Jennifer Steinkamp, Lehmann Maupin, Hong Kong

Jennifer Steinkamp
Lehmann Maupin Hong Kong
February 13 - March 22, 2014

Lehmann Maupin Hong Kong presents an exhibition of new works by JENNIFER STEINKAMP. The Los Angeles-based artist has been working in digital media for over twenty years and is a pioneer in the field of 3D animation. Steinkamp's digitally rendered animations of natural phenomenon and movements are projected within architectural surroundings, resulting in immersive environments that blend awareness of the physical and ethereal and challenge the viewer's preconceived ideas of form and space. The artist’s first exhibition in Hong Kong, with two new works, furthers her exploration of space, perspective, and digital simulation of the natural world.

JENNIFER STEINKAMP 

Diaspore, 2014 

Video installation, dimensions variable. 

Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong

Diaspore, one of the two projections on display, depicts a collection of virtual tumbleweeds, self-propelled through a flat, white landscape. The renderings of the amalgamated shrubs, composed of sticks and leaves, are mesmerizing, mimicking the movements one would experience in nature in ways that are instinctually familiar. In this work, Jennifer Steinkamp references both the anatomy of the plant that disperses the seeds and spores, as well as the social phenomenon of diaspora. Drawing a connection between the dissemination of people and culture across the world and the plant’s ability to spread its seeds, Jennifer Steinkamp uses technology to link the natural and human worlds.

In addition, Jennifer Steinkamp will present Bouquet, portraying not a bouquet of flowers, but of fully-grown trees, gathered in an intricate arrangement. This large-scale projection upends the traditional notion of a delicate, floral bouquet, reimagining it as a dynamic, looming forest. Although the work is visually alluring, Bouquet continues Steinkamp’s approach to creating projections that are slightly disconcerting, forcing the viewer to reconsider their ideas about nature and their relationship to their immediate environment. Bouquet is also currently on view at the American Consulate in Guangzhou, China as part of the U.S. Department of State's Art in Embassies program.

JENNIFER STEINKAMP 

Bouquet 1, 2013 

Video installation, dimensions variable. 

Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong 

This coming March, Jennifer Steinkamp’s major work Loop, from the Corcoran Gallery of Art's permanent collection, will be installed at the museum in Washington D.C. for the first time since 2000. The immersive work containing both audio and visual elements will seamlessly fill the museum's 43-foot diameter Rotunda gallery with an animation of multicolored looped lines undulating slowly as if blown by a slow breeze. 

Lehmann Maupin has represented Jennifer Steinkamp since 2004 and her work has been featured in five dedicated, single-artist exhibitions at the gallery’s New York locations (2004, 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2010). Steinkamp’s work confirms Lehmann Maupin’s commitment to artists working with cutting-edge technology and new media. 

JENNIFER STEINKAMP

Arriving to CalArts in Los Angeles to study motion graphics in 1984, Jennifer Steinkamp was influenced by the West coast art scene that had evolved since the 1970s into the Light and Space movement in addition to the next generation of artists experimenting with art and technology. She completed her BFA and MFA from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA in 1989 and 1991 respectively. Recently, Steinkamp created a large-scale animated projection on the facade of the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, providing new perspectives on the architectural structure. Other important recent exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2011); Museum of Fine Arts Houston (2012); Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia (2012); and the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha (2013). In 2006, a retrospective of her work opened at the San Jose Museum of Contemporary Art and travelled to the Kemper Museum in Kansas City, Missouri and Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, NY. Also in 2006, the Denver Art Museum commissioned an installation by the artist for its new Daniel Libeskind-designed building. Steinkamp's works was also included in the 8th Istanbul Biennial (2003) and the 11th Cairo International Biennial (2008). Her work is included in numerous public and private collections internationally, including The Chrysler Museum of Art, Virginia; Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Malaga, Spain; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Istanbul Museum, Turkey; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Lehmann Maupin Hong Kong
407 Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street Central, Hong Kong
www.lehmannmaupin.com

Video Art Exhibition – Istanbul Modern

The selection of video art works by Rivane Neuenschwander (Brazil), Jacco Olivier (The Netherlands) and Jennifer Steinkamp (USA) shows how some contemporary artists use new technologies to bring painting beyond its classical limits. Thanks to the wide possibilities of projections and computer animations, the traditional genres of landscape and portrait gain movement and change shape, perspective or colour. Through the interaction with sound and architecture, painting abandons its static character, expands from the bounds of the canvas and explores new conceptual and aesthetical territories. 

JACCO OLIVIER (Goes, The Netherlands, b. 1972)

Jacco Olivier has recently created a series of “Moving Pictures” that bring the classical horizons of painting into new areas of technical development and visual pleasure. Jacco Olivier departs from modern painting and he creates a series of pictures with abstract or figurative landscapes. He photographs and films these fragments to produce vivid and poetic animations. Landscapes and human figures become abstract compositions while abstract forms become suddenly figures and real things. These visual narratives are humorous and casual reflections on our world. Their meaning is enhanced by the interconnection of the images and the sound tracks. 

JENNIFER STEINKAMP (Denver, USA, b. 1958)

Jennifer Steinkamp uses computer animation to create virtual forms that provoke new perceptions of the architectural spaces where they are projected. Eye Catching 5 shows the image of a young tree in motion. The foliage, the branches and the trunk bow down, stretch up and rotate smoothly. This image belongs to a series of trees that were specifically created for the Yerebatan Cistern in 2003 during the 8th International Istanbul Biennial. Creating simulated images of fake natural elements and exploring the notions of gravity, turbulence and wind, Steinkamp provides a fascinating and non-narrative visual experience. Her projections bring painting beyond its classical limits. She reinvents the forms of nature, dematerialises the space and produces complex interactions between the viewer and the artwork. 

RIVANE NEUENSCHWANDER (Belo Horizonte, Brazil, b. 1967)

The artist Rivane Neuenschwander connects science and language in order to reinscribe culture into nature. Love Lettering is a video made with her brother, a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt. Words taken from love letters were cut out and attached to the tails of red-orange fish in an aquarium. The trajectories of the undulating fish compose disconnected or intensified combinations of meanings: “Late – wish – hotel”… “your - talking", and so on. This film includes the perspective of two readers: the real, intended recipient of the original letter and the viewer who sees it recomposed by chance. Combining formal systems with organic forces, Rivane Neuenschwander proposes a new balance between art and nature... Her art suggests that destiny can be changed by interfering through simple means, like writing or tearing a love letter, with the flow of what seems predetermined.

This video art exhibition was curated by Rosa Martinez.

ISTANBUL MODERN
16 April - 25 August 2005