calendario eventi  :: 

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3/6/2014

Jim Hodges

The Institute of Contemporary Art - ICA, Boston

(BOSTON, May 27, 2014) On June 4, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston opens Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take, the first comprehensive survey of American artist Jim Hodges (b. 1957), one of the most compelling sculpture and installation artists working today. This major, nationally traveling exhibition explores the trajectory of the artist’s career from 1987 through the present integrating sculpture, installation, photography, drawing, collage, and several room-size environments. Co-organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and the Dallas Museum of Art, Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take is coordinated for the ICA by Anna Stothart, Assistant Curator. The exhibition is on view at the ICA from June 4 through Sept. 1, 2014. “The ICA has a long history of working with Jim Hodges, having first exhibited his work in 1998, and we are thrilled to welcome him back to Boston,” said Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the ICA. “Jim’s work is, at once, poetic and political, sublime and significant, and I’m excited that our audiences will have the summer to spend with Jim’s art.”

Born in Spokane, Washington, Jim Hodges has been based in New York City since the early 1980s, when he came to study painting at Pratt Institute. Eschewing the medium early on in his career, he evolved in the late 1980s and early 1990s the thoughtful, materials-based practice that characterizes his work to this day. Hodges’s work typically begins with humble, even overlooked materials—silk scarves and flowers, mirrors, light bulbs, glass, clothing, metal chains, decals, and sheet music—that he transforms through simple gestures or actions such as drawing, sewing, folding or unfolding, transferring, cutting, assembling, and unraveling. These acts of poetic reconsideration elevate his pieces to other levels of interpretation and meaning. The results are poignant sculptural meditations on life, love, loss, and a range of human experience.

Hodges came of age as an artist in the late 1980s and 90s, an intense period in American society marked by censorship, political conservatism, and the height of the AIDS crisis. Many of his early works, including A Diary of Flowers (1994), comprised of doodled coffeehouse napkins pinned to the wall, have been discussed and interpreted through the lens of loss and memorial that marked this moment. Indeed, Hodges is part of a generation of sculptors, including Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Robert Gober, Roni Horn, Kiki Smith, and Katharina Fritsch, who collectively ushered in a new visual language in the 1990s distinguished by generosity, metaphor, and restraint. This approach was in sharp contrast to the more acerbic, didactic language-based art that characterized the preceding decade.

Organizing curators Olga Viso, Executive Director of the Walker Art Center, and Jeffrey Grove, Senior Curator of Special Projects & Research at the Dallas Museum of Art, who both have long histories working with Jim Hodges, took inspiration from the artist when organizing the exhibition. Instead of displaying the work chronologically, they worked closely with Hodges to conceive a sequence of themed rooms that bring together a variety of artworks across media and time to elicit a range of impressive environments or experiences. The series of mirrored wall works titled Movements (2005–2009), for example, dapple brilliant reflected light, as well as the viewer’s own reflection, on the surrounding floors and walls. These works conjure feelings of lightness and dispersion in contrast to the dark, sensorial environment of the adjacent dark gate (2008), a rarely exhibited room-size installation that also engages the viewer’s sense of smell.

In addition to showcasing rarely seen works, including Untitled (Gate) (1991), and ghost (2008)—Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take debuts a new work made specifically for the exhibition. Untitled (one day it all comes true) (2013), an expansive wall tapestry that is one of the most labor-intensive and epic works by the artist to date, is comprised of thousands of individual pieces of denim in every shade of the material’s spectrum.

Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take and its accompanying catalogue, the first publication of its kind exploring Hodges’s career, positions his work in the context of its time and illuminates its singularity and subtle, radical subversion. No other artist of his generation has tackled the notions of beauty, sentimentality and craft as forthrightly as Hodges, harnessing all its delights and discomforts with such audacity and integrity.

RELATED EVENTS

JUNE 20 | 6 + 8 PM
Shelley Hirsch A vocal performance in the exhibition Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take
Free with museum admission
When asked if there was anyone he would like to have perform in his exhibition, artist Jim Hodges suggested his friend the vocalist Shelley Hirsch. It is our great pleasure to bring Hirsch, who performed at the ICA in 2009, back to our stage. For one performance this evening she will present States, an evocative sonic travelogue inspired by a Hodges exhibition she saw at the Fabric Workshop in Philadelphia. For the other, she will present one of her storied improvisations, which typically bring together extended vocal techniques, actual and hypothetical languages, and rich electronic effects. The performances will last 20 minutes each.

JUNE 19 | 7 PM
The Artist’s Voice: Jim Hodges
Free tickets are required and available on the day of the program. First come, first served.
The ICA first introduced the work of artist Jim Hodges to Boston in 1998 through Vita Brevis, a bold series of public projects that connected the city with contemporary art. 16 years later, Hodges returns to Boston in this public program to reflect on his early experience with the ICA and discuss what continues to drive his art making. The conversation will be led by Vita Brevis founder Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the ICA.

JUNE 12 | 2 PM
Gallery Talk: Preparator’s tour of Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take
Tim Obetz, chief preparator at the ICA, worked closely with Jim Hodges in the installation of Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take. Hear from Obetz about the unique process of installing Hodges’s work, from placement to what the artist asks the crew to meditate on while they install certain works.

AUGUST 24 | 2 PM
Gallery Talk: Anna Stothart on Jim Hodges
“The materials of art are all around us.” —Jim Hodges Join ICA Assistant Curator Anna Stothart for an in-depth conversation about Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take.
Exhibition tour Following its presentation at the ICA, the exhibition will travel to the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (October 5, 2014–January 17, 2014).

Acknowledgements

Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take is co-organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Major support for the exhibition is provided by Amanda and Glenn Fuhrman, John and Amy Phelan, Cindy and Howard Rachofsky, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional support is generously provided by Jeanne and Michael Klein, Agnes and Edward Lee, and Pizzuti Collection.

Support for the Boston presentation is provided by Robert and Jane Burke, Bridgitt and Bruce Evans, and Tristin and Martin Mannion. Coordinated by Anna Stothart, Assistant Curator.

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The Institute Of Contemporary Art
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