In the Name of the Artists - American Contemporary Art
In São Paulo
The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art is proud to announce that a significant part of the American art from the collection is exhibited at the São Paulo Biennale Pavilion. The Astrup Fearnley Museum is a privately owned museum in Oslo, Norway, which collects and presents contemporary international art. It was opened in 1993, but the Collection has a history that dates back to the 1960s.With the Museum’s long and ongoing tradition of collaborating with other international institutions, the Director of the Astrup Fearnley Museum, Gunnar B. Kvaran, considered it a real pleasure and an honour when Heitor Martins, the President of the Bienal de São Paulo, initiated the ambitious idea of organizing a curated exhibition from the Museum’s collection for São Paulo.
Kvaran, curator of the exhibition, proposed a selection of works that would focus on American contemporary art from the last thirty years and would illustrate the strength and importance of this category in the Collection. The artists would range from a diverse group of emerging practitioners to important established but still active figures who have already acquired a historical position. The resulting show is entitled: In the Name of the Artists – American Contemporary Art from the Astrup Fearnley Collection.
Due to the sheer number of works by some of the established figures such as Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Matthew Barney, Robert Gober, Charles Ray and Tom Sachs, and to the scale of their presentations, the experience is of a series of solo exhibitions. This is also true of younger artists Paul Chan, Frank Benson, Nate Lowman, Dan Colen, Adam Putnam, Gardar Eide Einarsson, and Matthew Ronay, whose works the Museum has had the privilege to be able to collect in depth. The display of the younger artists is an expanded version of an exhibition that was initiated by the Astrup Fearnley Museum in 2005, Uncertain States of America – American Art in the Third Millennium, which was originally curated by Kvaran, along with Hans Ulrich Obrist and Daniel Birnbaum.
Even though In the Name of the Artists can be divided into different chapters, there are still clear links between them. This has to do with a common aesthetic and artistic language, which tends to be highly narrative, and the postmodern use of the readymade and strategies of appropriation. Of course, such strategies are not only employed by US artists, but are part of an international trend. With this in mind, the Astrup Fearnley Museum also presents, as a related but autonomous exhibition within the exhibition, a selection of works by another star of its Collection, the British artist Damien Hirst. His close conceptual ties to the older American artists, and his influence on the younger generation, make this a fascinating complementary show.
Participating artists: Doug Aitken • Edgar Arceneaux • Matthew Barney • Frank Benson • Mike Bouchet • Lizzi Bougatsos • Matthew Brannon • Anthony Burdin • Paul Chan • Dan Colen • Matthew Day Jackson • Jason Dodge • Trisha Donnelly • Jim Drain • Gardar Eide Einarsson • Robert Gober • Nan Goldin • Felix Gonzalez-Torres • Taft Green • Hannah Greely • Guyton \ Walker • Karl Haendel • Rachel Harrison • Corin Hewitt • Damien Hirst • Christian Holstad • Matt Johnson • Terence Koh • Jeff Koons • Louise Lawler • Sherrie Levine • Nate Lowman • Jason Meadows • Shirin Neshat • Kori Newkirk • Adam Putnam • Charles Ray • Jason Rhoades • Cristina Lei Rodriguez • Matthew Ronay • Mika Rottenberg • Seth Price • Richard Prince • Tom Sachs • Cindy Sherman • Gedi Sibony • Josh Smith • Rirkrit Tiravanija • Christopher Wool • Mario Ybarra Jr. • Aaron Young
Curator: Gunnar B. Kvaran
Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art
Dronningens gate 4, Oslo
T (+47) 22 93 60 60
info@fearnleys.no
Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art is generously supported by
Thomas Fearnley, Heddy and Nils Astrup Foundation, and Astrup Fearnley AS
