inside out and from the ground up

INSIDE
OUT AND
FROM
THE
GROUND
UP
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CLEVELAND
11400 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44106
216.421.8671 www.MOCAcleveland.org
OCTOBER 8, 2012—FEBRUARY 24, 2013
©2012 Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland
INSIDE A NEW MUSEUM
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the new Museum of Contemporary
Art Cleveland. This dynamic building culminates over ten years of effort by many
extraordinary individuals. These walls are full of possibility; the potential is truly
exhilarating.
This exceptional moment builds on the legacy of founders Marjorie Talalay, Nina
Sundell, and Aggie Gund. From its humble beginnings in a storefront in 1968,
the Museum has evolved through five locations to become the leading venue for
contemporary art and culture in Northeastern Ohio. Having outgrown its last space on
Carnegie Avenue, MOCA Cleveland set out to realize a transformational new building.
Once the site at University Circle was secured in late 2005, the Board
of Directors committed to an iconic building that would be a significant
architectural landmark, technologically advanced and environmentally friendly.
Following a thoughtful international search, Foreign Office Architects was
selected for its innovative, rigorous design principles and site responsiveness.
Lead architect Farshid Moussavi (now principal of Farshid Moussavi
Architecture) developed a vision aligned with MOCA Cleveland’s exacting
program requirements.
Along the way, new design ideas were offered and tested. Unquestionably, we
were pushed and we pushed back. In the end, this vision, that dream, is now
a reality which has exceeded anything predictive: the unfolding geometry, the
dramatic canted walls and vertiginous monumental stair, the fluid passage
between program spaces, the extraction of natural light through sliced windows.
One revelation after another.
Inside Out and From the Ground Up marks a new chapter in MOCA Cleveland’s
history. Chief Curator David Norr has produced a critical exhibition that is
responsive to, even inextricable from, the architecture of the new building. Many
of the works burst through, embed inside, and layer themselves onto the walls.
Some have been made in response to the visual qualities of the building; in
other instances, the galleries have been adapted in response to the works.
The new MOCA Cleveland was designed to support the many ways contemporary
artists are working today, while also challenging expectations of museum space.
The spirit and drive behind this new building will carry forward, as MOCA
Cleveland leverages its new capacities to produce engaging programs and
groundbreaking exhibitions. This is just the new beginning.
Jill Snyder, Director
Above, clockwise from top left: Barry Underwood, Oberon and Titania, 2012; Tesla, 2012; Agincourt, 2012; Ophelia, 2012,
pigment prints mounted on Dibond, 36 x 36 inches each. Courtesy of the artist. Commissioned by MOCA Cleveland.
Cover: Henrique Oliveira, Carambóxido, 2012, demolition wood, PVC, plywood, foam, drywall, scrap metal and rubber, dimensions variable.
Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Millan, São Paolo. Commissioned by MOCA Cleveland. Photo: Tim Safranek Photographics.
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INSIDE
OUT AND
FROM
THE
GROUND
UP
Organized by David Norr, Chief Curator
October 8, 2012—February 24, 2013
SPONSORS
This exhibition is funded by Leadership Circle gifts supporting inaugural year
programs and exhibitions: Britton Fund, Agnes Gund, Scott Mueller, Doreen and
Dick Cahoon, Becky Dunn, Harriet and Victor Goldberg, Donna and Stewart Kohl,
and Toby Devan Lewis.
Special support for Henrique Oliveira’s residency provided through Creative Fusion,
a Cleveland Foundation program
Additional funding from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation for the commissions
by Henrique Oliveira and Barry Underwood
All MOCA Cleveland exhibitions and programs are presented with major support from Cuyahoga Arts and
Culture; The Cleveland Foundation; The George Gund Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts;
Nesnadny + Schwartz; The Ohio Arts Council; and the continuing support of our Board of Directors,
Patrons, and Members.
BLUE = PANTONE DS 218-5 C
GREEN = PANTONE DS 304-5 C
Museums today are objects with sculptural intentions, subject to interpretation. Once
considered vaults of knowledge, they are now understood as dynamic meeting places,
where multiple social atmospheres develop and thrive. The Museum of Contemporary
Art Cleveland’s new building embodies this shift in purpose; a dramatic structure with
highly affective material qualities, its flexible and permeable design aims to create vital
connections between contemporary art and audiences.
video work, Phat Free (1995/1999). Shot handheld at night, the video follows
Hammons as he kicks a bucket through the streets of Harlem. His figure stages
a dramatic contrast between the museum, a space designed for conscious
viewing, and these particular streets, a space of invisibility. Phat Free powerfully
illustrates the potential of making work outside of a system, and as the first work
presented in the Video Salon, initiates a dialogue on the spatial tactics of the lens.
The architecture of the new MOCA Cleveland is emphatically performative. Starting with
the reflective exterior, the building’s nature and composition appear to be constantly in
flux. The tilting façades create unexpected sightlines and surprising pockets of space.
Like a proto-cinematic device, the mirror-black surface projects back the movements of
passers-by in the shifting streetscape. The building streams its own context, enveloping
the Museum in the everyday actions that surround and sustain it.
