CENTER FOR CURATORIAL STUDIES AT BARD COLLEGE CELEBRATES ITS 10TH ANNIVERSARY WITH THREE EXHIBITIONS THIS FALL The Arch of Desire: Women in the Marieluise Hessel Collection; Re(f)use; and Text, Texture, Touch draw from the Marieluise Hessel Collection an
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-This fall, the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College celebrates the tenth anniversary of its opening with three exhibitions. The Arch of Desire: Women in the Marieluise Hessel Collection; Re(f)use; and Text, Texture, Touch are curated by alumni/ae of the Center's graduate program containing works drawn from the Marieluise Hessel Collection, on permanent loan to the CCS. The exhibitions will be on view from Sunday, September 29, through Friday, December 13. Free bus transportation from New York City to the opening on Sunday, September 29, is available on a limited basis. The opening reception is free and open to the public from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.
The Center for Curatorial Studies was founded by Marieluise Hessel as a center for the study of late-20th-century art. It offers an innovative, interdisciplinary graduate program in curating and criticism of contemporary art. In the 10 years since its founding, the graduate program has trained more than 100 professionals who hold curatorial positions in museums, galleries, and other exhibition spaces around the world. In addition, the Center's museum houses the Marieluise Hessel Collection of over 1,400 paintings, sculptures, works on paper, artists' books, and videotapes, as well as a library of more than 14,000 books, exhibition catalogues, and artist files. The museum presents a year-round changing exhibition program focused on innovative curatorial practice in its 9,500-square-foot exhibition space. These three exhibitions will jointly celebrate the two programs of the Center.
The Arch of Desire:Women in the Marieluise Hessel Collection
, cocurated by Ilaria Bonacossa (class of 2001; assistant curator, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino, Italy) and Cecilia Brunson (class of 2001; coordinator of exhibitions, The Americas Society, New York), explores the multiple tensions and psychic mirrors of human desire. Through installation, film, video, sculpture, and photography, male and female artists explore desire to address issues of identity. For these artists, desire is always conflicted, interrupted, and multiple. The works of several generations of artists are represented: Magdalena Abakanowicz, Laurie Anderson, Janine Antoni, Jonathan Borofsky, Sophie Calle, John Currin, Valie Export, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Mona Hatoum, Rebecca Horn, Robert Mapplethorpe, Bruce Nauman, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Martha Rosler, Rosemarie Trockel, and others. The Arch of Desire ultimately expresses the limitlessness of human desire, pushing beyond restrictions of gender and the body, to embrace the poetic complexity of human existence.The artists in the exhibition Re(f)use, curated by Rachel Gugelberger, (class of 1997; associate director, Visual Arts Museum and Student Galleries at the School of Visual Arts, New York), have employed objects drawn from everyday life and transformed them into works of art. Endowed with new concerns-poetry, metaphor, sociopolitical commentary, or aesthetic and artistic dialogue-these revitalized objects celebrate the extraordinary in the ordinary. Artists included in the exhibition are Giovanni Anselmo, David Bunn, Tony Cragg, Fischli & Weiss, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Mona Hatoum, Jannis Kounellis, Cady Noland, Gabriel Orozco, Pruitt & Early, Martha Rosler, and Rhonda Zwillinger.
Text, Texture, Touch
, curated by Tobias Ostrander (class of 1999; curator, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City), investigates the relationship between text and physical sensation. The exhibition combines artworks that use words with works that represent or provoke experiences involving touch. Several works evoke environmental elements involved in the experience of a text. Others refer to the spaces of the library and the pages of a book, while still others recall the body and sensations of touch. Additional works involve texts that express the psychological complexity of touch. Through the juxtaposition of these works, Text, Texture, Touch creates an environment in which a range of conflicting encounters with words and touch may be experienced.On September 29, the day of the exhibition openings, free bus transportation will be available from New York City to the Center for Curatorial Studies. A chartered bus will leave from SoHo at 11:00 a.m., and depart from the Center at 4:00 p.m. Reservations are required and can be made by calling the Center at 845-758-7598 no later than Friday, September 27. Transportation is provided through the generosity of Howard and Donna Stone.
Support for the exhibition was provided by the Marieluise Hessel Foundation. The museum is open to the public, without charge, Wednesdays through Sundays from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. For further information, call the CCS at 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit the website www.bard.edu/ccs.
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[Note to editors-Digital images are available, call 845-758-7512 or e-mail [email protected].]