New program
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
Harvard University
24 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University launches a new program of exhibitions and public activity under the leadership of James Voorhies, the recently appointed John R. and Barbara Robinson Family Director. This new program is dedicated to synthesizing art, design, and education through the exhibition of existing works and production of new commissions. Choreographing exhibitions, lectures, residencies, publications, performances, screenings, and informal gatherings, CCVA will strive to bring people, ideas, and objects together in generative ways that provide unparalleled experiences with contemporary art.
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts is the only building in North America designed by Swiss-born architect Le Corbusier. In addition to a site for exhibition and public events, CCVA is home to the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies and Harvard Film Archive. Here, we envision a place where visual literacy, knowledge production, contemporary art, and critical inquiry seamlessly meet, ultimately enriching the creative and intellectual lives of our audiences.
Program
Anchor exhibition
Simon Fujiwara: Three Easy Pieces
October 23–December 21, 2014
Simon Fujiwara: Three Easy Pieces inaugurates the new exhibition program at CCVA. This exhibition by Berlin-based artist Simon Fujiwara will present three substantial installations that reconstitute notions of truth, authenticity, and the credibility of the artist as narrator, leveraging new perspectives on issues such as sexuality, globalism, and race.
Talk by Simon Fujiwara: October 23, 6pm
Opening reception: October 23, 6:30–8pm
Institution (Building)
Martin Beck: Program
October 23, 2014–October 2016
The artist Martin Beck, based in New York and Vienna, inaugurates an initiative called Institution (Building). His exhibition, Program, will manifest through a sequence of interventions, installations, events, and publications that draw upon the exhibition histories and academic pursuits of the Carpenter Center and Department of Visual and Environmental Studies. This sequence—each node of which Beck considers an episode—will lend particular attention to the founding program of CCVA. Institution (Building) is a new biennial invitation to artists to consider the institutional behaviors and practices of the Carpenter Center and Harvard University. In repeated visits over the course of two years, artists will engage with the archive, architecture, and history of CCVA through an expanded form of exhibition.
Display Case
Youth Mode: A Report on Freedom
Until December 21
Youth Mode: A Report on Freedom by K-Hole and Box 1824 is a publication that proposes that youth does not necessarily correspond to numerical age but reflects a way of being, a continual preoccupation with freedom, and a mode of cultural engagement based on acceptance, not denial. Youth Mode: A Report on Freedom is the first exhibition in Display Case, a program conceived to utilize the existing form of a large, four-by-twenty-foot display case located on Level 0 near the Harvard Film Archive. Display Case will host recurring installations by artists whose practices explore the intersections of media, advertising, art, and consumerism.
The Interstitial
Luther Price
January 26–February 1, 2015
An installation by Luther Price, who makes 35 mm slides from discarded prints of old documentaries, Hollywood classics, home movies, how-to tapes and pornography, often manipulating and altering the surfaces by painting and scratching. Luther Price’s installation is the second iteration of The Interstitial, a newly conceived program that takes advantage of the time and physical space between exhibitions. The Interstitial will play host to performances, installations, dance, and other time-based events.
Agency for Critical Inquiry
Ongoing
Agency for Critical Inquiry is a new initiative that will host informal discussions, slide shows, readings, and performances where students, faculty, and the general public study intersections of the visual arts with other disciplines. It is an open invitation to lead and attend activities that delve deeper into ideas introduced by exhibitions, visiting artists, or any topic that has our attention. The intent is to bring our audiences closer for more informal, frequent, and intimate engagement with art and ideas at CCVA. Agency for Critical Inquiry will be a site for collective learning in the public realm.
Identity and website
Just launched—a new CCVA identity and website (carpenter.center) designed by Chicago-based James Goggin of Practise.
