Laercio Redondo unearths memories, often using architecture and its practitioners as a point of departure. Deeply invested in researching cultural dynamics, Redondo merges poetic narrative with personal vision to create multi-faceted installations. This exhibition examines such important Brazilian figures as Oscar Niemeyer, Athos Bulcão, Lota de Macedo Soares and Lina Bo Bardi. Often giving voice to those who have been silenced, Redondo illuminates the universal implications of collective forgetting.

 

Past Projects for the Future amasses work in diverse media, created between 2008 and the present. Central to the exhibition is a new film installation, Detour. The film traverses the distance between Flamengo Park, designed by Lota de Macedo Soares, and Casa Samambaia, her private home outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. Detour’s voice-over addresses de Macedo Soares’s conspicuous absence from Brazilian collective memory.

 

Also integral to the exhibition are architect Lina Bo Bardi and her Glass House. Redondo explores her masterpiece in two works—the video The Glass House and a series of photographs titled

Blow Up / The Glass House. The video documents the home on two occasions, one in 1999 and the other in 2008. Bringing attention to the lived-in nature of the house rather than presenting it as an architectural remnant, the work focuses on the eclectic nature of the owners’ possessions. The accompanying photographs of the home are magnified beyond focus—a tableau of displacement and memory.

 

Past Projects for the Future ruminates upon architecture’s relationship with identity, both personal and national. Redondo, through his practice, revives cultural practitioners whose works still remain relevant today. He suggests an alternative reading and experience of their work by highlighting important aspect of their practice.

 

Laercio Redondo was born in Brazil, and is currently based between Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Stockholm, Sweden. He received his MFA at Konstfack, University of Art, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, Sweden. He has had solo exhibitions internationally in Brazil, Spain, Germany, and Cuba.

Curated by Justine Ludwig, Director of Exhibitions / Senior Curator

 

PRESENTING SPONSORS:

Nancy C. + Richard R. Rogers

 

SUPPORTED by:

The Joule Hotel, 2G Art Services, Ben E. Keith, Creative Live Agency, ROXOR Artisan Gin, Dallas Art Fair, Bordon + Fruit, Tammy Cotton Hartnett, Harris Polakoff

 

Media Sponsor:

PaperCity Magazine

For Future Reference explores the legacy of Greek statuary and philosophy—creating a bridge between sculpture and the investigation of knowledge. Featuring newly created stone sculptures in concert with earlier works, the exhibition explores the use of space and volumes to organize ideas. Reyes’s sculptures are playful in their references. Drawing from disparate traditions, the works form a hybrid language.

 

Reyes pays homage to key figures in Greek philosophy such as Epicurus, Aristotle, Hypatia, Socrates, and Plato. He recreates their likeness as stone-carved busts influenced by the disparate traditions of abstraction and figuration, modern and ancient visual languages. One such work, Plato’s Cave, realizes the philosopher’s famous allegory as an architectural model. The parable describes a group of prisoners who live chained in a cave facing a blank wall. All they see are shadows projected on the wall from things passing in front of a fire behind them. The shadows are as close as the prisoners get to witnessing reality. Plato equates the position of the philosopher to a freed prisoner who discovers that what was thought to be reality was merely a shadow. In Reyes’s interpretation, the philosopher’s cranium is the allegory’s cave.

 

Philosophy is also the starting point for Philosophical Casino, a set of dice that feature quotes from global theorists ranging from Confucius to Marx. The aim of the work is to offer the tools of philosophy in a casual, yet meaningful manner. These geometric sculptures are not dissimilar in function to an oracle or Magic 8 Ball—predicting futures and answering both life’s most elusive and banal questions. Other geometric works focus on form and are inspired by modernism and totemism. These sculptures create a conversation between geometry and the mystical.

 

Flat Statues, re-worked photographs of statuary from different geographies and periods, evoke the feeling that art history has folded in on itself. These images are printed on cloth, cut, and

reassembled on a canvas. The works bring attention to both similarities and differences between distinct visual practices.

 

Taken together, the works presented in For Future Reference explore the means through which thought is organized into images. Figures and forms act as an echo of the globalized reality we live in today. Much like a library, the exhibition is a compendium of perspectives on the human condition.

