calendario eventi  :: 

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31/5/2014

Two exhibitions

Blaffer Art Museum, Houston

Candice Breitz: The Woods
June 1–September 6, 2014

The Woods is a trilogy of video installations by renowned South African artist Candice Breitz that takes a close look at the world of child performers and the performance of childhood in order to probe the dreams and promises embedded in mainstream cinema. Consistent with Breitz’s interest in the role that mimicry plays in the forging of selfhood and her ongoing analysis of the circular relationship between real life and reel life, The Woods traverses three continents to explore the rituals and conventions governing the on camera and off-camera personae of professional child actors, as well as adult actors who have become famous playing child roles. The trilogy brings together footage shot in Los Angeles, Mumbai and Lagos, seeking to observe and grasp the aspirational logic that is shared by Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood. Engaging actors and crews whose creative labor would ordinarily be subsumed into these three giant popular cinema industries, the three chapters of The Woods bring a behind the-scenes eye to industries that typically prefer to mask their inner workings.

As suggested by their titles – The Audition, The Rehearsal and The Interview – in each of the three installations making up The Woods, a particular show business ritual becomes the locus of meaning through which to more broadly reflect upon and decode the machinery of mainstream entertainment. The Woods marks the first time that Breitz has worked with professional actors – in the past, she has preferred to work with amateur casts. In the case of all three works in the trilogy, the actors were left to make their own choices when it came to self-presentation. All actors appear in clothes and accessories from their own wardrobes and were invited to liberally interpret their roles. The Woods is a new work that has been co-commissioned by ACMI (Melbourne) and the Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, Massachusetts) and celebrates its American Museum debut at Blaffer Art Museum.

Candice Breitz was born in Johannesburg in 1972. She has lived and worked in Berlin since 2002. She holds degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg), the University of Chicago and Columbia University (New York). She has been a tenured professor at the Braunschweig University of Art since 2007. In recent years, solo exhibitions of Breitz’s work have been hosted by the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), De Appel (Amsterdam), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Castello di Rivoli (Turin), White Cube (London), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Standard Bank Gallery (Johannesburg) and South African National Gallery (Cape Town). Breitz has participated in biennales in Johannesburg (1997), São Paulo (1998), Istanbul (1999), Taipei (2000), Kwangju (2000), Tirana (2001), Venice (2005), New Orleans (2008) and Singapore (2011). Selected group exhibitions include New Frontier (Sundance Film Festival, 2009), The Cinema Effect (Hirshhorn Museum + Sculpture Garden, 2008), Made in Germany (Kunstverein Hannover, 2007), Superstars (Kunsthalle Wien, 2005) and Remix: Contemporary Art and Pop (Tate Liverpool, 2002).

The Woods was co-commissioned by the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne. The presentation at Blaffer Art Museum is made possible, in part, by the Cecil Amelia Blaffer von Furstenberg Endowment for Exhibitions and Programs and the Houston Endowment Inc, with additional support from Major Exhibition Fund sponsors Leslie and Brad Bucher, William J. Hill and Jane Dale Owen. Additional support comes from the Anchorage Foundation, the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, the Jo and Jim Furr Exhibition Endowment at Blaffer Art Museum, and the George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation.

The presentation at Blaffer Art Museum is made possible, in part, by the Cecil Amelia Blaffer von Furstenberg Endowment for Exhibitions and Programs and the Houston Endowment Inc, with additional support from Major Exhibition Fund patrons Leslie and Brad Bucher, William J. Hill and Jane Dale Owen. Additional support comes from the Anchorage Foundation, the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, the Jo and Jim Furr Exhibition Endowment at Blaffer Art Museum, and the George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation.

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Francesca DiMattio
Housewares
June 1–August 30, 2014

Francesca DiMattio is part of a generation of artists bent on reinvigorating painting and sculpture through careful consideration of the history of the medium and its traditions of material, genre, style and periodization. Treating her canvases like a stage set, DiMattio creates intricately layered scenes where architecture, furnishings, objects and figures collide in a continually shifting plane. She often compares the rhythm of her painting as akin to weaving in which she uses representational elements made of paint, textiles or plastics to build abstract paintings where each element is recognizable but does not behave as it should. “The imagery moves between the nameable world that adheres to rules of weight and gravity, and a flat world of pattern and abstraction that follows its own logic. Because everything is fractured, there is a suggestion of motion rather than stillness. Every element is interrupted or broken by another element. Nothing is left whole.”

The same is true for her sculpture. DiMattio’s earlier work referenced the genres of history painting and landscape, but since 2010 her focus has shifted to the still life and domestic interior. It is in this context that she began making ceramic vessels, or, more precisely, sculptures about vases, and more recently sets of tea cups and pots. Like the paintings, the sculptures fuse together different traditions and techniques, ranging from 17th Century French Chinoiserie to mass-produced kitsch tchotchkes to the molten forms of Peter Voulkos’s sculptures. Through material and formal collision her sculptures investigate and challenge ideas of the decorative and its association with femininity. Says DiMattio, “It changes what we think of as feminine and presents the domestic in forms that call for new adjectives.”

Born in 1981, DiMattio is based in New York. She received her BFA from Cooper Union in 2003 and her MFA from Columbia University in 2005. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Zabludowicz Collection and Pippy Houlsworth Gallery, London, Conduits Gallery, Milan, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, The National Arts Club, New York, LAXART, Los Angeles, The Saatchi Gallery, London, and Locust Projects, Miami. She is represented by Salon 94 in New York.

Francesca DiMattio is made possible through the generous support of First Take patrons Jereann Chaney, Cullen Geiselman, Heidi and David Gerger, Pablo and Maria Henning, Cecily Horton, Ann Jackson, Kathrine G. McGovern/McGovern Foundation, Marc Melcher, the Nightingale Code Foundation, Jim Prell, Vitol, Inc., and Lea Weingarten. Additional support comes from the Cecil Amelia Blaffer von Furstenberg Endowment for Exhibitions and Program, the Houston Endowment, Inc., the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, the Jo and Jim Furr Exhibition Endowment at Blaffer Art Museum, and The George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation.

Media Contacts:
Matt Johns
Director of External Relations
713.743.9528
mgjohns@uh.edu

Public opening and reception: Sunday, June 1, 11am-1pm

Blaffer Art Museum
University of Houston
120 Fine Arts Building - Houston, TX 77204-4018
Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat 10-5
Thu 10-7
Closed Sunday, Monday

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