born in 1944. He founded the media art collective T. R. Uthco (1970–78) with Jody Procter (1943–98) and Diane Andrews Hall. His acclaimed work spans performance, video, photography, and sculpture, and has been exhibited nationally and internationally. A Professor Emeritus at SFAI, Hall will be the subject of a major retrospective in 2017, which will originate at SFAI and is co-curated by Susan Miller and Hesse McGraw.
Image: iew of Doug Hall, The Terrible Uncertainty of the Thing Described (detail), Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 1987. Collection SFMOMA, purchase through a gift of the Modern Art Council and the San Francisco Art Dealers Association. © Doug Hall. Photo: Charles Mayer.
Press Contact: press@sfmoma.org
Opening: Saturday, March 28, 6–8pm
Walter and McBean Galleries
San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
Hours: Tuesday 11am–7pm,
Wednesday–Sunday 11am–6pm