Likewise situated elsewhere, Gordon Matta-Clark’s film Sous-Sols de Paris
(Paris Underground) (1977/2005), and accompanying photomontages, explore
the city’s depths. Culled from footage and stills of Matta-Clark’s visits to four
underground sites (Les Halles, Notre Dame, the Paris Opera, and St. Michel),
the photomontages are presented in a vertical, scroll-like format, implying the
slow descent of the camera, from above-ground down to subterranean bones.
Best known for his radical cuts and holes through empty buildings, Matta-Clark
altered structures to juxtapose realities. Such simultaneity is a vital component
of the Sous-Sols de Paris works; by making the “pastness” of things available in
the present, Matta-Clark reminds us of what gets buried in the contradictions of modernity.
The crystalline character of the building continues inside, with planar geometry,
dramatic fault lines, and moments of transparency. Ascending the monumental stair,
visitors zig-zag between the soaring canted walls. Stair landings double as look-outs
where viewers may peer through glass walls into classrooms, workshops, and meeting
areas—spaces usually hidden to the public. Likewise, the inverse occurs for museum
staff; no longer sequestered in the secret spaces behind the curtain, they are connected
with the flow and intent of the entire building. Such visibility makes the Museum and
its functions less ambiguous, allowing for new interactions and connections.
The inaugural exhibition, Inside Out and from the Ground Up, explores such
possibilities. Emerging from a belief in the potential of embodied spatial experience, the
exhibition considers the Museum as both subject and stage. Much as the building calls
on viewers to engage with their bodies, the exhibition invites them to move around, look
up close and from afar, and consider multiple perspectives. The works on view present
the breadth of contemporary practice, from monumentally-scaled paintings and physical
structures to minimal gestures and experimental film and video. Through this array of
media, the artists explore how space is constructed, divided, and imagined, shaping
viewers’ awareness of their own presence and surroundings.
Jacqueline Humphries’s paintings are particularly resonant with the building, as
they face the intense blue of the inner skin and the shifting light from the gallery’s
slanted windows. Made with ground-silver pigment and translucent paint, they are
highly responsive. At moments, they appear to glow gently from within; at other times,
crisp dashes of light project onto them. Ghosted gestures emerge and patches swell
from underneath, never quite cohering. In this way, Humphries’ paintings are not
autonomous, static objects; rather, they constantly change in relation to viewers and
their environment.
With her installation Third Man Begins Digging Through Her Pockets (2012), Katharina
Grosse pushes this relativity even further. By directly applying paint onto the surfaces
of the Museum’s newly minted three-story atrium, her work both embodies and resists
the architecture. The use of an industrial spray gun amplifies Grosse’s gestures into a
haptic romp of color dominated by purple, orange, and yellow. At this scale, viewers can
trace and replay Grosse’s movements as they step through the atrium and up the stairs,
approaching the work from different vantage points. The title borrows from the language
of stage direction, emphasizing the work’s theatrical qualities and shuffling it between
action and backdrop.
Such dramatic staging is equally present in the work of Barry Underwood, known for his
light installations in natural settings. Underwood’s commissioned photographs of the
building bring his surreal, otherworldly vision to an architectural space in the midst of
construction. At once absorbing and disorienting, this series captures transitory views of
the Museum’s raw inner core.
While Grosse presses up against the Museum’s walls, and Underwood looks inside,
Henrique Oliveira’s installation Carambóxido (2012) bursts through them, suggesting
organic growth or parasitic invasion. The work’s outer skin is composed of stripped
plywood that Oliveira scavenged from the streets of São Paolo, while the cavernous
interior is lined with Cleveland’s industrial residue: rusted steel cans, rubber, tin, and
scraps of tube and pipe. The undulating, swollen quality of the piece alludes to the ripe
promise of an exotic paradise, while the decayed innards display the rotting result of
industrial bust. Unlike past models of bricolage, in which found elements were treated
as raw materials with incidental pasts, Oliveira draws on the cultural integrity of detritus
to invoke histories, connotations, and moods. In this mash-up between São Paolo and
Cleveland, Carambóxido retains an indelible connection to the sites and social realities
of its material origins.
Oliveira imports materials that contrast with the museum environment; David Hammons
brings in the social and psychological dimensions of another place with his seminal
Traces of memory also manifest in the work of Louise Bourgeois, who engaged specific
objects and material effects to trigger the subconscious. Her cell structure Peaux de Lapins,
Chiffons Ferrailles à Vendre (2006) translates to “rabbit skins, scrap rags for sale,” and
references the song of a street peddler recalled from the artist’s childhood. Bourgeois—
whose parents operated a tapestry restoration shop where she worked during her teenage
years—hoarded fabrics and linens for decades and continued to cut and stitch them into
unsettling forms throughout her career. The contrast between the soft inner materials and
the metal cage and chains creates a palpable sense of vulnerability, shelter, exclusion, and
containment.
The symbolic potential of the objects we surround ourselves with plays out in Rachel
Whiteread’s cast architectural ghostings. Whiteread’s Light I (2010) and IN-OUT II (2004)
take their shape from the negative space surrounding a window and door, architectural
features that act as membranes between interior and exterior. Despite the detachment of
the casting process, Whiteread’s sculptural negatives project a human presence, recorded
through the subtle marks of use these objects bear.