 

Pedro Reyes was born in Mexico City in 1972, where he lives and works. He studied architecture at the Ibero-American University in Mexico City. Solo exhibitions include the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; The Power Plant, Toronto; Whitechapel Gallery, London; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. He has taken part in such important art events as the Carnegie International, Liverpool Biennial, Gwangju Biennial, and Documenta 13.

 

Curated by Justine Ludwig, Director of Exhibitions / Senior Curator

 

SUPPORTED by:

The Joule Hotel, 2G Art Services, Ben E. Keith, Creative Live Agency, Tatum Art Advisory, ROXOR Artisan Gin, Dr. Sami Arslanlar + John R. Clutts, Tammy Cotton Hartnett, Laree Hulshoff + Ben Fischer, Harris Polakoff

 

Media Sponsor:

PaperCity Magazine

Bruce Weber’s longstanding career has produced some of fashion’s most iconic images. A 1978 editorial shoot for SoHo Weekly News with water polo player Jeff Aquilon first brought Weber’s work into prominence. The photographer went on to produce a series of Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren campaigns with male athletes—spearheading the muscled, sporty ideal for male models within the industry.

 

The prolific photographer has since collaborated on numerous campaigns for such iconic brands as Versace, Louis Vuitton, Moncler, and Abercrombie & Fitch. He has also collaborated on editorials and cover shoots for most major fashion publications, recently CR Fashion Book and Vanity Fair.

 

Over the past four decades, Weber has traveled the globe to produce groundbreaking and occasionally controversial imagery for the fashion industry’s leading publications and brands. From Vietnam to South Africa, Morocco to Brazil and beyond, Weber has consistently imagined his fashion sittings as the starting point for a broader exploration of each locale’s vibrant culture and unique occupants. In addition to over 300 photographs—a majority of which have never been exhibited—Far From Home features a selection of Weber’s travel-related short film works.

 

Weber (b.1946 Greensburg, Pennsylvania) has published 39 books and his work has been featured in more than 60 exhibitions worldwide. Notably, he was included in the 1987 Whitney Biennial, which presented Weber alongside artists Julian Schnabel, Ross Bleckner, Barbara Kruger, Terry Winters, Jeff Koons and Peter Halley. Solo exhibition venues have included the National Portrait Gallery, London and the Parco Exposure Gallery, Tokyo. His photographs are part of the

permanent collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and the Museum of Modern Art, Paris. Weber has also produced a number of films and creative shorts including the Oscar-nominated Let's Get Lost, released in 1988.

 

Curated by Peter Doroshenko, Executive Director

 

PRESENTING SPONSORS:

Nancy C. + Richard R. Rogers

 

MAJOR SPONSORS:

The Joule Hotel, Neiman Marcus, NorthPark Center, Versace

 

PRESENTING SPONSORS:

2G Art Services, Ben E. Keith, Creative Live Agency, ROXOR Artisan Gin, Ridout Framing Inc., Shinola, Sue Gragg Precious Jewels, Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, Joyce Goss, Georgina Hartland, Tammy Cotton Hartnett, Meghan Looney, Jan Miller + Jeff Rich, Niven Morgan + Shelby Wagner, Jessica Nowitzki, Amy Pilkington + Chris Byrne, Harris Polakoff, Leigh Rinearson, Maxine + Ben Trowbride, Sharon Young

 

Media Sponsor:

PaperCity Magazine

 

Dallas Contemporary is supported in part by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs

This exhibition examines the artistic process of Dan Colen (b. 1979) over the course of the last 15 years, both within particular series and also across the development of different bodies of work. Colen studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he graduated in 2001. He then moved immediately to New York City, not far from where he grew up and where he continues to live and work today.

 

While he has become known for making paintings with everyday materials such as chewing gum, metal studs, and flowers, Colen began his career with oil painting, and paint itself has continued to buoy the large part of his exploration. Paint (as well as its conspicuous alternatives) often constitutes both medium and subject matter simultaneously in the artist’s work. This self-reflexive function, painting about paint, is usually associated with abstraction, but Colen instead uses the same approach to confound the distinction between abstract and representational art.

