Circumstance
Virginia Poundstone, Nancy Shaver, Ruby Sky Stiler, Penelope Umbrico, Elif Uras, B. Wurtz May 3 to October 25, 2015
During the new spring exhibition series, Circumstance, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum will become a captivating maze where cultural hierarchies are intentionally obscured, and craft, historical design, and everyday objects sit beside works of art, demonstrating how artists take inspiration from their surroundings.
From May 3 through October 25, 2015, artists Virginia Poundstone, Nancy Shaver, Ruby Sky Stiler, Penelope Umbrico, Elif Uras, and B. Wurtz will reveal never-before-seen aspects of their practice after having taken center stage in the development, conceptualization, and presentation of their work.
The Circumstance suite of exhibitions—organized by exhibitions director Richard Klein and curator Amy Smith-Stewart—will highlight inspiration and its influence across object-making, through the presentation of specifically commissioned new work by the six multi-generational artists. Circumstance will underscore the intersection of installation art and exhibition design, and show how the convergence of fine art, design, and non-art objects within the exhibition format informs creative expression.
The galleries will be transformed into “rooms” designed by the artists, where they will show their own work alongside artworks by other artists they have selected or objects of their choosing, offering interconnected narratives about the works of art and their makers, and confronting us with larger questions about history, culture, and society.
This series of exhibitions captures the ethos of Museum founder Larry Aldrich, a proponent of living with “new art,” who stated in a 1961 Art in America article, “I wonder if many more people might not find it easier to respond and relate to art if they could see it in a more ‘lived-in’ atmosphere than the high-ceilinged, large-display areas which exist in most museums.”
In a participatory aspect of the project, The Aldrich will invite residents of Fairfield, Litchfield, and New Haven Counties in Connecticut, or Westchester and Putnam Counties in New York, to suggest items from visual culture to be displayed alongside work by one of the six artists in order to help create imaginative new contexts for the exhibitions on view. The requirements are posted on aldrichart.org/opportunities/publicproject.php with a response deadline of March 6.
Aldrich curator Amy Smith-Stewart explains that Circumstance will offer an insider’s look into the artists’ practice: “What’s exciting about these exhibitions is that we are enabling artists to define the very context in which their work will be shown, to give the audience a multilayered viewing experience.”
The Exhibitions
Virginia Poundstone: Flower Mutations
Taking formal inspiration from Giacomo Balla's series of Futurist Flowers as well as traditional American flower-pattern quilts, Poundstone (b. 1977, Great Lakes, Illinois) will present a new outdoor sculpture and an earthwork on the Museum’s grounds and curate an interior room of artworks and objects that investigate the visual representation of the flower through abstraction in art and design. Her work and objects from her collection will be presented alongside influential works by artists that span generations and art historical movements, on loan from institutions around the country. Curated by Amy Smith-Stewart.
Nancy Shaver: Reconciliation
Shaver (b. 1946, Appleton, New York) is known for work that utilizes found objects to speak about the sociology of material culture–particularly fabric–and how economics are manifested in clothing and the worlds of decoration and embellishment. For The Aldrich, she will juxtapose recent sculpture made from women’s clothing fabric and objects found in rural thrift stores with Depression-era photographs by Walker Evans (who was one of her teachers) and images of the artist, fabric, and clothing designer Sonia Delaunay. Shaver feels her practice resides midway between the work of these artists: the intuitive aesthetics of those living in poverty revealed in Evans’s photographs, and the Modernist, highart 1920s Parisian fashion world of Delaunay. Support for this exhibition has been provided by The Coby Foundation. Curated by Richard Klein.
Ruby Sky Stiler: Ghost Versions
Stiler’s (b. 1979, Portland, Maine) experimentation with Hydrocal plaster evolved alongside her interest in the scholarly history of classical plaster cast replications. Her cast reliefs originate from compositions of detritus from previous works and fragments of left-over materials salvaged from around her studio, making ghostly references to objects she describes “as not present and no longer in existence.” Her site-specific installation at The Aldrich will display her own wall-scale plaster reliefs with a selection of loaned classical casts. This interplay of references, espousing both the high and low, explores questions of taste, originality and value. Curated by Amy Smith-Stewart.
