Artists in Residence 2005-06
dal 17/7/2006 al 21/10/2006
Segnalato da
17/7/2006
Artists in Residence 2005-06
The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
Rashawn Griffin, Karyn Olivier and Clifford Owens. Same Difference? As a culmination of the selected artists' year-long residencies, work by the three artists will be installed in the mezzanine galleries. Through new approaches to production and programming, the show will experiment with new dimensions in sculpture, performance and installation.
Rashawn Griffin, Karyn Olivier and Clifford Owens. Same Difference?
Like every summer at the Studio Museum, the annual Artists-in-Residence exhibition will open in July. As a culmination of the selected artists’ year-long residencies, work by the three artists will be installed in the mezzanine galleries. This show will have a title, and possibly a theme, if not a premise or a relational discourse.
But this year is a bit different. Karyn Olivier, Clifford Owens and Rashawn Griffin arrived in October 2005, and they brought new approaches to experimental and established media to the third-floor studios. It has been a challenge to consider the fabrication of jungle gyms, the studio as a stage for improvised performances and the shelf lives of raw almonds and jelly beans. Welcome to the art practices of Oliver, Owens and Griffin, respectively. Because of the exciting variation in these artists’ practices and media, this summer’s exhibition promises to be dynamic. Through new approaches to production and programming, the show will experiment with new dimensions in sculpture, performance and installation.
Nadine Robinson: Alles Grau
The Bible’s Book of Revelation, the final book of the New Testament, offers an ominous, menacing picture of the future. It begins with John’s prophecy of the second coming of the Lord. Emerging ethereally from the clouds, holding in his right hand seven golden stars for the seven churches of Asia, Lord God announces, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty" (Revelation 1:8). The chapters that follow describe the separation of the saved from the damned. It is an emphatic, threatening story of the end of time.
Nadine Robinson mines religious doctrines and prophecies of doom specific to these passages from the Book of Revelation as material for her most recent body of work. While the large-scale sculptural installations appear as minimal forms, they are informed by a vast range of references, including fairy tales, Rastafarianism, Renaissance painting and Obeah. In the end, myriad images, objects and sounds manifest as a foreboding yet whimsical statement on globalization and civilization as we know it.
Robinson’s new work, Alles Grau in Grau Malen (2005), offers a soundtrack for the end of time. It is an enormous sound painting measuring over 11 by 45 feet.1 The built-in audio components play a mix of popular dramatic soundtracks taken from Hollywood films and Jamaican dance music. According to Robinson, Jamaican culture is inextricably bound to the Book of Revelation. Rastafarians believe that they are descendants of the tribe of Benjamin and will be saved at the end of time.2 Echo effects and air horns, commonly found in Jamaican dance music, are reinterpreted as a kind of “doom dub" in this work. Each of these tracks derives from a different vernacular for the end of time.
Alles Grau in Grau Malen means “to paint everything grey and black, or pessimistically" in German. Robinson believes “vision encourages projection into the world, occupation and control of the experience. Sound encourages a sense of the world as received, as being revelationary rather than incarnate."3 In this mode, Robinson’s sound paintings attempt to reconcile conflicting canons of Modern painting and Gothic art. Or, perhaps in reverse chronological order, Robinson attempts to undo or reverse time through the history of painting.
The presentation of Nadine Robinson: alles grau at The Studio Museum in Harlem is made possible in part by Deutsche Bank and Nicolas Fries. alles grau in grau malen was created on the occasion of Nadine Robinson: Conclusion of the System of Things (2005) at Grand Arts, Kansas City, MO.
Fall 2006/Winter 2007: November 15, 2006 - March 18, 2007
Africa Comics
The Studio Museum in Harlem in conjunction with Africa e Mediterraneo, (Bologna, Italy) will present the first exhibition of African comic art in the United States. Africa e Mediterraneo, a non-profit cooperative, was created in 1997 to foster intercultural education between Italy and Africa, and developed the first serious contemporary investigation of comic art in Africa today. With narratives engaging humor, social awareness, history and myth, African comic art has achieved a wide-range of recognition both as an art form and as a valuable medium of cross-cultural communication.
The Studio Museum in Harlem will present a selection of recent work in support of this vital art form that is omnipresent on the African continent.
Press Preview: July 18 2006, 2.00-5.00pm
Studio Museum
144 West 125th Street - New York