Mike Kelley and Michael Smith. "A Voyage of Growth and Discovery." Installation view: Sculpture Center, Long Island, New York, 2009.
In this week’s roundup Mike Kelly navigates the Burning Man, Mark Dion reimagines the humanities, Krzysztof Wodiczko interviews anonymous war veterans, and more.
- Mike Kelley and longtime friend Michael Smith collaborated on A Voyage of Growth and Discovery at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art (Gateshead Quays, UK). The installation features “man-child Baby IKKI,” a character developed by Smith who navigates the infamous Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. IKKI negotiates the primal elements of fire, water, earth and wind. A six-channel video installation replaying IKKI’s “voyage” is enveloped by a fantasy environment evoking that of the festival. This work is on view through January 15.
- Mark Dion has a new site-specific installation at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities (Ann Arbor). For Waiting for the Extraordinary Dion took Michigan Chief Justice Augustus Woodward’s 1817 categories for human knowledge and invented 13 visual symbols crafted through the U-M Duderstadt Center’s high-tech three-dimensional rapid imaging technology laboratory to illustrate each category. This exhibition will continue through November 5.
- Ann Hamilton was one of ten artists selected to receive an Anonymous Was A Woman grant on October 17. The “no strings” grant of $25,000 enables women over the age of 45 to continue to grow and pursue their work. The awards are synonymous with important recognition in artists’ personal and artistic development. The grant’s name refers to a line in Virginia Wolf’s A Room of One’s Own. As the name implies, the nominators and those associated with the program are unnamed.
- Alfredo Jaar will be featured in Oregon College of Art and Craft’s (OCAC) inaugural lecture series, Connection: Intersecting Tradition and Innovation. His lecture, “It is Difficult,” provides a framework for considering the complexity of current social and cultural issues around the world. The Alfredo Jaar Connection lecture takes place on November 14 from 7:00–8:30pm at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland. The event is free and open to the public.
- Bruce Nauman, Paul McCarthy, John Baldesssari, William Wegman and several other artists have work on view in State of Mind: New California Art 1970, the current show at the Orange County Museum of Art (Newport Beach). The exhibition includes Nauman’s never before exhibited Yellow Room, McCarthy’s May 1, 1971, and Baldessari’s California Map Piece. For the latter piece the artist drove the length of the state to carve letters forming the word California into the actual environment to replicate what was pictured on a map. The show closes January 22.
- Krzysztof Wodiczko has a new show called The Abolition of War at the Work Gallery (London). The two projects featured in this exhibition, The Flame and War Veteran Vehicle, bring into focus the post-traumatic condition experienced by returning soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan. Both projects are based on a set of interviews conducted by the artist with anonymous war veterans and their families, which reveal the difficulties of re-integration and the impossibility of re-connecting with their previous lives. This show is on view until January 14.
- Cai Guo-Qiang was commissioned to create monumental gunpowder drawings by Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Ad Doha, Qatar for a solo exhibition opening in December. Guo-Qiang is collaborating with local volunteers to produce a series of drawings rendered by igniting gunpowder. The entire process is open for public viewing from October 22 – October 26 at Al Riwaq, the special exhibitions hall located next to the Museum of Islamic Art.
https://youtu.be/epMrNcxb6tI