Sound and video at MIT, “Eyewitness” at Axiom, Carolee Schneemann at Pierre Menard, and Kaspar König at the Sackler
By RANDI HOPKINS | October 1, 2007
Eija-Liisa Ahtila, The House |
| “Sounding The Subject” and “Video Trajectories” at MIT List Visual Arts Center, 20 Ames St, Cambridge | October 12–December 30 | 617.253.4680 | “Eyewitness” at Axiom Gallery, 141 Green St, Boston | October 12–December 1 | 617.953.6413 | “Carolee Schneemann” at Pierre Menard Gallery, 10 Arrow St, Cambridge | October 12–November 25| 617.868.2033 | Kaspar König speaks at Arthur M. Sackler Museum Lecture Hall, 485 Broadway, Cambridge | October 11 at 6 pm | 617.495.9400 |
Sound is all around: pop music acts as a hair trigger for memory (and a slightly unnerving background for grocery shopping); we hear voices we can’t place, silence we can’t ignore, noises we can’t tune out. The subjectivity of our experience of sound and the recent history of art that joins sound and image are the topics of two related shows opening at MIT’s List Visual Art Center on October 12: “SOUNDING THE SUBJECT” and “VIDEO TRAJECTORIES: SELECTIONS FROM THE PAMELA AND RICHARD KRAMLICH COLLECTION AND THE NEW ART TRUST.” Organized by Daniel Birnbaum and Mechtild Widrich, “Sounding the Subject” features work by Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Stan Douglas, David Hammons, Nam June Paik, and Pipilotti Rist that considers aural issues — from a layered look at a free-jazz concert to an uncanny listen-in on the voices of psychosis. Organized by Caroline Jones, “Video Trajectories” takes the form of a video library, offering a host of works from the 1960s to the early 2000s by artists including Dara Birnbaum, Dan Graham, Joan Jonas, Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, and Jane and Louis Wilson.The political and psychological implications of being a passive viewer — of art, war, genocide, immigration issues . . . whatever we watch — are examined in “EYEWITNESS: DENISE MARIKA AND THINK AGAIN,” which opens at Axiom Gallery on October 12. “Eyewitness” pairs Marika’s new video, Downrush, which examines the viewer’s role as witness, with a Think Again (S.A. Bachman and David John Attyah) installation, Salt in the Wound (The NAFTA Effect), that addresses anti-immigrant rhetoric and draws attention to current debates on immigration reform.
What we now know as performance art was uncharted territory in the early 1960s, when Carolee Schneeman began to cover her unclothed self in grease, chalk, and plastic and perform in created environments, exploring sex, gender, bodies, and art. Curated by Heide Hatry and opening at the Pierre Menard Gallery in Harvard Square on October 12, “CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN” presents new work along with early, rarely seen videos including the erotic Meat Joy (1964) and Fuses (1965).
Kaspar König, director of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne since 2000, has played a major role in contemporary art for more than four decades. In 1977, he co-founded “Sculpture Projects Münster,” an international exhibition of contemporary public sculpture presented every 10 years in that German university town. König talks about his experience in a lecture, “KASPAR KÖNIG: NOT TO OCCUPY A PLACE, BUT TO CREATE SPACE,” at Harvard’s Sackler Museum on October 11; the talk is free, but parking may be tight — it’s inauguration weekend at Harvard.
On the Web
MIT List Visual Arts Center: //web.mit.edu/lvac
Axiom Gallery: www.axiomart.org
Pierre Menard Gallery: www.pierremenardgallery.com
Arthur M. Sackler Museum Lecture Hall: www.artmuseums.harvard.edu
Related:
Dystopia now!, Bad-boy cool, Potpourri, More 
- Dystopia now!
Our species seems to have a serious love/hate relationship with nature, as in “can’t live with it, can’t live without it.”
- Bad-boy cool
“People look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access.”
- Potpourri
In Carolee Schneemann's 1975 performance Interior Scroll, she stood naked and read about sexism from a three-foot-long strip of paper that she pulled out of her vagina.
- Let’s undo the movies
If those collective behaviors inspired and demanded by the cinema of its witnesses are, in essence, its very boundaries, Belgian-born filmmaker and video artist Chantal Akerman could be considered a smuggler.
- Desperately seeking shoulder pads
In the glorious fall of 1980, young photographer Amy Arbus approached the Village Voice looking for freelance work.
- Radical dude
Cameron Jamie grew up in the ’burbs.
- The Apocalypse versus stupid human tricks
Among the most poetic and moving artwork to come out of 9/11 is Paul Chan’s series of videos The 7 Lights .
- Fringe festival
Off the beaten path, the fringes of Boston's gallery scene are seeing new development, and even expansion.
- Slideshow: Tavares Strachan's ''Orthostatic Tolerance'' at the MIT List Visual Arts Center
Tavares Strachan's "Orthostatic Tolerance: It Might Not Be Such a Bad Idea if I Never Went Home" at the MIT List Visual Arts Center through July 11, 2010.
- Turn on the bright lights
Art this fall grapples with issues like gender and journalism, personal space and human survival, and what to have for lunch.
- The old neighborhood
Some call Charles “Teenie” Harris’s five decades of photos of Pittsburgh one of the grandest chronicles of African-American life ever assembled.
- Less
Topics:
Museum And Gallery
, Politics, Entertainment, Meat Joy, More
, Politics, Entertainment, Meat Joy, Pipilotti Rist, Richard Serra, Music, Pop and Rock Music, Domestic Policy, Political Policy, Harvard University, Less