 

For the first time, Oil Painting examines Colen’s exhaustive, widely arrayed working processes in this most traditional of mediums. From the meticulous progression of mapping, editing, intertwining, and transferal typical of his early, highly detailed paintings to the multilateral, experience-driven approach of his more experimental works, Colen maintains an insatiable curiosity about what kinds of marks are available to him as an artist. The works on view here chart a full spectrum of the artist’s

Over the past decade, Helmut Lang has developed an artistic practice founded in enigmatic interventions and characterized by a distinct use of materials and textures. Often created in series, his sculptural works explore organic variations that occur when working extensively with a single medium. Lang acquires his materials from diverse sources and repurposes them, baring their histories of former use. In BURRY, he transforms soft sheepskin into rigid, textured surfaces through the application of tar, and in this act of alchemy, Lang actively negates the expected qualities of the raw material.

 

BURRY casts the gallery as a space of contemplation and reverance. Lang’s works are positioned in a unique place of tension between floor-sculpture and wall-painting. Whether leaning against the wall or laying on the floor, the works evoke human scale. The works’ rectilinear outlines crisscross the space—drawing attention to the room’s interior volume. This is one of several markers of Lang’s acute ability to bring the viewer’s awareness to his own connection with the space and the work within it. Lang forces a physical relationship to the sculptures, creating a sense of being addressed by—even implicated in—them.

 

Born in Vienna, Austria in 1956, Helmut Lang lives and works in New York. His engagement with art started in the mid 1990's, when he collaborated with Louise Bourgeois and Jenny Holzer.

Lang has devoted himself solely to his art since 2005 and exhibited since 1996 in Europe and the United States. Lang has exhibited, among others, at the Florence Biennale, Florence (1996); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (1998); The Journal Gallery, New York (2007); kestnergesellschaft, Hanover (2008); The Fireplace Project, Long Island (2011); Schusev State Museum, Moscow (2011); Mark Fletcher, New York (2012); Deste Foundation, Athens (2013) and Sperone Westwater, New York (2015). The exhibition is curated by Peter Doroshenko, Executive Director of Dallas Contemporary.

 

Curated by Peter Doroshenko, Executive Director

 

PRESENTING SPONSORS:

Nancy C. + Richard R. Rogers

 

SUPPORTED by:

2G Art Services, Ben E. Keith, Creative Live Agency, the Joule, ROXOR Artisan Gin, Sue Gragg Precious Jewels, Tatum Art Advisory, Bodron + Fruit, Lucy M. Buchanan, Tammy Cotton Hartnett, Laree Hulshoff + Ben J. Fischer, Muffin + John Lemak, Marilyn + Bill Lenox, Jo Marie Lilly, Michelle Moussa, Jessica Pulliam, Gowri Sharma, Ann + Donald Short, Maxine + Ben Trowbridge

 

Media Sponsor:

PaperCity Magazine

Diverse and enigmatic, Paola Pivi’s oeuvre appears to be the work of multiple creative minds. With ambitious and spectacular acts, as well as simple gestures, Pivi playfully appropriates cultural symbols, resulting in unexpected visuals that also appear surprisingly familiar. In each work, subject and materiality are manipulated leading to surprising transformations. The complexity of Pivi’s work is deepened by her belief that comprehensive explanation curtails the viewer’s freedom of interpretation.

 

Paola Pivi’s first museum solo exhibition in the United States addresses the viewer as “ma’am.” Women, men, and children are greeted with this term of reverence and kindness along with its common, unintentional undertones of comedy and pretension. Ma’am brings together iconic past works with new commissions. Pivi’s feather-covered polar bears occupy the gallery in the company of an inverted Fiat G-91 fighter jet. Canvases of cascading real pearls converse with photographs of zebras on a snowy mountaintop. Spinning, feather-dressed

wheels evoke dream catchers, while a giant inflatable ladder elicts wonder and aspiration.

 

Originally from Milan, Italy, Paola Pivi (b.1971) is currently based in New Delhi, India, but she considers Anchorage, Alaska to be her permanent home. In 1997, as a student, Pivi placed an 18-wheeler truck on its side as part of the exhibition Fuori Uso in Pescara, Italy. Two years later, she installed an upside down G-91 fighter jet in the Venice Biennale’s Arsenale, helping Italy win the coveted Golden Lion for Best National Pavilion. Recently, Pivi has created major commissions for the Public Art Fund and the High Line in New York City. She has been the subject of major solo exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Basel, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan and MACRO Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma. Pivi’s work is included in the permanent collections of many renowned institutions including the Guggenheim Museum and the Centre Pompidou.

