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24/1/2007

Merce Cunningham

MOCA Joan Lehman Building, Miami

Dancing on the Cutting Edge

Throughout his more than five-decade career, legendary avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham has joined with such renowned visual artists as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol, to create dynamic decor and costumes for his productions. A new two-part exhibition presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) will be the first in the U.S. to focus on the pioneering modern choreographer’s collaborations with visual artists from 1997 to the present.

Merce Cunningham: Dancing on the Cutting Edge will be on view from January 26 - April 29, 2007 (Part 1) at MOCA’s Joan Lehman Building in North Miami, and from April 21 - June 24 (Part 2) at the museum’s satellite gallery in Wynwood, MOCA at Goldman Warehouse. The two-part exhibition is organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art and curated by MOCA Executive Director and Chief Curator Bonnie Clearwater. It is presented in collaboration with Carnival Center for the Performing Arts as part of the Merce in Miami celebration that showcases the life and work of Merce Cunningham through collaborations with arts organizations in Miami-Dade County.

Clearwater notes, “In most cases, artists who have collaborated with Cunningham have been transformed by the experience. As in all of Cunningham’s productions, the dance, de'cor and music exist independent of one another, and yet the points where they intersect, whether by chance or design, produce sublime moments. Cunningham clearly lives for moments when order emerges from chaos, and it is his ability to recognize the possibilities in these collaborations that gives his work a life of its own."

Merce Cunningham: Dancing on the Cutting Edge, Part 1

MOCA, North Miami January 26 - April 29, 2007 (770 NE 125th Street, North Miami, FL) will present a series of installations featuring the actual sets and costumes created for Merce Cunningham Dance Company productions by artists: Sandra Cinto, Olafur Eliasson, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. Richard Hamilton, Rei Kawakubo, Charles Long, Christian Marclay, Jacqueline Matisse Monnier, Ernesto Neto The Open-ended Group (Marc Downie, Shelley Eshkar, Paul Kaiser), Gabriel Orozco, Robert Rauschenberg, Henry Samelson, and Terry Winters. Part 1 exhibition highlights include:

• Olafur Eliasson’s Convex/Concave, a large circular mirror foil on a frame, connected to a pneumatic pump, that served as the de'cor for one of the performances in MCDC’s week-long series of Events at New York’s Joyce Theater in 2000.

• Ernesto Neto’s Otheranimal, a 40-foot wide mixed media installation of nylon and netting created for Cunningham’s Views on Stage, 2005 that was first performed at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland in 2004.

• Charles Long’s design for the set of Cunningham’s 2001 production, Way Station. For this work, Long created Tripods, five free-standing sculptures that resembled long-limbed space aliens, which the dancers could move under and through. Costumes were designed by James Hall, wardrobe supervisor for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, to contrast with the pastel-colored tripods. The placing of fabrics, applique', and panels, was decided either mathematically or by chance.

• Christian Marclay’s video projection backdrop that was created for Cunningham’s week-long series of Events at New York’s Joyce Theater in 2004. The images and sound of this video projection were planned to briefly disrupt the performance in an unexpected and random way. To create the work, Marclay set up a camera on the side of a small country road in Maine where he filmed the occasional car and truck whizzing by.

• Robert Rauschenberg’s costumes for Cunningham’s Interscape, 2000, a work for 14 dancers that also features music by John Cage. For the costumes, Rauschenberg hand silk-screened collaged images on 28 sets of white leotards and tights at his studio in Florida.

Merce Cunningham: Dancing on the Cutting Edge (Part 2)

The focus of Merce Cunningham: Dancing on the Cutting Edge, Part 2, on view at MOCA at Goldman Warehouse, (404 NW 26th Street, Miami, FL) April 21 - June 24, 2007, will be the second iteration of Cunningham’s newest work, eyeSpace, a collaboration with 26-year-old Miami artist Daniel Arsham and composer David Behrman. Commissioned by Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, the piece will have its world premiere there on February 23, 2007, with a set commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art designed by Arsham. The exhibition Merce Cunningham: Dancing on the Cutting Edge, Part 2 will feature Arsham’s drawings, set and costumes created for this exciting new production.

Bonnie Clearwater, MOCA Executive Director and Chief Curator, recommended several Miami artists as potential collaborators for the project. Trevor Carlson, MCDC’s Executive Director, presented these possibilities to Merce Cunningham, who subsequently selected Daniel Arsham to be the de'cor artist for the piece. One of Miami’s most promising young artists, Arsham reworks the architectural and natural forms of our everyday experience into malleable and movable models with surreal and uncanny effects. His work is included in MOCA’s permanent collection and has been featured there in several group exhibitions since 2001. This will be Arsham’s first solo museum exhibition.

David Behrman has been active as a composer and multimedia artist since the 1960s. Most of his work since the late 1970s has involved computer-controlled systems operating interactively with people who may or may not have musical expertise.

Opening Reception: Thursday, January 25, 2007, 7 - 9 pm

Museum of Contemporary Art, Joan Lehman Building
770 NE 125th Street, North Miami
Open Tues - Saturday, 11 am - 5 pm; Sunday, noon - 5 pm
Evening hours last Friday of each month 7 - 10 pm
Admission: free for MOCA members, North Miami residents, City of North Miami employees, children under 12; $5 adults; $3 seniors and students with ID.

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