Penelope Umbrico: Avoiding the Sun
Umbrico’s (b. 1957, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) photographic process has led to her being labeled an archivist and collector, as she increasingly utilizes found images from Internet sources such as Flickr, eBay, and Craigslist. At The Aldrich, Umbrico will place her practice in the continuum of the evolving history of photographic imagery, using the Museum’s camera obscura as a starting point to explore the technologies of both analogue and digital reproduction and how we are at a point where light—traditionally the most central element of photography—has become disembodied from the natural world, with even the sun being reduced to a mere artifact. Curated by Richard Klein.
Elif Uras: Nicaea
B. Wurtz: Four Collections
B. Wurtz (b. 1948, Pasadena, California) has, since 1990, produced an ongoing body of work that he refers to as “pan paintings.” These wall pieces are made from ordinary aluminum food containers, larger roasting pans purchased at kitchen goods stores, and acrylic paint. For The Aldrich, Wurtz will cover the walls of an entire room, salon style, with “pan paintings” and showcase functional objects commonly found in the home from his own collection—cut glass, steel/enamel, and stoneware—offering a compelling dialogue about high art, decorative art, form and function, as well as the act of collecting. Curated by Amy Smith-Stewart.
Opening Reception
The opening on Sunday, May 3, from 2 to 5 pm, will offer visitors the opportunity to meet artists, take exhibition tours, participate in family activities, and purchase gourmet farm-to-museum lunchboxes prepared by Ridgefield’s own No. 109 Cheese & Wine. There will be a family-friendly preview brunch for Aldrich members with trustees, curators, and artists prior to the public reception, from 12 noon to 2 pm. Free onsite parking is available. Direct round-trip transportation from NYC will depart MoMA PS1 (on Jackson Avenue near 46th Road, around the corner from the entrance) in Long Island City, Queens, at 12 noon, expected to arrive at The Aldrich by 1:30 pm. The shuttle will leave The Aldrich at 5 pm, returning to NYC by approximately 6:30 pm. Reservations are required and cost $20. Information: 203.438.4519.
About the Museum
Founded by Larry Aldrich in 1964, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is dedicated to fostering the work of innovative artists whose ideas and interpretations of the world around us serve as a platform to encourage creative thinking. Through this unique lens, the motivations, ideas, and principles of the artists form the character of the Museum. Artists see The Aldrich as an important venue to introduce new directions in their practice, and the work shown by the Museum is usually poised to energize the art world. Because of the contemporary focus, the exhibiting artists are regularly present in the galleries, accessible to the public, and a crucial part of Museum programming.
Throughout its fifty-year history, the Museum has maintained a unique artist-centric approach and programs have consistently identified and supported significant artists, and engaged the community through exhibitions and complementary art-making workshops and thought-provoking interdisciplinary programs. The Aldrich’s innovative exhibitions are often the first to introduce the work of artists who later achieve great acclaim, including Richard
Artschwager, Eva Hesse, Robert Indiana, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra, Frank Stella, and Robert Smithson, as well as artists in the early stages of their careers, including Olafur Eliasson, De Wain Valentine, and Spencer Finch, among many others.
Originally located in the landmark 1783 building on Ridgefield’s historic Main Street that now houses administrative offices, the Museum has since 2004 been housed in a 17,000 square-foot facility that features galleries and a Education Center. The Aldrich is one of the few independent, non-collecting contemporary art museums in the United States and the only museum in Connecticut devoted to contemporary art.
Supporters
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, in addition to significant financial assistance from its Board of Trustees, receives contributions from many dedicated friends and supporters. Major support for Museum programs and operations has been provided by the Department of Economic and Community Development, Connecticut Office of the Arts; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation; the Leir Foundations; the Goldstone Family Foundation; and the Anne S. Richardson Fund. Support for education and public programs has been provided by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation; Joyride Ridgefield; the Newman’s Own Foundation, Fairfield County's Community Foundation, Ridgefield Education Foundation, The Cowles Charitable Trust, and The Gage Fund. Exhibition support has been provided by the SAHA Foundation, The Coby Foundation, Cynthia and Stuart Smith. HamletHub; Morris Media Group, publishers of Ridgefield Magazine; and WSHU Public Radio are the official media sponsors of The Aldrich in 2015.
Contact
Pamela Ruggio, communications director at pruggio@aldrichart.org, 203.438.4519