Guggenheim Announces New Exhibition Series Devoted To Emerging Artists
Press Images
Download high resolution, press-approved images
GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM ANNOUNCES NEW EXHIBITION SERIES DEVOTED TO EMERGING ARTISTS
New Work by Mexican-born Julieta Aranda to Inaugurate Intervals Program
Exhibition: Intervals: Julieta Aranda
Venue: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York
Dates: April 10–July 19, 2009
Download a PDF of this press release.
(NEW YORK, NY – March 24, 2009) – This spring, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will launch Intervals, a new contemporary art series designed to reflect the spirit of today’s most innovative practices. Fast-paced and modest in scale, this experimental series, initiated by Chief Curator Nancy Spector, will allow the museum to respond quickly to innovations and new developments in contemporary art as they arise. Conceived to take place in the interstices of the museum’s exhibition spaces or beyond the physical confines of the building, the program will invite a diverse range of artists to create new work for a succession of solo presentations.
Intervals is inaugurated with a multipart installation by Julieta Aranda (b. 1975, Mexico City) that activates the triangular staircase of Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic rotunda. Aranda’s multimedia, project-based work has frequently focused on the dissemination of information and the agency of the individual in contemporary society. In collaborative ventures with Anton Vidokle, such as an itinerant, freely available archive of videos (e-flux Video Rental, 2004– ) and an operative store where artists could hock their works (Pawnshop, 2007), she has reinvented existing systems of commerce and circulation as part of an ongoing project to, in her own words, “generate viable propositions for alternative transactions of cultural capital.”
For Intervals, Aranda has created several conceptually related works that challenge the idea of time as an objectively determined linear progression marked by clocks, calendars, and other devices. The attempt to dismantle these universal conventions in favor of a more individualistic understanding of time relates to an earlier body of work, You Had No 9th of May! (2006– ), in which Aranda explores the 1995 decision of the Pacific Ocean nation of Kiribati to reroute a section of the International Date Line that divided its islands between two different days. For the artist, this defiance of established norms represents a remarkable assertion of sovereignty over the apparently empirical and unalterable construction of time.
Aranda’s multipart installation for the Guggenheim extends the notion of malleable temporality. In an interstitial space near the museum’s staircase, a peephole reveals the image of an hourglass, a traditional symbol of mortality. Viewed through the refracting optical device of a camera obscura, the grains of sand appear to flow upward in a startling reversal of time’s passage. Nearby, patches of paint on the walls recall the look of covered-up street graffiti, rendered indecipherable yet retaining a ghostly presence in the urban landscape. Here Aranda has transcribed quotations about time drawn from sources that span more than 2,000 years. Using phosphorescent paint, the words become visible only when the space is darkened, momentarily recovering the erased language.
One floor above, Aranda has installed an oversized clock in which the day is divided into 10 elongated hours. This system references decimal time, a short-lived initiative introduced during the rationalizing fervor of the French Revolution that reorganized the day into 10 hours, containing 100 minutes of 100 seconds each. While the clock pays homage to this act of iconoclasm, the movement of the second hand represents an entirely subjective experience of time, corresponding directly to the fluctuating rate of the artist’s own heartbeat over the course of one day. The time it takes for the clock to complete a revolution of 100 seconds therefore varies according to Aranda’s behavior and state of mind: the clock ticks faster during moments of excited activity and slower during periods of rest. In an accompanying sound piece, a transistor radio emits a recording of this heart rate, suggesting the nuanced tempo of human experience.
Following Aranda’s exhibition, a series of subsequent Intervals projects will be presented each year. The second Intervals presentation, featuring Berlin-based artist Kitty Kraus, is planned for fall 2009, with further projects under development for 2010.
Intervals: Julieta Aranda is organized by Nancy Spector and Katherine Brinson, Assistant Curator.
The exhibition series is funded by the generous contributions of the Intervals Leadership Committee. Chaired by Young Collectors Council member Jeremy Steinke, the group comprises high-level Guggenheim members who are committed to the realization of Intervals projects and who enjoy a privileged insight into the processes behind them through dialogue with the curators and artists. On Wednesday, April 29 at 6:30 pm, Aranda will give a lecture on her work as part of the museum’s Elaine Terner Cooper Education Fund Conversations with Contemporary Artists. A reception with the artist will follow the program. Tickets are $5 (free for members and students) and are available at the Box Office by phone 212 423 3587 or online at www.guggenheim.org/education
VISITOR INFORMATION
Admission: Adults $18, students/seniors (65+) $15, members and children under 12 free. Admission includes audio guide tour.
Museum Hours: Saturday to Wednesday, 10 am to 5:45 pm; Friday, 10 am to 7:45 pm, through May 8. Closed Thursday. On Friday evenings through May 8, beginning at 5:45 pm, the museum hosts Pay What You Wish. Starting May 15, the museum will offer Pay What You Wish hours on Saturdays from 5:45 to 7:45 pm. For general information call, 212 423 3500, or visit www.guggenheim.org.
#1109
March 27, 2009
Revised from January 29, 2009
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT:
Betsy Ennis, Director, Media and Public Relations
Lauren Van Natten, Senior Publicist
212 423 3840 or e-mail: pressoffice@guggenheim.org
For publicity images visit http://www.guggenheim.org/pressoffice
User ID: photoservice
Password: presspass