SCULPTURE BY THE SEA
In conversation’ Andrew Bick, Jeffrey Steele and Jon Wood
In conversation, Andrew Bick, Jeffrey Steele, Jon Wood
A recent review of Popova/Rodchenko at Tate Modern by Adrian Searle suggested that Constructivism is re-asserting itself, perhaps as another trope, which, like all aspects of modernism, represents territory ripe for exploration by a younger group of Artists, in his words as… “A rite of passage”. It seems true when looking at Biennials and art fairs, that on an intuitive level at least, there is a steady, growing recuperation of territory that had either seemed off limits or not worth understanding. Katja Strunz, Germaine Kruip and Eva Berendes are obvious examples of a visual affinity with Construction and Dada, artists like Gareth Jones and Peter Peri represent a more self-conscious and occasional borrowing.
Andrew Bick will discuss his current exhibition and related ideas surrounding his research project in to British Construction and Systems Art of the 1960’s and ’70’s with Jon Wood, Research Coordinator at the Henry Moore Institute and Jeffrey Steele, artist and founder member of the Systems Group. Bick has been in conversation with both since he started work on a research fellowship at the Henry Moore Institute in late 2007 and this evening will form a public part of an ongoing series of conversations and exchanges he has initiated that are concerned with opening dialogue between contemporary practice and areas of historic practice in the UK which have been overlooked and undervalued.
Bick is currently working on projects emerging from a 2008 Research Fellowship at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds called Eccentric Construction. This project will lead to a curated exhibition Construction and Its Shadow exploring the relationship between the important but largely neglected British Construction Artists of the 1950´s and 1960´s and contemporary practise for Leeds City Art Gallery in 2010.
Jeffrey Steele has exhibited widely in mainland Europe since the 1960´s and made a key contribution to Alan Fowler’s A Rational Aesthetic, the Systems Group and Associated Artists exhibited at Southampton City Art Gallery in 2008. In a statement in the Systeemi-System exhibition catalogue in 1969 he writes;
A work of the kind I am advocating, while inviting surrender to the sensations it creates, rewards analysis of its visual syntax and semantics.
Jon Wood is an Art Historian who specializes in twentieth-century and contemporary sculpture, with a particular interest in the changing status and function of the artists studio from the nineteenth century to the present, histories of contemporary practice and the artist interview. Co-editor of the Modern Sculpture Reader (2007), he works at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds where he coordinates the research programme and curates exhibitions. Wood has published on the work of Mary Martin, Stephen Gilbert and Anthony Hill and has been helping develop the constructivist collections at Leeds Art Gallery, which now includes work by Gillian Wise, Anthony Hill, Peter Lowe and others.
Jesper Dalgaard
New works from Jesper Dalgaard:::…..
Tom Sanford:::
Hey Y’all
Summer group show season is starting and I am in a couple that open
next week (one Thurs and on Fri). Please stop by if you have the time
to check out the art and have a drink. Below are the details.
THURSDAY night JUNE 4TH:
SUMMER SHOW @ Marlborough Chelsea
545 W 25th Street (my piece will be on the second floor)
opening is 6-8PM
FRIDAY night JUNE 5th:
Fortress to Solitude – A painting show
56 Bogart Street, Suite 211
Brooklyn NY 11206
opening is 6-9PM.
Cheers
Tom
Chris Burden
With the performance, installation and sculptures of Chris Burden, the Middelheimmuseum will once again shine the spotlight on a pioneering artist.
The American Chris Burden (°1946) can without exaggeration be regarded a key player in contemporary art. His performances in the 1970s redefined the possibilities of the medium; the sculptures and installations he made in later years opened up new horizons of what is physically possible in visual arts.
With his celebrated early performances, such as Shoot (1971), or Trans-fixed (1974), he not only established his reputation as an infamous iconoclast, he furthermore created a number of absolute icons of contemporary art quite early on in his career.
The exhibition at the Middelheimmuseum demonstrates that much has changed in the language of communication of the artist since those first hard-hitting performances, yet that the same basic ideas live on. It offers viewers a unique combination of work from the early stages of Burden’s career as well as some of his recent work.
Beam Drop Antwerp
The highlight of the exhibition is Beam Drop Antwerp. This sculpture will be constructed live before a large audience on May 30. Chris Burden will display a selection of his Bridges in the Braem Pavilion and the Middelheim Castle. These scale models of special bridges from around the world are completely made from Meccano and the American version Erector.
With the performance, installation and sculptures of Chris Burden, the Middelheimmuseum will once again shine the spotlight on a pioneering artist, an artist who not only changed the history of visual arts for good 30 years ago, but is reinventing modern sculpture singlehandedly today.

