Fall 2009: September 17, 2009–January 3, 2010
Luc TuymansThis exhibition is the first U.S. retrospective of the work of the influential, internationally renowned Belgian painter, featuring more than 70 key paintings spanning 1978 to the present. In his stark, often muted canvases, Tuymans explores issues of history and memory, and the relationship between photography and painting, with subject matter ranging from 9/11 to the Holocaust to the postcolonial situation in the Congo, as well as seemingly innocuous depictions of everyday life. The Wexner Center presentation kicks off a national and international tour.
Co-curated by Madeleine Grynsztejn, Pritzker Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (and SFMOMA’s former Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture), and Helen Molesworth, Maisie K. and James R. Houghton Curator of Contemporary Art at the Harvard Art Museum (and former chief curator of exhibitions at the Wexner Center).
Tour: Wexner Center (September 17, 2009–January 3, 2010), SFMOMA (February 6 to May 2, 2010), the Dallas Museum of Art (June 6 to September 5, 2010), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (October 2, 2010 to January 9, 2011), and the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels (February 11 to May 8, 2011).
Catalogue: Most comprehensive on the artist to date. Coproduced by SFMOMA and the Wexner Center for the Arts, in association with Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. Essays by Helen Molesworth, Bill Horrigan, Joseph Leo Koerner, and Ralph Rugoff, with a joint introduction by the co-curators. A gallery guide will also accompany the exhibition.
Luc Tuymans is organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Lead support is generously provided by Bruce and Martha Atwater. Significant support is provided by Carla Emil and Rich Silverstein and by Flanders House, the new cultural forum for Flanders (Belgium) in the United States. Promotional support is provided by Ohio Magazine.
Susan Philipsz: The Shortest Shadow
This small exhibition show features two sound-based installations by Scottish artist Susan Philipsz: The Dead (2000), a 35mm projection in the center’s film/video theater with sound based on an Irish ballad featured in John Huston’s 1987 film adaption of James Joyce’s short story The Dead; and Sunset Song (2003), an outdoor installation consisting of two a cappella renditions of the American folk song The Banks of the Ohio. Organized by the Wexner Center and curated by Christopher Bedford, with a brochure featuring essays by Bedford and the Wexner Center’s director of media arts, Bill Horrigan.
Winter 2010: January 29–April 11, 2010
Hard TargetsThis group exhibition offers a critical examination of sports and masculinity in art produced during the last 20 years, and features artists working in a variety of media, including Matthew Barney, Mark Bradford, Harun Farocki, Andreas Gursky, Douglas Gordon, David Hammons, Brian Jungen, Jeff Koons, Cary Leibowitz, Glenn Ligon, Kori Newkirk, Catherine Opie, Paul Pfeiffer, Marco Rios, Collier Schorr, Joe Sola, Sam Taylor-Wood, Hank Willis Thomas, and Jonas Wood.
Curator: Christopher Bedford, curator of exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts.
Accompanying materials: Extended gallery guide with essays by Bedford, Matthew Biro, and Jennifer Doyle, plus interviews with select artists.
A note: Hard Targets is a revised presentation of Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in Sports, a traveling exhibition organized and circulated by iCI (Independent Curators International), New York, that was itself an expanded version of Contemporary Projects 11: Hard Targets—Masculinity and Sports, an exhibition organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The curator of all three exhibitions is Christopher Bedford. The Mixed Signals exhibition, tour, and catalogue were made possible, in part, by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the iCI Advocates, the iCI Partners, Agnes Gund, Gerrit and Sydie Lansing, and Barbara and John Robinson.
Cyprien Gaillard: Disquieting Landscapes
This exhibition of films and photographs by young French artist Cyprien Gaillard showcases his interest in contemporary landscapes transformed by the urban housing developments of the post-war era. At the center of the exhibition is Gaillard’s celebrated Desniansky Raion (2006), a video montage that considers the looming tower block as monument, ruin, stage set, and sculpture in an expanded framework.
Curator: Catharina Manchanda, senior curator of exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts.
Accompanying materials: A small brochure will accompany this exhibition.
Summer 2010: May 7–August 15, 2010
Mark Bradford: You’re Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)This marks the first survey of the work of acclaimed Los Angeles-based artist Mark Bradford, featuring more than 35 works in a variety of media spanning 1997 to the present, including a number of new works created for this show.
Curator: Christopher Bedford, curator of exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts.
Tour: Wexner Center (May 7–August 15, 2010), followed by venues to be confirmed in Chicago, Boston, New York, Dallas, and Los Angeles.
Catalogue: Most comprehensive treatment of Bradford’s work to date, with essays by Christopher Bedford, Robert Storr, Richard Shiff, and Katy Siegel, and two interviews with the artist. Co-published by the Wexner Center and Yale University Press.
THE BOX
The Wexner Center's exhibition space for showcasing new short video projects from around the globe, The Box features varied works shown in an intimate setting. Screenings run continuously seven days a week. Curated by Jennifer Lange, associate curator of media arts.September—Destination Finale (Philip Widmann, 2008): Philip Widmann found the raw footage for this film in Saigon some 40 years after it was shot to document an anonymous Vietnamese vacationer's European holiday in 1964–1965. (9 mins., 8mm film, transferred to video)
October—Killed (William E. Jones, 2009): For this piece, artist and filmmaker Wiliam Jones unearthed hundreds of images that were “killed”—rejected—by the Depression-era Farm Security Administration photography program and its legendary director, Roy Stryker (includes long-neglected images by such photographers as Walker Evans and Ben Shahn). The film was made while Jones was in residence at the Wexner Center. (2 mins., looped, sequence of digital files)
November—Liza Johnson’s In the Air, made in collaboration with a circus studio in her hometown of Portsmouth, Ohio.
December—A selection of film and video projects by artists aged 18 and under, as a complement to the Zoom family film festival.
