The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College Presents: Haim Steinbach: once again the world is flat.

On View June 22 through December 20, 2013 in the Hessel Museum of Art

Opening reception: Saturday, June 22, 2013 from 1:00 – 4:00 pm

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, NY, May, 2013 – This summer The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard) will present an expansive exhibition of works by Haim Steinbach in the Hessel Museum of Art. Comprising a number of the artist’s grid-based paintings from the early 1970s, as well as a series of reconfigured historical installations and major new works created in relation to a selection of works drawn from the Marieluise Hessel Collection, the artworks in the exhibition span Steinbach’s forty-year career.  Known primarily for his paradigmatic shelves displaying everyday objects, once again the world is flat. offers a significant opportunity to reconsider the trajectory of this seminal artist’s work, through its evolution from early paintings to the later large-scale installations that have seldom been seen and are less known in the United States. In these installations, Steinbach privileges the mechanisms of display, a concept he has employed since the late 1970s: highlighting the selection and arrangement of objects, while providing new and unexpected psychological, aesthetic, cultural, and ritualistic aspects of the displayed works, as well as the context in which they are presented.

In a 2005 interview with Ginger Wolf, Steinbach stated: “I am sooner concerned with visualizing experience than thematizing ‘Art’ objects into categories of art movements and connoisseurship. My work questions how we perceive objects rather than prescribe a hierarchal order of what you should see as art. Another way of looking at it is that I do not ‘curate’ objects, but put them into play” (InterReview, 2005).  For the exhibition once again the world is flat. Steinbach will reconfigure the architecture of the galleries with standard architectural building materials including metal studs, sheetrock, prefabricated shelving, paint, and wallpaper - all of which will provide new frameworks to display works from the Hessel Collection in addition to everyday objects selected by the artist.

once again the world is flat. continues the Hessel Museum’s invitation to artists to create exhibitions of works drawn from the Hessel Collection of  more than 2000 artworks that in turn illuminates their own artistic practice.  Previous exhibitions have included projects by Martin Creed, Rachel Harrison, Andrea Zittel, Nayland Blake, Josiah McEhleny, and Liam Gillick.  This exhibition is curated by Tom Eccles and Johanna Burton.

Haim Steinbach was born in 1944 in Rehovot, Israel. He has lived in New York since 1957. He received his BFA from Pratt Institute in 1968 and his MFA from Yale University in 1973. Until the mid-1970s he produced paintings that, responding to minimalism's limitations, examined the codes of visual language through a calculated placement of colored bars around monochrome squares. He abandoned painting for a series entitled Linopanel, using linoleum as a material that mirrored cultural traditions of flooring (Rococo patterns, Colonial wood, generic tiling, etc.).  In the late 1970s his practice delved into spatial questions of visual syntax, honing in on the quotidian rituals of collecting and arranging objects through a continued engagement with the Display works. His presentation of found, bought or gifted objects alters the lens of cultural histories, mapping otherwise concealed bonds of attachment and desire between object, place and viewer.

Following his historic exhibition at Artists Space in 1979, Steinbach has had several international solo exhibitions at institutions such as Witte de With, Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; CAPC musée d'art contemporain, Bordeaux and Haus der Kunst, Munich.  His work was included in Documenta IX and the Sidney Biennial in 1992, the 1993 and 1997 Venice Biennales, the 2000 Biennale de Lyon, and La Triennale, Paris 2012. Steinbach’s work can be found in numerous international public collections such as the CAPC musée d’art contemporain, Bordeaux; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Metropolitain Museum of Art, New York; Sigmund-Freud Museum, Vienna; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the Tate Modern, London.

Haim Steinbach’s exhibition at CCS Bard is made possible with support from the Marieluise Hessel Foundation, the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, the Board of Governors of the Center for Curatorial Studies, and the Center’s Patrons, Supporters, and Friends.

Also on view is No borders in a wok that can’t be crossed, an exhibition by Helen Marten, in the CCS Bard Galleries through September 22, 2013.

Guided public tours every Saturday at 1pm during the summer – for more information please contact [email protected] or 845.758.7598.

Free bus from NYC to the opening reception – for reservations please contact [email protected] or 845.758.7598.

For full press kit please click here.

About the Center for Curatorial Studies

The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard) is an exhibition, education, and research center dedicated to the study of art and curatorial practices from the 1960s to the present day.
 
In addition to the CCS Bard Galleries and Hessel Museum of Art, the Center houses the Marieluise Hessel Collection, as well as an extensive library and curatorial archives that are accessible to the public. The Center’s two-year M.A. program in curatorial studies is specifically designed to deepen students’ understanding of the intellectual and practical tasks of curating contemporary art. Exhibitions are presented year-round in the CCS Bard Galleries and Hessel Museum of Art, providing students with the opportunity to work with world-renowned artists and curators. The exhibition program and the Hessel Collection also serve as the basis for a wide range of public programs and activities exploring art and its role in contemporary society.
General information on the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College can be found on its website at: www.bard.edu/ccs.

Press Kit:

http://www.bard.edu/ccs/wp-content/uploads/CCS-Bard-Summer-Exhibitions-2013-Press-Kit.pdf

Images For Haim Steinbach:

http://www.bard.edu/ccs/wp-content/uploads/Display-6-1979.jpg

http://www.bard.edu/ccs/wp-content/uploads/Display-7-1979-Image-Courtesy-Artist-Space.jpg

http://www.bard.edu/ccs/wp-content/uploads/Shelf-with-Globe-1980.jpg

http://www.bard.edu/ccs/wp-content/uploads/Untitled-shelf-with-baseball-player-snoopy-and-train-engine-1975.jpg

Image Credit Sheets:

http://www.bard.edu/ccs/wp-content/uploads/once-again-the-world-is-flat.-image-credits.pdf

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MEDIA CONTACTS:

For further information, images or to arrange interviews, please contact:

BARD COLLEGE CONTACT:

Mark Primoff

Director of Communications

Tel: +1 845.758.7412     

Email: [email protected]                  


CCS BARD CONTACT:

Ramona Rosenberg

External Affairs Manager

Tel: +1 (845) 758-7574

Email: [email protected]  

This event was last updated on 05-30-2013

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