Extending this interest in personal space are Haegue Yang’s Dress Vehicle – Golden
Clowning (2011) and Dress Vehicle – Square Hunter (2012). In these works, Yang
combines venetian blinds and mock clothing racks into sculptural units, built to surround
and screen an individual body. Set on wheels, these terrifically anxious objects become
animated by performers, carefully orchestrating spatial boundaries to amplify the
tensions between public and private life.
Yang’s Dress Vehicles delineate individual boundaries; David Altmejd’s The
Orbit (2012) breaks them open. A confluence of glass, mirror, and shadow,
the work unfolds into myriad reflections and penetrations, erupting with
parts of the body in the midst of transformation. Holes are of particular
interest; smashed mirrors and hollowed out heads act as thresholds,
portals, and pathways, through which spaces and light flow.
Transgressions, through the lens of desire, are also present in William
Villalongo’s densely layered narrative paintings, where nude figures in
pastoral glades engage in flirtatious revelry. Scenes framed in dark
flocked foliage create the sensation of peering into a secret domain,
one from which the viewer is excluded. Desire is a tool for blurring
boundaries and Villalongo uses it methodically, drawing viewers in
close enough to realize what lines their vision may have crossed.
Framed by the parting leaves of Villalongo’s collages, Corey McCorkle’s Porte Belge
(2009), a mystical doorway with Art Nouveau styling and an inset glass “eye,” suggests
a passageway to an alchemical lair. The piece references an actual object that McCorkle
encountered, and its transposition into the gallery creates both stark contrasts and a
surprising alternative pathway through the exhibition. McCorkle’s Bestiaire (2007), included
in the exhibition’s Video Salon, captures McCorkle’s interest in failed utopias; spaces which
are loaded with transformative possibilities, but fall short.
Far from fantastical realms, Walead Beshty’s copper boxes remain endlessly tied to the
present moment. FedExed from one location to another, the works record the handling and
atmospheric conditions they have been subjected to during transit. Beshty exploits the
instability of copper, a material that is highly susceptible to scratches, dents, and corrosion.
These works are never finished; rather, they are in perpetual development. After each
sculpture leaves the studio—to exhibitions, storage venues, and collections—they acquire
additional visual traces of their movements. The blunt materiality of Beshty’s boxes ground
MOCA Cleveland in the present moment, marking a symbolic passage from past to future.
—David Norr
Clockwise from top right: Jacqueline Humphries, Untitled, 2011, oil on canvas, 90 x 96 inches. Collection of Megan and Roy Trice, Dallas and courtesy of Greene Naftali Gallery, New York.
Photo: Tim Safranek Photographics; Louise Bourgeois, Peaux de Lapins, Chiffons Ferrailles à Vendre, 2006, steel, stainless steel, marble, wood, fabric, and plexiglass, 99 x 120 x 159 inches.
Courtesy of Cheim & Read and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Christopher Burke, © Louise Bourgeois Trust; William Villalongo, Zebra, 2012, acrylic, velvet flocking, and paper on wood panel, 69 x 141
inches. Courtesy of the artist and Susan Inglett Gallery, New York. Photo: Tim Safranek Photographics; Walead Beshty, 16-inch Copper (FedEx® Kraft Box ©2005 FEDEX 330504 REV 10/05
SSCC), Priority Overnight, Los Angeles-Beverly Hills, trk#848232311426, December 16-17, 2011, Standard Overnight, Beverly Hills-Cleveland, trk#800105416430, September 20-21,
2012, 2011, copper, 16 x 16 x 16 inches. Dana Eitches Collection, Los Angeles, courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles. Photo: Tim Safranek Photographics; Corey McCorkle,
Porte Belge, 2009, concrete, wood, 96 x 33 inches. Installation view, MOCA Cleveland. Courtesy of the artist and Maccarone Gallery, New York. Photo: Tim Safranek Photographics.
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David Altmejd
(on view until December 30, 2012)
David Altmejd, The Orbit (detail), 2012, Plexiglas,
mirror, chain, metal wire, thread, acrylic paint,
epoxy resin, epoxy clay, acrylic gel, synthetic hair,
artificial eyes, plaster, and adhesive, 73 x 252
3/4 x 66 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Andrea
Rosen Gallery Inc., New York. Photo: Tim Safranek
Photographics, © David Altmejd.
David Altmejd (1974, Montréal, Canada) lives
and works in New York. He holds an MFA from
Columbia University and a BFA from Université
du Québec à Montréal. He has been featured in
solo exhibitions at The Brant Foundation Art Study
Center, Greenwich; Oakville Galleries, Canada; and
MAGASIN - Centre National d’Art Contemporain
de Grenoble, France. In 2007 he represented
Canada at the 52nd Venice Biennale.
Walead Beshty
Louise Bourgeois
Jacqueline Humphries
Corey McCorkle
Jacqueline Humphries, Untitled, 2012, oil on
canvas, 90 x 96 inches. Collection of Megan and Roy
Trice, Dallas, and courtesy of the artist and Greene
Naftali Gallery, New York.
