New Phoenix Art Museum Installation Unites New Acquisitions, Museum Favorites and Loans from Seldom Seen Private Collections
PHOENIX (July 23, 2008) – The first floor of the Katz Wing for Modern Art at Phoenix Art Museum has never looked better thanks to a dynamic new installation of more than 60 works of post-War and contemporary art. Works from the Museum’s collection are joined with several new acquisitions and spectacular loans from notable private collections, including the Ellen and Howard Katz Collection and the GUC Collection. This outstanding summer showcase, on view now through September, features striking assemblage pieces, brilliant color field paintings, cutting edge art from Latin America, selections of Abstract Expressionists and large-format photographs by artists from Europe and America.
Immediately upon entering the Marley Foundation Gallery visitors are struck by the large scale constructed paintings. Utilizing everyday objects for symbolic value, the pieces range from a simple gesture painting fused with a cane that celebrates the demise of Francisco Franco, by Spaniard Antoni Tapies, to a complex statement about race in America by Californian Raymond Saunders which utilizes a chalk board effect along with collaged photographs.
The color field gallery is anchored by five paintings by Helen Frankenthaler, a true pioneer and vanguard of the style. The paintings span Frankenthaler’s career and demonstrate her ability to produce sensuous colors that allow for an emotional experience. Additional color field paintings by Thomas Downing, Kenneth Noland, Morris Louis, Paul Reed and Arizonan Dorothy Fratt demonstrate the national popularity of color field painting.
Expanding on the modern Latin American art in the Museum’s Harnett Gallery, the summer installation demonstrates the breadth and range of contemporary Latin American art. The elegance of Madre e Hijo by Ricardo Martinez contrasts the boldly political statements of An Object at the Limits of Language by Enrique Chagoya and Do You Like Iraq by Oscar Oiwa. Other highlights are works by master colorist, Pedro Coronel and Francisco Corzas.
The Abstract Expressionism gallery offers visitors the chance to view the Museum’s great Willem de Kooning painting, one of many Museum favorites included in the exhibit. The de Kooning painting is complimented by an earlier work by Bay-area expressionist Paul Wonner, a new acquisition from the Joyce and Jay Cooper Collection, a subtle painting by Mark Rothko and works by Franz Kline and Philip Guston. Works by these artists as well as many others exemplify the depth of the contemporary art collection at Phoenix Art Museum.
The fifth component of the summer installation, the monumental photograph section, demonstrates the impact of recent acquisitions to the collection. Works by leading German photographers Candida Höfer and Thomas Struth hang opposite those by Richard Misrach and Gregory Crewdson, two of America’s leading artists working in large format photography.
“The new galleries in the Katz Wing for Modern Art provide us with on-going opportunities to showcase our ever expanding collections,” commented James Ballinger, The Sybil Harrington Director Phoenix Art Museum. “In addition, having world-class gallery space encourages significant collectors to share their treasures with a broader audience, which is the purpose of the Museum.”
The contemporary art installation in the Marley Foundation Gallery will be on display through September 30, 2008. Admission to the exhibition is included in general museum admission, which is $10 for adults, $8 for senior citizens (65+), $8 for full-time college students with ID, $4 for children ages 6–17 and free for children under 6 and for museum members. Admission is also free on Tuesdays from 3:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m. and for everyone on First Fridays, 6:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Phoenix Art Museum is located in downtown Phoenix at the corner of Central Avenue and McDowell Road. Museum hours are Tuesday, 10:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. and Wednesday – Sunday from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. The museum is closed on Mondays and major holidays.
Punk's Premier Photographers: Ruby Ray and Dawn Wirth
Ruby Ray:
Art Rock Underground By Debra Xit
Friends, collectors, and strangers know Ruby Ray's work --even when they don't. Ruby Ray's iconic portrait of Beat author / Punk Avatar William S. Burroughs vibing serene Interzone menace can be seen on MySpace. Her photo of late punk rock legend Darby Crash is the cover of Darby biography Lexicon Devil. Other photos appear in magazines, on book covers, album covers, posters. Her punk rock photography pops up uncredited on fansites and music history websites. Ruby Rays's esoteric studies and close collaboration with musicians and artists helped spawn a current that became trance music.
Photographer, artist, and journalist Ruby Ray entered the shock wave that was the punk rock underground in 1977. Ruby became a member of seminal San Francisco punk culture magazine, Search & Destroy, documenting and fostering the emergent scene. When Ruby criss-crossed continents on a trip to London and Egypt, S&D's in-your-face music and culture inflammation went global. Ruby ran London-based Rough Trade Records' San Francisco store, and sheltered their traveling bands from England. In 1980, she co-founded with v.vale the more deeply focused alter-culture publication RE/Search magazine. During this first San Francisco era, the RE/Search studio on Romolo Street in San Francisco's North Beach became an international locus of cross-pollination, one of those places where artists feel the freedom and compulsion to redefine themselves and their genres.
