Francois Bucher
Carissa Rodriguez
Garder Eide Einarsson
Ayreen Anastas
Rene Gabri
Dolores Segwaay
Pedro Diniz Reis
Hernani Marcelino
Ralph Whitefin
Tanya Leighton
Jennifer Farrell
Jose Roca
Yates McKee
Six Feet Under Summer Series. Each week of the series six different sets of curators and artists
While events such as Rem Koolhaas's Soho Prada
store opening and Guggenheim's Armani show appear as the
catalyst for the collapse of High Art, Commercialism, and
Design, they are merely topical results of a much larger and
insidious cultural shift, one greater than any of the single
institutes or individuals involved. As Carl Skelton notes,
"Guggenheimlichkeit is just as fundamental to the phenomenon
of breakfast cereal as it is to any oxymoronic 'contemporary
museum." Whether is in the Upper East Side or Chelsea, the
seemingly 'neutral' trope of exhibition design, in a mix of
"post-industrial guilt" and transparent irony, has been used to
'franchise' museums while making the 'products' within
'peripheral' at best. In her article "Growing Pains" in Art In
America critic Eleanor Heartney remarks that "After what seems
an unceasing round of blockbuster exhibitions ... one wonders if
museums are becoming too much like that quintessential
American industry - the movies." *
'Guggenheimlichkeit' is the theme of White Box's 6 Feet
Under 2002. Each week of the series six different sets of
curators and artists will explore 'Guggenheimlichkeit' and the
role of the museum. While the gallery is impenetrable to the
public, the artists will appropriate the view from the outside
window as they wish. Above all, the artists and curators involved
are critiquing 'Guggenheimlichkeit' while also accounting for
their own complicity within such a system in order to map out
spaces of its very resistance. The artists see
'Guggenheimlichkeit' not as a fixed narrative but one with
excesses, ruptures, and inconsistencies that must be explored
and even utilized.
Opening receptions to be held Thursdays 6-8pm, throughout
project schedule:
18 - 24 July.
NEW YORK 2002
By Francois Bucher,
curated by Jose Roca.
This piece re-enacts historical revolutionary text
and appropriates it into a new space as art. Bucher
proposes that the artistic field provides a site of
resistance, unfreezing history in the present and sustaining
its resonance.
25 - 31 July (opening 25 July, 6 - 8)
UNTITLED (poster) 2002
Carissa Rodriguez + Garder Eide Einarsson
curated by Jennifer Farrell
An installation calling for increased personal
autonomy as reaction to and resistance against recent
shifts in power, capital, and attention that have restructured
relationships between artists, art works, viewers, and
institutions.
1 - 7 August.
WORKSPHERES
By The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)
curated by Yates McKee.
The CUP has created a municipal demonstration
project pertaining to MOMA's recent workforce policies
and relocation, appropriating materials from the MOMA
'Workspheres' exhibition.
8 - 15 August.
FALSE OPENING
By Pedro Diniz Reis,
curated by Hernani Marcelino.
A video installation by this Portuguese artist
examines the site specificity of museum spaces and the
desire instilled within the viewer to embody that space.
5 - 10 September.
AIRING THE BELLY AT BILBAO
By Dolores Segwaay,
curated by Ralph Whitefin.
Images and text loosely portray a drive through
the Basque Country with radio broadcast of ETA attack
while on approach to Puppy, Gehry, Armani and ill girl
besides Yves Klein's fountain.
11 - 18 September.
RADIO-ACTIVE
By Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri,
curated by Tanya Leighton.
White Box serves as the interface to a radio
station, with programming related to or engaged with
September 11 and the responses by figures both outside
and within the artistic and cultural community.
*"Growing Pains" Eleanor Heartney Art In America
WHITE BOX
525 WEST 26th STREET NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10001 - USA TEL 212.714.2347 FAX 714.2354