calendario eventi  :: 

X

2/10/2010

Rebecca Warren

Different venues, Chicago

Perhaps best-known for her brash clay sculptures of female figures, Rebecca Warren (b. 1965) has developed a body of work distinguished for its formal risk-taking and the shrewd humor with which she faces the long, male-dominated tradition of figurative sculpture. For the solo exhibition at The Renaissance Society (October 3, 2010 - December 12, 2010), her first in an American museum, Warren will be presenting new work. The show will be presented in collaboration with The Art Institute of Chicago, where three new site-specific bronzes will be installed on the Bluhm Family Terrace above the new Renzo Piano-designed Modern Wing (October 3, 2010 - April 3, 2011). Totem-like, brash, and bulging, the works sited on Bluhm Family Terrace will act as a compelling counterpoint to Chicago's renowned skyline—itself dominated by architectural masters of a certain gender.

Rebecca Warren’s bronze sculptures are created in raw clay, cast, and hand-painted. She knowingly references the work of canonical male artists such as Auguste Rodin, Edgar Degas, and Willem de Kooning, as well as the cartoonist Robert Crumb. Deeply informed by the history of sculpture—from mystical prehistoric sources up to the present moment—her ambiguous, figurative forms disrupt entrenched notions of the classical ideal. Totemlike and “awkward,” as the artist described them, the sculptures in their clay state are manipulated by hand, twisted, and built up, the wet, malleable material “fixed” in bronze and paint, defying the pull of gravity. The plinths on which these works rest are fully integrated into this sculptural ethos. Cast in bronze from a full-scale fiberboard construction and painted, they are intrinsically equivalent to the figures themselves. The emphatically vertical sculptures on the Bluhm Family Terrace are, in fact, forceful counterpoints to Chicago’s renowned modernist skyline—itself dominated by works of the city’s greatest, mostly male architectural masters.

This exhibition, a collaboration of The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago and The Renaissance Society, is the British artist’s first solo presentation in an American museum. The Art Institute’s component will comprise three monumental bronze sculptures created specifically for the Bluhm Family Terrace.

Rebecca Warren was born in London in 1965 and received degrees from Goldsmith’s College at the University of London and the Chelsea College of Art, London. Warren was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2006 and the Vincent Award in 2008. The Kunsthalle Zürich mounted a one-person exhibition in 2004, her work was included in the 2006 Tate Triennial, and the Serpentine Gallery, London, presented a survey of her work in 2009. Warren lives and works in London.

Sponsor: The Bluhm Family Endowment Fund supports exhibitions of modern and contemporary sculpture, which may consist of existing works drawn from the Art Institute’s permanent collection or borrowed from other collections private and public or new works commissioned specifically for the Bluhm Family Terrace at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Image: Cube, 2003. Bronze on MDF and wheels 20 1/8 x 13 3/4 x 14 3/4 inches. Courtesy of Maureen Paley, London, and Matthew Marks Gallery, New York

Press contact
The Art Institute of Chicago - Erin Hogan (312) 443-3664 ehogan@artic.edu

Opening reception Sunday, October 3rd from 4pm-7pm

The Renaissance Society
Bergman Gallery, Cobb Hall 418, Chicago
Hours: Tuesday - Friday: 10 am - 5 pm
Saturday, Sunday: 12 am - 5 pm
Closed Mondays
Free admission

The Art Institute of Chicago
111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago
Hours: Monday–Wednesday, 10.30 am - 5 pm
Thursday, 10.30 am - 8 pm (Free Admission 5–8)
Friday, 10:30 am - 8 pm
Saturday–Sunday, 10.30 am - 5 pm
Admission: Adults $18.00
Students and Seniors $12.00
Children under 14 Free

stampa

permanent link