An early multi-media artist, Ruby found inspiration in haunted post-industrial cityscapes, insect wings, and the golden thread of the mystic. Investigations compelled her to lie in the sarcophagus of the Great Pyramid at Gizeh--read widely--decipher hieroglyp--work with a Gurdjieff group. Meeting up with industrial music mavens Factrix, she added live, multi-image projections to the influential industrial band's performances. In the first exhibition of her original anti-art, Nart, shown in 1980 at San Francisco's Target Video, Ruby would project new work in a new medium: stereo slides. That same summer she helped create the flaming "debutante ball" summer solstice celebration, held under a freeway near the railroad tracks, and shut down by police.
In the early 80's, Ruby Ray migrated again, becoming part of the next international art explosion --New York City's East Village. In the East Village, she exhibited photographs and continued experiments with live, multimedia projections of her growing body of work. Joining with musical collaborators to create the group Saqqara Dogs, Ruby's lightshows mixed her multi-image photography with collaged found materials. Investigating how altered states are evoked with colors, symbols, and sonic instigators, the Saqqara Dogs performance introduced a novel music and visual experience fans claimed generated powerful synesthesia. Saqqara Dogs combined psychedelia with Middle Eastern rhythms to produce a new music event which later morphed into rave culture. While SDs' hallucinogenic music and visual onslaught was presented in dives and museums across the U.S., the band gained a notorious fan. In 1987, Andy Warhol featured an interview and performance of the group on his New York-based TV series, Andy Warhol's 15 Minutes.
After the birth of her son in 1988, Ruby took sabbatical for subtle energy and consciousness studies, learning the healing arts. She returned to photography with a trip to the Indian ruins of New Mexico's Chaco Canyon, and had her first solo exhibit in 2004.
For those who lived through it, for musicians and musicologists, culture critics, anthropologists and anyone who takes their inspiration with a non-sterile, extra-pointy edge, Ruby Ray is completing her photographic memoir of First Wave punk rock in California. The collection of 250 images reveals the raw, amazing California punk scene, 1977-1981. And now, new large digital photo works and a visual blog, Songs of Nart, are in progress. Ruby Ray sustains her original-issue profile: high-functioning cultural enzyme who shows us how to keep surprising ourselves with non-virtual living. She continues her search for mind altering images.
Dawn WIrth
Dawn Wirth bought her first camera in 1976, a Canon fTB, with the money she earned from working at the Hanna-Barbera animation studio. She enrolled in a high-school photography class and began taking photos of bands. Although the photography teacher told her that the work was "crap", she continued to follow her passion. "I was going to these punk shows; the music was exciting, new and different. I thought that taking pictures of the bands might be a lot of fun." Dawn captured on film the beginnings of a very underground LA punk scene with no idea of the kind of impact and longevity the music, dress and ideas would have on pop culture. While preserving history was the furthest thing from her mind, at the time, she was aware that she was one of only five photographers snapping away at the time; Gabby Berlin, Jenny Lens, Theresa Kereakes and Herb Wrede. . She also with the help of working with artists Jessee Vidaurre and John E Miner, she has been able to take pre-existing photos and turn them into serious pieces of art. She has also passed on her love of photography to her daughter.
Wirth shot, up close and in action, legendary bands such as The Germs, The Screamers, The Bags, The Mumps, The Zeros and The Weirdos in and around The Masque and The Whiskey a Go-Go in Hollywood, California. In addition, Dawn snapped out-of-town bands such as Devo and Talking Heads and took color photos of The Clash before they came to America. "I saved up all my money and flew to the UK the day after I graduated from High School and lived there for six months." Dawn also took color photos of the last Sex Pistols show at Winterland and another of her favorite groups, Queen, at The Santa Monica Civic.
Though she shot a few things in color, black and white was her preference. Dawn states "I was influenced at the time by Alfred Stieglitz and George Hurrell and Diane Arbus." Dawn Wirth's photos have been seen in the pages of fanzines such as Flipside, Sniffin' Glue and Gen X. Her photos are also appearing in the books Punk 365 written by Holly Warren, released by Rolling Stone and Live at the Masque-Nightmare in Punk Rock Alley by Brendan Mullen.
Perihelion Arts
1500 NW Grand Avenue
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
Tel.: (602) 462-9120
Web: perihelionarts.com
Email: perihelionarts@gmail.com
Steve Jansen & Matt Priebe at Pravus
Fugitive Soles (by Steve Jansen) Artist Statement:
My goal in "Fugitive Soles" was to document a small fragment of the urban landscape. Perhaps the most interesting discovery during this yearlong shoot is that the shoes rarely moved from their resting places. Some stayed in the same location for more than two months, proving that they are indeed more-than-temporary fixtures of the everyday.
