Gretchen Bender
Tracking The Thrill
Through June 2013
The Poor Farm
E6325 County Highway BB
Manawa, WI 54949
Organized and Curated by Philip Vanderhyden and the Poor Farm
Tracking The Thrill is a focused selection of Gretchen Bender’s (1951–2004) video works, including the re-staging of the video performance Total Recall, originally exhibited in 1987 and updated with variations until 1991. While the video works from this series follow many of the conventions of installation, Bender considered the arrangements of monitors to be performances with no live actors. Replacing the human corporeal presence, Bender used multi-channel video feeds, dispersed across groups of twelve to fifty television monitors.
At the Poor Farm, Total Recall is shown for the first time in the context of Wild Dead, a video work created in 1984 that helped to form the language of Total Recall. These video performances are situated within a broader re-examination of Bender’s work for broadcast television, including the opening credits she designed in the late 1980s for the television program America’s Most Wanted, as well music videos she directed and/or edited throughout the 1980s and ’90s for bands such as Megadeth and New Order. The Poor Farm’s 8,000 square feet of exhibition space are dedicated to this historical exhibition.
A catalog published by Poor Farm Press features essays and interviews by Stuart Argabright, Amber Denker, Michelle Grabner, Tim Griffin, Carla Hanzal, Robert Longo, Peter Nagy, Lane Relyea, David Robbins, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Philip Vanderhyden.
This show is made possible by a generous grant from The Warhol Foundation, as well as numerous individual donors.
The exhibition runs through June 2013.
Poor Farm Exhibitions Administrative Office
125 North Harvey Avenue
Oak Park, IL 60302
T 708 305 2657