Louise Bourgeois, Peaux de Lapins, Chiffons Ferrailles
à Vendre (detail), 2006, steel, stainless steel, marble,
wood, fabric, and plexiglass, 99 x 120 x 159 inches.
Courtesy of Cheim & Read and Hauser & Wirth.
Photo: Christopher Burke, © Louise Bourgeois Trust.
Louise Bourgeois (1911, Paris, France–2010,
New York) studied in Paris at Académie de la
Grande Chaumièr, Ecole du Louvre, and Ecole
des Beaux-Arts. She moved to New York in 1938,
continuing her studies at the Art Students League.
Retrospectives of her work have been held at
The Museum of Modern Art and Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, both in New York; Centre
Georges Pompidou, Paris; and National Gallery
of Canada, Ottawa. In 1993 she represented the
United States at the 45th Venice Biennale.
Untitled, 2012, oil on canvas, 90 x 96 inches.
Collection of Megan and Roy Trice, Dallas.
Untitled, 2011, oil on canvas, 90 x 96 inches.
Collection of Megan and Roy Trice, Dallas.
All works courtesy of the artist and Greene Naftali
Gallery, New York.
Jacqueline Humphries (1960, New Orleans)
lives and works in New York, where she studied
at Parsons School of Design. Solo exhibitions
of her work have been held at Williams College
Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA, and Kunsthalle
Wilhelmshaven, Germany. She has been featured
in group exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of
Art; The Kitchen, New York; and Institute of
Contemporary Art, Philadelphia.
Corey McCorkle, Porte Belge, 2009, concrete and
wood, 96 x 36 inches. Courtesy of the artist and
Maccarone Gallery, New York.
ALSO IN THE EXHIBITION:
Bestiaire, 2007, digital video, 6:00 minutes.
Courtesy of the artist and Maccarone Gallery, New York.
Corey McCorkle (1969, La Crosse, WI) lives and
works in New York. He holds an MFA from the
University of Chicago, a BFA from the School of
the Art Institute of Chicago, and studied at Pratt
Institute of Architecture. Solo exhibitions of his
work have been held at Frac Île-de-France, Paris;
Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland; and Kunstverein
Bonn, Germany. He was featured in the 4th Berlin
Biennial of Contemporary Art.
Henrique Oliveira
Katharina Grosse
(on view until June 9, 2013)
Oliver Husain
Four Magnet, Three Color Curl (CMY: Irvine,
California, January 1st 2010, Fuji Crystal Archive
Super Type C, 02610), 2010, color photographic
paper, 50 x 105 3/4 inches. Private collection,
courtesy of the artist and Wallspace, New York.
Six Magnet, Three Color Curl (CMY: Irvine, California,
September 6th 2009, Fuji Crystal Archive Type
C), 2009, color photographic paper, 108 3/4 x 50
inches. Private collection, courtesy of the artist and
Wallspace, New York.
Walead Beshty (1976, London) lives and works in
Los Angeles. He holds an MFA from Yale University
and a BFA from Bard College. Solo exhibitions of
his work have been held at the Hirshhorn Museum
and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Hammer
Museum, Los Angeles; and Malmö Konsthall,
Sweden.
Jeremy Blake
Oliver Husain, Mount Shasta, 2008, film still, color
16mm film with sound, 8:00 minutes. Courtesy of
the artist and VTape, Toronto.
Katharina Grosse, Third Man Begins Digging Through
Her Pockets, 2012, acrylic paint, dimensions
variable. Courtesy of the artist. Commissioned
by MOCA Cleveland. Photo: Tim Safranek
Photographics.
Katharina Grosse (1961, Freiburg im Breisgau,
Germany) lives and works in Berlin. She studied
painting at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Solo
exhibitions of her work have been held at the
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art,
North Adams; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles;
and Palais de Tokyo, Paris. She has participated in
numerous international group exhibitions, including
the 11th Biennale of Sydney and the 25th São
Paulo Biennial.
Oliver Husain (1969, Frankfurt, Germany) lives
and works in Toronto, Canada. He holds an MFA
from The Offenbach University of Art and Design,
Germany, and studied fine arts at the University
of Baroda, India. Solo exhibitions of his work have
been held at the Art Gallery of York University and
Susan Hobbs Gallery, both in Toronto.
Gordon Matta-Clark
All works courtesy of Kinz + Tillou Fine Art.
Jeremy Blake (1971, Fort Sill, OK – 2007, New
York) holds an MFA from California Institute of the
Arts and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute
of Chicago. Solo exhibitions of his work have been
held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art;
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Museum
of the Moving Image, New York; and Museo Nacional
Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid.
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Henrique Oliveira (1973, São Paulo, Brazil) lives
and works in São Paulo. He holds a MA in Visual
Poetics and a BFA in Painting from University of
São Paulo. Solo exhibitions of his work have been
held at Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art;
Rice University Art Gallery, Houston; Paço das
Artes, São Paulo; and House of Latin American
Culture, Brasília. In 2009 he was the recipient
of an Artist Research Fellowship from the
Smithsonian Institute.
David Hammons
Nymph #31, 2012, acrylic and velvet flocking on
paper, 12 x 9 inches.
