calendario eventi  :: 

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13/12/2008

Two exhibitions

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield

Kwang-Young Chun: The Soul—Journey to America
December 14, 2008, to May 24, 2009

Curated by Richard Klein

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is pleased to announce that noted Korean artist Kwang-Young Chun has created his largest free-standing paper sculpture to date—just over 14 feet and approximately 650 pounds— expressly for presentation in the Museum’s two story Project Space for his exhibition The Soul—Journey to America.

Kwang-Young Chun makes intricate sculpture out of the recycled pages of old Korean books and medicine wrappers printed on mulberry paper. He wraps the handmade paper—inscribed with Korean characters— around thousands of Styrofoam tetrahedrons and other geometric forms that serve as the basic units of his compositions. The forms are then arranged in free-standing three-dimensional sculptures or mounted on the wall as two-dimensional low-reliefs. The new sculpture, which belongs to his Aggregation series, will be installed in the center of the gallery, offering visitors a holistic three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the piece, as well as a spectacular bird’s eye vantage from the Project Space balcony.

Curator Richard Klein says, “Chun has been influential to a younger generation of artists and successful in projecting traditional concerns to a broader, more international audience.” Klein continues, “Words become buried in Chun’s forms so that the work resembles organic forms that often grow up from the ground. These crystallized boulders and monumental pods with irregular surfaces reference the natural landscape, which is deeply imbedded in Korean art history, but are created from man-made modules made from both vintage and modern materials.”

The Artist:
Kwang-Young Chun was born in 1944 in Hongchun, Korea. He received his BFA from Hong-Ik University, Seoul, and his MFA from the Philadelphia College of Art. He was named Artist of the Year in 2001 by the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, and he has exhibited widely in Korea and Japan.

The Soul—Journey to America will travel to the University of Wyoming Art Museum following its Aldrich debut.

Special thanks to SK Telecom for funding the transport of Kwang-Young Chun’s sculpture from Korea to America.
SK Telecom

Kwang-Young Chun is represented by Robert Miller Gallery, New York. The Museum wishes to thank Kim Foster Gallery, New York, and Michelle Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, for their help in the realization of this work.

Aldrich exhibitions are supported, in part, by the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Exhibition Reception December 14, 2008; 3 to 5 pm
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Video A—Harry Shearer: The Silent Echo Chamber
December 14, 2008, to February 8, 2009

Curated by Richard Klein

Live, from The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum . . . it’s a new exhibition by Harry Shearer! On December, 14, 2008, Harry Shearer: The Silent Echo Chamber, a multi-screen video installation by the award-winning American comedic actor, writer, musician, and radio host best known for his regular Saturday Night Live appearances and for providing many voices for the popular television series The Simpsons, will open at The Aldrich.

The Silent Echo Chamber is the newest video work by Shearer, and will be presented on nine plasma monitors in the Museum’s Leir Atrium. This exhibition will mark the second installation of Video A, a recurring exhibitions program developed to present short contemporary video projects on an ongoing basis. The exhibition will remain on view through February 8, 2009.

The project captures well-known personalities from politics and the media in the silent moments before “going live.” Individuals portrayed include James Carville, Barack Obama, Larry King, Dr. Phil, John McCain, and Chris Matthews, each caught in the uneasy prelude to becoming the familiar animated “talking head.” Shearer’s silent portrait gallery turns the familiar into the strange, allowing visitors to project their own meaning on the awkward collective silence of those to whom Americans usually look for guidance and commentary.

Richard Klein, Aldrich exhibitions director, says, “The Silent Echo Chamber is especially relevant following such an intense political season and we’re very pleased to introduce his work into the museum arena for the first time.”

additional images | click to enlarge

Video A—Harry Shearer: The Silent Echo Chamber

Harry Shearer, David Gergen (video still from The Silent Echo Chamber), 2008
Courtesy of the artist and Susan Inglett Gallery, New York

The Artist:
Over his fifty-year career, Shearer has, among other things, been a writer and cast member for Saturday Night Live, a co-creator and actor in the 1984 spoof This is Spinal Tap, host of KCRW’s radio comedy and music program Le Show, and perhaps most memorably, the voice actor for over twelve characters on The Simpsons, including Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, and Ned Flanders. Harry Shearer is represented by Susan Inglett Gallery, New York.

Aldrich exhibitions are supported, in part, by the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Image: Kwang-Young Chun

Press contact: Pamela Ruggio
Phone: 203.438.4519 Email: pruggio@aldrichart.org

Reception December 14, 2008; 3 to 5 pm

Aldrich Museum
258 Main Street - Ridgefield

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