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July Issue 2007
Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC, Features Avant-Garde Sculptural Exhibition
Kendall Buster
Material Terrain: A Sculptural Exploration of Landscape and Place includes nationally and internationally known sculptors who have created monumental works to be installed both inside the Columbia Museum of Art and outside on Boyd Plaza, in Columbia, SC, in a thought-provoking and playful exhibition opening to the public on July 6, and running through Aug. 26, 2007. The museum's first cell phone tour and podcast launches for the exhibition and includes interviews with several of the artists. Visitors also have the opportunity to write their own descriptive labels for several of the works as a way to engage directly with the artwork.
Museum executive director Karen Brosius said, "This will be our most interactive exhibition to date. Visitors will have the opportunity to actively explore, not only the artists' thought processes in the cell phone tour, but also their own reactions to these works by writing down their thoughts at the 'write your own text panel' stations throughout the galleries."
Michele Brody
These 26 sculptures, some enormous in size, are composed of surprising materials such as poured fiberglass, polyethylene, aluminum chain-link steel and wheat grass, and they are appearing in unusual spaces in and around the museum. Featured artists are Michele Brody, Kendall Buster, Ming Fay, Donald Lipski, Dennis Oppenheim, Roxy Paine, Wendy Ross, John Ruppert, Ursula van Rydingsvard, Valeska Soares and James Surls.
Wendy Ross
The artists are well known for their avant-garde approaches, and Material Terrain addresses provocative questions such as genetic engineering and modification of species, conservation, farming and logging. From giant pumpkins and deer light fixtures to grass skirts and concrete trees, the exhibition is visually engaging and should appeal to everyone from children to adults.
Van Rydingsvard was a featured artist in the Jan. 2007 issue of ARTnews magazine and has exhibited in both national and international solo and group exhibitions. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Joan Mitchell Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sculpture Award, among others. Oppenheim has exhibited internationally, including at the Tate Gallery, London, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Whitney Museum of American Art and Museum of Modern Art in New York. Buster's work has been shown at the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC, and The Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, PA, as well as internationally in Berlin and South Africa.
China born Fay says of his work, Monkey Pot, "Much like a scientist, I research and cultivate specific plant forms for their inherent and symbolic qualities, reinterpreting and reinventing them in my studio/laboratory greenhouse. Inspired by the metaphor of the Monkey Pot, an Amazon jungle plant with a pot-like shape that often traps monkeys in their desire to obtain the seeds inside. In my version, the Monkey Pots are a symbol for humans who are caught by their obsessive need to consume, acquire and conquer."
In a look at contemporary landscape based sculpture, the exhibition explores the relationship between the natural and constructed world, employing diverse materials and techniques to address the uneasy balance between nature and the man-made environment. Using natural and synthetic materials, these artists have created surprising works that either change the outside environment or bring elements of the outdoors into the museum.
This exhibition is sponsored by Cox and Dinkins. Special thanks to Blanchard Machinery for the heavy equipment used to install this very heavy show. Free Times is the official media sponsor.
Material Terrain: A Sculptural Exploration of Landscape and Place is organized by International Arts & Artists, Washington, DC, with support from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the Museum is offering several related events and programs including: Can You Hear Us Now? The Museum offers its first-ever podcast and cell phone tour during the exhibition Material Terrain this summer. The past 12 months have seen a dramatic rise in the number of museums using mp3 and mobile phone technologies. These devices allow the user to access content on demand, often for free, through their own device rather than traditional museum audio guides.
The tour features exclusive content about the exhibition not available anywhere else. Users can hear several of the artists in the exhibition talking about their work including John Ruppert, Ursula van Rydingsvard, James Surls, Michele Brody, Wendy Ross and Dennis Oppenheim. The cell phone tour also allows you to leave feedback.
The tour will be available for download as a free podcast through the Museum's Web site - (www.columbiamuseum.org) - and is also available as a cell phone tour by calling 408/794-2804. There is no additional charge to use the cell phone tour; only minutes through the user's plan are used. Podcast users should download the tour to an mp3 player before arriving at the Museum.
When visiting the Museum, pick up an audio tour card listing the stops. There are 11 different stops in the exhibition. Next to the works, you will find an audio tour icon. Choose the corresponding stop number on the card to hear this stop. You may follow the stops numerically or in any order by selecting the number for each particular stop.
For further info check our SC Institutional
Gallery listings, call the Museum at 803/799-2810 or visit (www.columbiamuseum.org).
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