The Thirsty Laborer, 2012, acrylic, velvet flocking,
and paper on wood panel, 96 x 137 5/16 inches.
Zebra, 2012, acrylic, velvet flocking, and paper on
wood panel, 69 x 141 inches.
All works courtesy of the artist and Susan Inglett
Gallery, New York.
William Villalongo (1975, Hollywood, FL) lives and
works in Brooklyn. He holds an MFA from Tyler
School of Art at Temple University and a BFA from
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science
and Art. His work has shown in group exhibitions at
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Brooklyn
Museum of Art; and Ballroom Marfa, Texas.
David Hammons, Phat Free, 1995/1999, video
still, videotape with sound transferred to DVD,
5:20 minutes. Collection of Walker Art Center,
Minneapolis. Digital video production by Alex
Harsely. T.B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 2001.
David Hammons (1943, Springfield, IL) lives
and works in New York. He studied at Chouinard
Art Institute and Otis Art Institute, both in Los
Angeles. Solo exhibitions of his work have been
held at The Institute for Contemporary Art, P.S.1
Museum, New York; Museo Reina Maria Sofia,
Madrid; and Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland. His
works are held in numerous collections, including
at the Whitney Museum of American Art and
Metropolitan Museum of Art, both in New York,
and Tate Modern, London.
Jennifer West, Daisies Roll Up Film (16mm color
and b&w film neg rolled with hard boiled eggs,
oranges, lemons, avocados, pickles, green apples,
milk and watermelon – a remake of a scene from
Vera Chytilova’s 1966 film, Daisies – rolling off the
bed performances by: Mariah Csepanyi, Finn West &
Jwest, lit with black light & strobe light), 2008, color
and black and white 16mm film transferred to digital
video, 5:53 minutes. Courtesy of the artist and Marc
Foxx, Los Angeles.
ALSO IN THE EXHIBITION:
IN OUT-II, 2004, plasticised plaster with interior
aluminum framework, 79 x 31 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches.
Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York.
Rachel Whiteread (1963, London, UK) lives and
works in London. She studied at the Slade School
of Fine Art and Brighton Polytechnic. Solo exhibitions
of her work have been held at the Hammer Museum,
Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Tate
Modern, London; and Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio
de Janeiro. In 1993 she was the recipient of the
Turner Prize, and in 1997 she represented Great
Britain at the 47th Venice Biennale.
Haegue Yang
Sous-Sols de Paris: Bones and Bottles, 1977,
chromogenic prints, dipytch: 46 1/2 x 21 1/4
inches each.
Sous-Sols de Paris: Les Halles, 1977, chromogenic
print, 94 x 22 inches.
Sous-Sols de Paris: L’Opera, 1977, Cibachrome
silver dye bleach print, 82 x 19 1/8 inches.
All works courtesy of David Zwirner and the Estate of
Gordon Matta-Clark.
Gordon Matta-Clark (1943–1978, New York)
studied architecture at Cornell University.
Retrospectives of his work have been held at the
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York;
Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow; and Museo
Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago. The Gordon
Matta-Clark Archive is held at the Canadian Centre
for Architecture, Montréal.
ALSO IN THE EXHIBITION:
Oberon and Titania, 2012, pigment print mounted
on Dibond, 36 x 36 inches.
ALSO IN THE EXHIBITION:
Dress Vehicle – Golden Clowning, 2011, aluminum
venetian blinds, powder-coated aluminum frame,
casters, and magnets, 59 1/4 x 85 x 85 inches.
Courtesy of the artist and Greene Naftali Gallery,
New York.
The Story of a Bear-Lady in a Sand Cave,
2010/2011, audio and text, 20:38 minutes, looped.
Voice: Tsukasa Yamamoto. Courtesy of the artist and
Greene Naftali Gallery, New York.
Neutrino, Gamma, Alpha, Quantum Dots Film...,
2011, color 16 and 35mm film transferred to
high-definition digital video, 3:28 minutes.
Unfolding Places, 2004, digital video with sound,
18:00 minutes. Voice-over: Helen Cho. Courtesy of
Wien Lukatsch, Berlin and Greene Naftali Gallery,
New York.
For full titles, please refer to the Video Salon
Schedule on page 8.
Barry Underwood, Agincourt, 2012, pigment print
mounted on Dibond, 36 x 36 inches. Courtesy of the
artist. Commissioned by MOCA Cleveland.
Dress Vehicle – Square Hunter, 2011, aluminum
venetian blinds, powder-coated aluminum frame,
casters, and magnets, 54 x 43 x 43 inches. Courtesy
of the artist and Greene Naftali Gallery, New York.
ALSO IN THE EXHIBITION:
Skate the Sky Film..., 2009, color 35mm film
transferred to high-definition digital video, 4:57
minutes.
All works courtesy of the artist and Marc Foxx,
Los Angeles.
ALSO IN THE EXHIBITION:
Sous-Sols de Paris: Basilica, 1977, chromogenic
print, 48 x 20 inches.
Jeremy Blake, Winchester, 2002, video still, digital
video with animation and sound, 18:00 minutes.
Courtesy Kinz + Tillou Fine Art.
1906, 2003, video with digital animation and
sound, 21:00 minutes.