 

Curated by Justine Ludwig, Director of Exhibitions / Senior Curator

in partnership with:

SOLUNA Festival

 

SUPPORTED by:

2G Art Services, Ben E. Keith, Creative Live Agency, the Joule, ROXOR Artisan Gin, Tatum Art Advisory, Tammy Cotton Hartnett, Marilyn + Bill Lenox, Ann + Donald Short

 

Media Sponsor:

PaperCity Magazine

 

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

Galerie Perrotin, Massimo De Carlo

Black Sheep Feminism: The Art of Sexual Politics examines the work of four radical feminist artists active since the 1970s. Joan Semmel, Anita Steckel, Betty Tompkins and Cosey Fanni Tutti each fearlessly confronted sexual ethics, gender norms, and the tyranny of political correctness; and all four artists faced censorship for the explicit sexual content of their work. This timely study explores key themes that are part of a broader conversation about the legacy of various feminisms in present day politics and culture.

 

Black Sheep Feminism Artists by Alison Gingeras, ARTnews June 2015

 

Curated by Alison Gingeras, Adjunct Curator

Her Marks, a Measure explores the role of women's labor in the history of astronomy and ballistics. In both fields women made significant contributions to observation, data collection, and computation. Between the Bullet and the Hole is a newly commissioned film focused on the elusive and complex effects of war on women's role in ballistic research and early computing. The film combines new and archival high-speed bullet photography, schlieren and electric spark imagery, billet sound wave imagery, forensic ballistic photography, slide rulers, punch cards, computer diagrams, and a soundtrack by electronic musician Scanner. Like a frantic animation storyboard, it explores the flickering space between the frames, testing the perceptual mechanics of visual interpolation, the possibility of reading of deciphering the gap between before and after. Interpolation—the main task of the women studying ballistics in WW2—is the construction or guessing of missing data using only two known data points. The film tries to unpack this gap and opens it to interrogation. It questions how we interpolate or construct the gaps between bullet and hole, perpetrator and victim, presence and absence.

The exhibition also includes Her Luminous Distance, a slide-based installation featuring a device used by astronomers to detect small pattern differences between photographic plates by alternately switching between images, blinking back and forth between the two. Invented by amateur astronomer Ben Mayer, the PROBLICOM (Projector Blink Comparator) uses two juxtaposed slide projectors and a rotation disc to alternately obscure the images at a stroboscopic pace. The accompanying binaural soundtrack is a pulsing rhythmic drone, which plays on the perception of patterns.

 

Aura Satz (b.1974) was born in Barcelona and is currently based in London. Satz's work has been performed, exhibited and screened internationally. This includes events and exhibitions at Tate Modern, the Hayward Gallery, the Hayward Project Space, Barbican Art Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery (London); the Rotterdam Film Festival (Rotterdam); the New York Film Festival (New York); De Appel Art Centre; and Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (Gateshead).

Jeff Zilm engages with screen-meditated culture in his practice. Through diverse bodies of work, he deconstructs the language used to navigate digital realities. From paintings created using film stock to antenna ready-mades, LOSSLESS FORMS FOR PICTURE PLANE adopts symbols of information and subverts their purpose.

 

Through various media, LOSSLESS FORMS FOR PICTURE PLANE explores the interrelations of film, coding, text, and Internet technologies. It probes the glut of information that we are faced with on a daily basis, while removing hierarchy between the banal and the exceptional.

 

Jeff Zilm was born in 1958 in Iowa City, Iowa. He studied at the University of North Texas before receiving his MFA at Southern Methodist University. Solo exhibitions include Oliver Francis Gallery (Dallas), AND NOW (Dallas), The Journal Gallery (Brooklyn), and Preteen Gallery (Mexico City). He has taken part in group shows at the Contemporary Art Museum (Houston) and The Jewish Museum (New York). Zilm lives and works in Dallas, Texas. LOSSLESS FORMS FOR PICTURE PLANES is his first museum solo exhibition.

 

Curated by Justine Ludwig, Director of Exhibitions / Senior Curator

 

Supported by:

2G Art Services, Ben E. Keith, Creative Live Agency, Kruto Vodka, Resolution Capital, The Bryant and Nancy Hanley Foundation Inc., Tammy Cotton Hartnett, Leigh Rinearson, Cindy Schwartz + Robyn Siegel

 

Media Sponsor:

PaperCity Magazine