Encountering the forgotten footwear brought up many elaborate and fictionalized scenarios in my mind. I imagined the shoes taking intricate journeys from one end of the city to another. In other cases, especially in more questionable parts of town, more ethereal situations were invented. A domestic dispute victim ditching her flip-flops to escape her partner's attacks. A strung-out drug abuser leaving behind his cumbersome tennis shoes because walking on the hot pavement suited him just fine.
Each shoe was photographed in an "as found" fashion. No nudging of or tampering with the objects took place. All but one image was shot in Maricopa County, a majority in the central Phoenix area.
Images were captured using a Hasselblad medium-format rig and printed from 120 color film. In an effort to keep the subjects true to the sometimes-harsh conditions of our waking lives, no Photoshop was used.
Scenic Nausea (by Matt Priebe) Artist Statement:
I can only hope that one will see my film installation and be as inspired as I was when I witnessed and captured these images. Just a short while after a viewing the film Scenic Nausea and experiencing a brief euphoric state you will go home and try to sleep. Laying there restless, your mind racing with fantastic new ideas that you once were too ashamed to acknowledge, you will turn to your lover in a cold sweat and shout, "I'm glad we went to Pravus to see Matt Priebe's film installation Scenic Nausea on Friday August 1st!!!"
Both exhibits on view through the month of August.
Pravus Gallery
501 E Roosevelt
Phoenix, AZ 85004
Tel.: (602) 334-6299
Web: www.pravusgallery.com
No Snow on the Broken Bridge:
Video Work By Yang Fudong
Steele Gallery
July 8, 2008 – September 14, 2008
Born in 1962 as the son of an army officer in Beijing, Yang Fudong was not attracted to art until a soccer injury curtailed his athletic career. Yang is now one of China’s most sought-after artists. In the past five years his photographs and film installations have been the subject of solo exhibitions in nine countries, including a show at the Marian Goodman Gallery in New York.
His most recent and significant project is No Snow on the Broken Bridge, a black-and-white film presented with eight projectors. The result is in entrancing, interconnected experience that is reminiscent of a classical Chinese handscroll painting. Images of nature are woven together with figures that move through the sequences in a dream-like state of inertia.
The Modern Spirit in Chinese Painting:
Gifts from the Jeannette Asian Art Gallery Shambaugh Elliott Collection
Asian Art Gallery
June 17, 2008 – December, 2008
Drawn from the Museum’s own collection of works by 19th and 20th century Chinese artists, this selection will provide a link to the classical traditions of Chinese landscape painting as well as modern interpretations by artists who lived through the tumultuous 20th century. The exhibition includes works by several artists who are featured in A Tradition Redefined, allowing visitors the opportunity to see a greater range of these artists’ styles and subject matter over their lifetimes.
Most of these painters are alive and working in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the U.S.
Xia Yifu, Green Mountains, c. 1990s. Vertical wall scroll; ink and color on paper. 80 x 64 cm. Collection of
Chu-tsing Li. Center
Phoenix Art Museum
McDowell Road & Central Avenue
1625 N. Central Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85004
24-hour: (602) 257-1222
Tel.: (602) 257-1880
Web: phxart.org
Invisible City: Bill Mackey, Joe Robles, Walther Ruttmann, Dave Sayre, & Mark Street
June 14-September 20, 2008
To celebrate the summer and explore the inspirational power of city living, MOCA presents a group exhibition entitled Invisible City. Invisible City features an exhibition of paintings, drawings, and collages by Bill Mackey, Joe Robles, and Dave Sayre – all past and present MOCA artists-in-residence working from their studios in the very heart of downtown Tucson – as well as two city symphony films – Mark Street’s 2008 Hidden in Plain Sight and Walther Ruttmann’s pivotal 1927 masterpiece Berlin, Symphony of a Great City. A self-contained visual adventure to places both near (one’s mind) and far (1927 Berlin, Hanoi, Santiago, Dakar, and Marseille) the works exhibited in Invisible City actively engage viewers to consider both the time and place in which they find themselves.
NOTE: Berlin, Symphony of a Great City is viewable nightly from the sidewalk of MOCA on The Plaza, 8:30pm to 4:30am (silent, free)
Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA - Tucson)
191 East Toole Avenue
Tucson, AZ 85701
Tel.: (520) 624-5019
Web: www.moca-tucson.org
All the material above has been provided by museum and gallery websites and press releases.
|
review.gif){kind=small}