Nymph #30, 2012, acrylic and velvet flocking on
paper, 12 x 9 inches.
Rachel Whiteread, Light I, 2010, resin, 27 1/2 x
13 3/4 x 5 3/4 inches. Collection of Laurie and Jay
Mandelbaum and courtesy of the artist and Luhring
Augustine, New York.
Henrique Oliveira, Carambóxido, 2012, demolition
wood, PVC, plywood, foam, drywall, scrap metal,
and rubber, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the
artist and Galeria Millan, São Paolo. Commissioned
by MOCA Cleveland. Photo: Tim Safranek
Photographics.
Barry Underwood
Gordon Matta-Clark, Sous-Sols de Paris (Paris
Underground), 1977/2005, film still, color and
black and white 8mm film with sound, transferred to
digital video, 25:20 minutes. Courtesy of Electronic
Arts Intermix (EAI) New York. © 2012 Estate of
Gordon Matta-Clark / Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York.
ALSO IN THE EXHIBITION:
Century 21, 2004, video with digital animation
and sound, 12:00 minutes.
ALSO IN THE EXHIBITION:
Nymph #28, 2012, acrylic and velvet flocking on
paper, 12 x 9 inches.
Jennifer West
ALSO IN THE EXHIBITION:
Walead Beshty, 16-inch Copper (FedEx® Kraft
Box ©2005 FEDEX 330504 REV 10/05 SSCC),
Standard Overnight, Los Angeles-Cleveland,
trk#800105416420, September 19-20, 2012,
2012, copper, 16 x 16 x 16 inches. Courtesy of the
artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles.
16-inch Copper (FedEx® Kraft Box ©2005 FEDEX
330504 REV 10/05 SSCC), Priority Overnight,
Los Angeles-Beverly Hills, trk#848232311426,
December 16-17, 2011, Standard Overnight, Beverly
Hills-Cleveland, trk#800105416430, September 2021, 2012, 2011, copper, 16 x 16 x 16 inches. Dana
Eitches Collection, Los Angeles, courtesy of the artist
and Regen Projects, Los Angeles.
Rachel Whiteread
William Villalongo, Nymph #26, 2012, acrylic and
velvet flocking on paper, 12 x 9 inches. Courtesy of
the artist and Susan Inglett Gallery, New York.
ALSO IN THE EXHIBITION:
Untitled, 2012, oil on canvas, 38 x 40 inches.
William Villalongo
Jennifer West (1966, Topanga Canyon, California)
lives and works in Los Angeles. She holds an MFA
from the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena
and a BA from The Evergreen State College,
Olympia, WA. Solo exhibitions of her work have
been held at White Columns and The Drawing
Center, both in New York, and Transmission
Gallery, Glasgow.
Haegue Yang (1971, Seoul, South Korea)
lives and works in Berlin and Seoul. She
holds a BFA from Seoul National University
and studied at Meisterschülerin Städelschul,
Frankfurt. Solo exhibitions of her work have
been held at New Museum, New York;
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Modern
Art Oxford, UK. She participated in the
55th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh;
27th São Paulo Biennial; and 53rd Venice
Biennale, where she represented South Korea.
Tesla, 2012, pigment print mounted on Dibond,
36 x 36 inches.
Ophelia, 2012, pigment print mounted on Dibond,
36 x 36 inches.
All works courtesy of the artist. Commissioned by
MOCA Cleveland.
Barry Underwood (1963, Wilmington, DE) lives
and works in Cleveland. He holds an MFA from
Cranbrook Academy of Art and BAs in Photography
and Theatre from Indiana University Northwest.
His work has been included in exhibitions at
Akron Art Museum, OH; Urban Institute for
Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI; and
Johansson Projects, Oakland, CA.
WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION
Background image: Jeremy Blake, Winchester, 2002, video still, digital video with animation and sound, 18:00 minutes. Courtesy Kinz + Tillou Fine Art.
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C
O
M
TRADING PLACES: TIME, LOCATION, AND THE MOVING IMAGE
VIDEO SALON SCHEDULE
October 6–28, 2012
David Hammons
Phat Free, 1995/1999
October 30–November 18, 2012
Haegue Yang
Unfolding Places, 2004
November 20–December 9, 2012
Corey McCorkle
Bestiaire, 2007
December 11, 2012–January 6, 2013
Oliver Husain
Mount Shasta, 2008
“THE PRESENT EPOCH WILL PERHAPS BE ABOVE ALL THE EPOCH OF SPACE. WE ARE IN THE EPOCH OF SIMULTANEITY: WE ARE IN THE EPOCH
OF JUXTAPOSITION, THE EPOCH OF THE NEAR AND FAR, OF THE SIDE-BY-SIDE, OF THE DISPERSED. WE ARE AT A MOMENT, I BELIEVE, WHEN OUR
EXPERIENCE OF THE WORLD IS LESS THAT OF A LONG LIFE DEVELOPING THROUGH TIME THAN THAT OF A NETWORK THAT CONNECTS POINTS
AND INTERSECTS WITH ITS OWN SKEIN.” —MICHEL FOUCAULT1
January 8–February 3, 2013
Jennifer West
The ability to expand or condense time distinguishes cinema as a unique medium. Ever
since Georges Méliès metamorphosed an ambulance into a hearse by way of a chance
camera jam in 1896, thus creating the first “cut,” film has been uniquely suited to the
accelerated flow and multitrack consciousness of the machine age. French philosopher
Michel Foucault theorized the cinema as a transitory site where concrete and ephemeral
spaces coexist, rupturing our traditional notion of linear time. Over the past two decades,
the gradual folding of cinema’s black box into the gallery’s white cube has engendered
new possibilities and frameworks for superimposing time and place. The spatialization of
the moving image in contemporary art has created a situation in which duration becomes
subordinate to a more ambulatory, mutable viewing experience without fixed starting and
end points.
