Away from Home
Franz Ackermann, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Allora y Calzadilla, Sout Piel, Raul Cordero, Gregory Green, Jac Leirner, Ken Lum, Lee Mingwei, Marcos Ramirez, Jill Rowinski
Wexner Center offsite, Colombus
February 1 – April 20, 2003
The Wexner Center for the Arts takes to the road for Away from Home, a provocative and playful exhibition featuring new projects by artists from around the globe, on view at the Columbus College of Art & Design. Away from Home, organized by the Wexner Center, reflects on issues of home, travel, exile, communication, and sense of place.
The exhibition features 11 projects in a wide range of media—painting, sculpture, photography, film, installation, performance, and interactive art—by emerging artists from five continents. Four of the pieces were commissioned for this exhibition, including one by Wexner Center Residency Award recipient Lee Mingwei.
Away from Home is one of a series of exhibitions presented off-site during the renovation of the Wexner Center’s galleries. The works will be on view in CCAD’s Canzani Center Gallery and in the Canzani Center lobby.
THE ARTISTS
Franz Ackermann, whose work has been called “psychedelic and apocalyptic” by The New York Times, is creating a 60-foot wall painting on the themes of traveling, mapping, and leaving and returning home. A German native, he has had solo exhibitions all over the world, most recently in Madrid; Wolfsburg, Germany; and Amsterdam.
Rising star Eija-Liisa Ahtila presents the video work Consolation Service, a poignant look at the breakup of a home. Ahtila is a Finnish film and video artist who creates experimental narrative fiction exploring human relationships. Consolation Service was lauded by Art in America as “effective precisely for its simmering restraint: technical assurance without bravado, intense performances unmarred by vanity…” ARTNews raved, “Ahtila achieves something that David Lynch can only attempt, creating a closely parallel dimension onscreen that is distinctly bizarre yet still rings true.”
Allora y Calzadilla (American-born Jennifer Allora and Cuban-born Guillermo Calzadilla) believe that it is “impossible to know the inner reality of other people.” In their Seeing Otherwise, they have digitally manipulated a series of photographs to show the perspective of the subject in the photo, rather than the perspective of the viewer or the photographer. Seeing Otherwise was presented at the 2000 Habana Bienal; Away from Home will include new pieces in the series, shot in Puerto Rico and Morocco.
Sout Piel, a derogatory term that connotes divided alliances and racial tension, is also the name of South African artist Lisa Brice’s latest series. The work offers internationally understood symbols (e.g. pictograms of first aid or baggage claim) that have been altered to form mini-narratives depicting fear and flight. These subverted images offer confrontational, alternative interpretations of the original signs.
Cuban native Raul Cordero unveils a brand new work as part of his Hello/Goodbye series—photo lenticulars (dual images viewed simultaneously) of his temporary homes during visits in five cities: New York, Columbus, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Paris. Raul Cordero often explores how a sense of place can be relayed through iconic signs or images welcoming visitors. One of his previous pieces in the series reveals front and back views of a famous Las Vegas sign.
American artist Gregory Green, whose work often deals with controversial subjects such as bombs and chemicals, now offers his much less controversial M.I.T.A.R.B.U. (Mobile Internet, Television, and Radio Broadcast Unit), a multimedia, interactive work set up in a 1967 Volkswagen Westfalia Campmobile. With lawn chairs placed outside the camper, the piece becomes a social setting with Internet access, a pirate radio station, and a television screen projecting real-time images of the gallery. With this project, Green juxtaposes the systems of control imposed on society by various forms of authority, and the strategies adopted by individuals and communities to overturn the social order and seize power. Green, who spent his childhood on U.S. Air Force bases, often explores themes of power and struggle with authority in his work.
Jac Leirner’s collage work shows off items she has accumulated during her travels in her native Brazil and throughout the world. Her works Adhesives: #22 (Pair of Squares), #26 (Hard Core), and #27 (Blank)—all on view in Away from Home—involve collecting and assembling found objects, such as rock concert labels, envelopes, and motion-sickness bags, creating a physical testimonial of time and place. Art in America commented, “Jac Leirner’s casually assembled object-sculptures have an ingenious charm and elegance…” She currently resides in São Paulo.
Canadian Ken Lum’s confrontational work There Is No Place Like Home deals with issues of immigration and assimilation in a familiar yet disconcerting format—a billboard with often aggressive messages, such as “Go back to where you came from!” and “You call this a home?” He challenges viewers to examine their attitudes and biases about belonging and rejection. Lum received the 2002 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and is a professor in the department of Fine Arts at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Lee Mingwei of Taiwan, recipient of the 2002–03 Wexner Center Residency Award in Visual Arts, presents a new interactive teahouse for Away from Home. Lee has created a spiritual and social environment, complete with trees and benches, evocative of the rural tearooms of his childhood. His work is based on Ch’an Buddhist philosophies, often exploring basic human activities, such as cooking and letter writing. The New York Times recently commented on “his notion of art as an exchange, a heightened moment, an inspired encounter. … This is one of his underlying ideas: the impossibility of owning the experience of art.”
Marcos Ramirez, who is known as “Erre” in his native Mexico, has created an iconic signpost that indicates the distance from Columbus to several other cities throughout the world. The piece, Crossroads, will be located outside the Canzani Center. Ramirez’s work explores the conflict between abstract information and physical realities. A version of the piece he is creating for Away from Home appeared in the 2000 Habana Bienal.
Cincinnati’s Jill Rowinski plays the perfect hostess in her multimedia, interactive, performance art piece Make Yourself at Home. She will cover the floor with rubber “welcome” mats (made in Ohio) and don more than 100 pink gingham aprons while welcoming visitors to the space periodically throughout the duration of the exhibition. On select days, a tenor will sing “Home on the Range” and other songs on the theme of home. Her previous works have also explored issues of domesticity while engaging viewers in conversations about sexual stereotyping; she once upholstered a city bus in pink vinyl and served cupcakes to riders during their daily commute.
THE CURATOR
Annetta Massie, associate curator and curator of Away from Home, has been with the Wexner Center since it opened in 1989, working especially on commissioned, sitespecific projects. Most recently she co-curated Mood River, one of the Center’s most popular exhibitions in its history. Among the many other exhibitions she has curated or co-curated are Udomsak Krisanamis; Ernesto Neto: Sister Naves; Rirkrit Tiravanjia: Untitled 1999 (reading from right to left); The Serial Attitude; Beverly Semmes: Stuffed Cat; Apocalyptic Wallpaper; Dawoud Bey; Carmel Buckley: Tools for the Imagination; and Oehlen Williams 95.
THE CATALOGUE
A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany Away from Home. The catalogue includes a foreword from Wexner Center Director Sherri Geldin, an introduction by curator Annetta Massie, and commentaries by distinguished contributors. Essayists include Mark Cousins of the Architectural Association and professor at the London Consortium; Jan Avgikos, art historian and critic; and Jeffrey Kipnis, the Wexner Center’s curator of architecture and design.
Away from Home is organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University, and copresented by the Columbus College of Art & Design.
COLUMBUS COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN
Columbus College of Art & Design, a private, four-year, degree-granting institution of higher education, prepares tomorrow’s creative leaders for professional careers. With a history of commitment to fundamentals and quality, CCAD advances a distinct, challenging, and inclusive learning culture that supports individual development in art, design, and humanities. For more on CCAD, visit www.ccad.edu.
WEXNER CENTER FOR THE ARTS
THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
1871 North High Street, Columbus, Ohio 43210
www.wexarts.org
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