SITE Santa Fe Eighth International Biennial
The Dissolve
June 20, 2010 – January 2, 2011
SITE Santa Fe
1606 Paseo de Peralta
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
Robert Breer, Paul Chan, Martha Colburn, Thomas Demand, Brent Green, George Griffin, Ezra Johnson, Bill T. Jones & OpenEnded Group, Mary Reid Kelley, William Kentridge, Avish Khebrehzadeh, Laleh Khorramian, Maria Lassnig, Jennifer & Kevin McCoy, Joshua Mosley, Oscar Muñoz, Jacco Olivier, Raymond Pettibon, Robert Pruitt, Christine Rebet, Robin Rhode, Hiraki Sawa, Berni Searle, Cindy Sherman, Federico Solmi, Kara Walker, with historical works by Edison Manufacturing Company, Fleischer Studios, Lotte Reiniger, and Dziga Vertov
Sarah Lewis & Daniel Belasco, Curators
David Adjaye, Exhibition Designer
SITE Santa Fe’s 2010 Biennial will explore a striking development in contemporary art. Emerging and established artists working in many mediums, from painting and sculpture to film and mixed-media installation, have mined techniques of early animation and moving image technologies to create a hybrid practice where the homespun meets the high-tech. The Biennial’s title, The Dissolve, describes the essential quality of this new sensibility merging with the old.
The show gathers approximately twenty-six works of recent art to show the full extent of this practice, displaying them in surprising juxtaposition with historical animations, some dating back to the early twentieth century. Hiraki Sawa, for example, uses the model of the flip book as the template for the action of his video. The vaudevillian lightning sketch and the stop motion animation practice of early Edison Manufacturing Company films appear as a compelling analogy to works by Oscar Muñoz and Robin Rhode. Shadow puppetry films, popularized by Lotte Reiniger’s 1926 film, the Adventures of Prince Achmed, offer Kara Walker’s silhouette technique a powerful historical antecedent. In so doing, this Biennial will look at contemporary art developments through a bifocal lens, with an eye to both cultural history connected to the historical developments of the moving image as well as contemporary art.
The exhibition design, executed through a commission by renowned architect David Adjaye, will recapitulate diverse viewing environments from the intimate view offered by the nickelodeon to the arena-like communal interior of Cinerama and back to the personal mode in the twenty-first century offered through digital platforms. The scale of presentation and the range of materials vary greatly, yet one element remains constant: the remixing and recombining of the familiar and the strange to revitalize old media, creating compelling new stories that probe social histories and personal narratives.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue and website, featuring the works in the exhibition. SITE also is organizing a lively roster of public programs, lectures, and performances to complement the Biennial exhibition.
The exhibition is made possible in part through generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and Agnes Gund.
Opening Weekend Events: Friday, June 18 – Sunday, June 20, 2010
With a special performance by Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company
featuring a new commission in collaboration with OpenEnded Group at
The Lensic Performing Arts Center, June 19 & 20
Agnes Gund, Honorary Chair
Jeanne & Michael L. Klein, Honorees
Fay & Donald Kirby, Wendy & Peter Trevisani, Gala Weekend Co-Chairs
For support and sponsorship opportunities, tickets & other information, please contact 505.989.1199 or visit www.sitesantafe.org .
Press Contact: Anne Wrinkle, wrinkle@sitesantafe.org , tel. 505.989.1199.