The works on video featured in Inside Out and From the Ground Up reflect this shift. They
also demonstrate a range of strategies for translating the three-dimensional world into
two-dimensional phantasmagorias. Fragmentation, animation, layering, documentation,
and interventions into urban landscapes are among the approaches employed in the
following works. Through their adoption of looping, repetition, and open-ended forms, and
avoidance of conventional storytelling tropes, they transfer emphasis from an experience
of moving images in time to an exploration of spatial relationships.
Both Haegue Yang’s Unfolding Places (2004) and Oliver Husain’s Mount Shasta (2008)
take us on journeys that end in unexpected places. An enigmatic, adventureless “road
movie,” Unfolding Places evokes the type of in-between space that Foucault referred to as
a heterotopia, a “placeless place” that also exists in reality (such as a mirror).2 Utilizing
the first-person address of the video diary format (itself a kind of mirror) to ruminate on
the dislocating effect of travel, Unfolding Places is tangled and philosophically dense.
Street lamps, sparse interiors, and shuttered storefronts suggest a delight in the banal,
while an array of brightly colored origami constructions, flitting across puddles and later
lacquered over with spray paint, hint at something intangible and elusive.
In Mount Shasta, black script on a white background evokes a scenic coastal drive. When
the travelers are forced to pull over after encountering a blinding fog, they embark on
a tour inside the Lake Shasta caverns. The scrolling plot summary suddenly cuts midsentence to an abstract puppet show, appearing to dramatize the text. Like the fanciful
paper sculptures and dispassionate voice-over that muddle a straightforward reading
of Unfolding Places, Mount Shasta’s fabricated rock growths, grainy 16mm texture,
and strangely-outfitted puppeteers produce a dreamlike atmosphere and cognitive
dissonance. Both pieces are perceptual games in which the links between what we
are told and what we are shown become increasingly untethered. “Arriving is not a
sure process,” the narrator in Unfolding Places asserts, perhaps referring to her own
restlessness. In Mount Shasta, the road offers a starting point for a cinematic trip
that grows unexpectedly surreal as its scaffolding turns inside-out.
Jeremy Blake and Jennifer West both combine figurative imagery with vivid
abstraction to create enthralling, multi-layered visions. Often referred to as “paintings
in time,” Blake’s Winchester Trilogy (2002-2004) is loosely based on the legend of
Sarah Winchester, heiress to the namesake rifle fortune. Haunted by the spirits of
those killed by Winchester firearms, she sought to escape by designing a sprawling,
idiosyncratic house. This history and popular mythology act as the frame for Blake’s
hallucinatory investigation into madness. The suite opens with a pulsating image
of the Victorian-style mansion, overlaid with computer-generated filters and effects
that soften and blur out detail. Dissolving, multi-chromatic blurs meld with digitally
animated Rorschach-like silhouettes of gunfighters, Art Nouveau patterns, and candycolored backgrounds. The cumulative effect is a macabre, double-sided time flow, in
which the present tense is interpenetrated by remembrance and anticipation.
Subjecting motion picture film to an assortment of treatments and abuses, Jennifer
West demonstrates a tongue-in-cheek approach to the structural-materialist strain
of avant-garde cinema. Although transferred to digital media for presentation,
West’s works maintain the rhythm and essence of their photochemical origins. The
luminescent Neutrino, Gamma, Alpha, Quantum Dots Film... (2011)* does not
bear any identifiable external references; the undulating colors were generated by
exposing raw film stock to subatomic particles at an MIT physics lab. The film thus
renders a latent “non-place,” trading illusory depth for a reverie of beaming surface.
Daisies Roll Up Film... (2008) is a rollicking interplay of haptic abstraction and
barely readable “remake” footage of a scene from Daisies (1966), a Czech New
Wave feature. By smearing the celluloid surface with eggs, oranges, avocados, and
other foodstuffs, West created organic blotches that are visually both intriguing and
frustrating. The presumably innocent act of rolling off a bed is transformed into
a complex, coded psychodrama. Like Blake’s painterly animations, West’s works
eschews narrative immersion, embedding multiple time frames into perpetual,
looping flows.
Corey McCorkle’s Bestiaire (2007) was shot on the site of a defunct zoo outside
of Istanbul. An impartial, mostly static camera documents lush vegetation, gravel
paths, dilapidated structures, and feral dogs roaming the perimeter. The video
has a strong sense of circularity and enclosure; as viewers we are clearly on
the outside looking in, a point underscored by the recurring shots of doorways,
windows, and partial openings. What has happened here, we are led to ask. The
title, Bestiaire (“bestiary”), a collection of moralizing tales based upon real or
fabled animals, hints at an underlying allegory. The zoo, once meant to contain
and control animals, now lays in ruins, returned to the untamed.
Phat Free (1995/1999) by David Hammons takes us into the streets of New
York City’s Harlem, but it is similarly disquieting. For the first two minutes a
harsh, clanging soundtrack resounds, with no accompanying visual. Then, the
audio source is revealed: a man dressed in a baseball cap, baggy shorts, and
sneakers punting a metal pail down a sidewalk at night. This simple gesture
offers a wellspring of allusions, from the aphorism “kicking the bucket,” to the
repurposed instruments of street musicians. What’s clear is that this is more
than a game. The graininess of the video, shot at a slow shutter speed under
sodium streetlights, lends the production a ghostly air. Lack of detail in the
image, combined with the archetypal clothing, suggests that this is about a type
of individual and type of location. Rich in ambiguity and indirection, Phat Free
and Bestiaire depict places that are at once vaguely familiar and vaguely foreign.
That is, places that fall in-between (just out of) our regular lines of sight (and
consideration).
The artists’ films and videos discussed here utilize multiple approaches to
reflect, materialize, or construct an assortment of spaces. From the single-take
verisimilitude of an offhand performance, to the radiant color fields of an abstract
photogram, to the intimacy of a transcontinental travelogue, together these works
advance a site of otherness, a heterotopia. As Foucault writes, “The heterotopia is
capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in
themselves incompatible.”3 This is an apt description of the video salon in MOCA
Cleveland’s new media gallery, a dark room set inside a white-walled museum that
can transport viewers to international locales and previously unseen worlds. Both
there and not there, the projected image points to what is absent, while creating
the palpable sensation of spatial presence.
­­—Brett Kashmere
Background image: Haegue Yang, Unfolding Places, 2004, video still, digital video with sound, 18:00 minutes. Voice-over: Helen Cho. Courtesy of Wien Lukatsch, Berlin and Greene Naftali Gallery, New York.
Video Salon images from top to bottom: David Hammons, Phat Free, 1995/1999, video still, videotape with sound transferred to DVD, 5:20 minutes. Collection of Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Digital video production
by Alex Harsely. T.B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 2001; Haegue Yang, Unfolding Places, 2004, video still, digital video with sound, 18:00 minutes. Voice-over: Helen Cho. Courtesy of Wien Lukatsch, Berlin and Greene
Naftali Gallery, New York; Corey McCorkle, Bestiaire, 2007, video still, digital video with sound, 6:00 minutes. Courtesy of the artist and Maccarone Gallery, New York; Oliver Husain, Mount Shasta, 2008, film still,
color 16mm film with sound, 8:00 minutes. Courtesy of the artist; Jennifer West, Skate the Sky Film..., 2009, video still, color 35mm film transferred to digital video, 4:57 minutes. Courtesy of the artist and Marc Foxx,
Los Angeles; Jeremy Blake, Winchester, 2002, video still, digital video with animation and sound, 18:00 minutes. Courtesy Kinz + Tillou Fine Art.
8
LOOPED COMPILATION OF WORKS:
Neutrino, Gamma, Alpha, Quantum Dots Film
(16 and 35mm film negative tangled inside
darkened film tent for ten hours and exposed
to: Neutron, gamma and alpha sources and
quantum dots in liquid scintillator - made with
the assistance of Lindley Winslow and graduate
student, Raspberry, at MIT’s Neutrino Lab),
2011
Skate the Sky Film (35mm film print of clouds
in the sky covered with ink, Ho-Ho’s, and Melon
juice - filmstrips taped to Tate Turbine Hall ramp
and skateboarded over using ollie, kick flip, pop
shove-it, acid drop, melon grab, crooked grind,
bunny hop, tic tacs, sex change, disco flip skateboarding performed live for Long Weekend
by Thomas Lock, Louis Henderson, Charlotte
Brennan, Dion Penman, Sam Griffin, Jak Tonge,
Evin Goode and Quantin Paris, clouds shot by
Peter West), 2009
Daisies Roll Up Film (16mm color and b&w
film neg rolled with hard boiled eggs, oranges,
lemons, avocados, pickles, green apples, milk
and watermelon – a remake of a scene from Vera
Chytilova’s 1966 film, Daisies – rolling off the
bed performances by: Mariah Csepanyi, Finn
West & Jwest, lit with black light & strobe light),
2008
February 5–24, 2013
Jeremy Blake
Winchester Trilogy, 2002-2004
February 5–10: Winchester, 2002
February 12–17: 1906, 2003
February 19–24: Century 21, 2004
Brett Kashmere is a filmmaker, curator, and writer based in Pittsburgh.
He is the founding editor and publisher of INCITE Journal of Experimental Media.
1Michel
Foucault, “Of Other Spaces,” Diacritics 16, no. 1 (Spring 1986): 22.
24.
3Ibid., 25.
2Ibid.,
*
For full titles of Jennifer West’s works, please see Video Salon Schedule.
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