Rivane Neuenschwander

Rivane Neuenschwander

Exhibition: Mar 15 – May 13, 2001


Language is at the core of new work by Rivane Neuenschwander. During her residency, the artist created two installations. The first, Omission Points, was a temporary installation that occupied her studio space for only two days. The artist drilled holes into the gallery’s walls, creating a horizon line of negative space. The line did not stop for the architecture—it continued through the casement windows and metal doors of the gallery. With this simple gesture, Neuenschwander implied an interruption and an imminent disruption. The holes seemingly perforated the space, splitting it into a top and a bottom. The holes also referenced language, creating a chain of ellipses, which rather than connecting thoughts, simply gave space for a pause.

Only a trace of Omission Points remains in the gallery—the holes in the windows. For the exhibition on view, Neuenschwander presents a large-scale labyrinth of cardboard boxes. The boxes are only knee-high, so the viewer does not get lost as in a formal garden maze. One can follow the predetermined path or simply climb over the edges. The course leads the viewer to a walled-off space for a video projection. The film, made in collaboration with Brazilian filmmaker Cao Guimarães, shows an army of ants marching across a room each carrying a piece of paper inscribed with text: on one side, “WORD,” on the other, “WORLD.”

Also produced during her residency are photographs of beetles with soap bubbles. Shot from above, they recall geometry and algebraic diagrams. The insects appear in pairs: at times, within a bubble and, at others, separated by its edge. While the arrangement is by chance, the metaphor for human relationships is inescapable. Neuenschwander also presents new sculptures made from empty grapefruit peels. The artist has carved letters of the alphabet into the fruit skins, which are hung from the wall in plastic bags. This containment of language reflects Neuenschwander’s ongoing investigations of control—or lack of control—in nature, in language, in society.

Artist

Rivane Neuenschwander

Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Rivane Neuenschwander was born in 1967 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where she lives and works. She studied at the School of Fine Arts, UFMG, Brazil and the Royal College of Art in London, England. She has exhibited her work internationally, including solo exhibitions at IASPIS (the International Artists Studio Program in Sweden), Stockholm, Sweden (2000); Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, England (1997, 1999); Galeria Camargo Vilaça, Sao Paolo, Brazil (1998, 2000); and Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, Ireland (2000). She has participated in numerous international biennials and festivals, including the 5th International Istanbul Biennial, Turkey (1997); the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, South Africa (1997); XXIV Biennale of Sao Paolo, Brazil (1998); SITE Santa Fe, NM (1999); and the First Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art, England (1999). Her work has also been included in group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1995); The Museum of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires, Argentina (1996); The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (1997); The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY (1998); Kunstforeningen Copenhagen, Denmark (1999); Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum, Aalborg, Germany (1999); and the National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan (2000).
Merging the traditions of sculpture and drawing, Rivane Neuenschwander’s work combines precise handicraft with natural and found sources. The results are discrete objects and temporary, material-based installations.
Rivane Neuenschwander was chosen for her ArtPace residency by the March 1998 panel consisting of Dan Cameron, Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, Amada Cruz, Kellie Jones, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, and Nancy Rubins.

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Curators

Amada Cruz

Los Angeles, CA
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Kellie Jones

New York, NY
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Nancy Rubins

Topanga, California, USA

Born in 1952 in Naples, Texas, Californian Nancy Rubins received her MFA from the University of California, Davis. She has had numerous solo exhibitions, including shows at Paul Kasmin Gallery, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Venice Biennale Aperto. Rubins’ work was included in the 1995 Whitney Biennial and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles’ Helter Skelter exhibit in 1992. Rubins teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Art Department. She has received grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Tiffany Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Annette DiMeo Carlozzi

Austin, TX

Independent curator Annette DiMeo Carlozzi has built an expansive practice across the US as a curator of modern and contemporary art, focusing on ideas and experiences, artists and audiences. Raised in Boston and trained at the Walker Art Center, she has served in a variety of foundational roles: as the first curator at Laguna Gloria Art Museum (now The Contemporary Austin); executive director of the Aspen Art Museum and the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; Visual Arts Producer for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta; and in multiple positions—ranging from founding modern and contemporary curator to Deputy Director for Art and Programs to Curator at Large—at the Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin. Committed to expanding the canon, she has created notable exhibitions (Luis Jiménez, Paul Chan, Michael Smith, Deborah Hay, Negotiating Small TruthsAmerica/AmericasDesire), produced important commissions (Nancy Holt, Siah Armajani, Betye Saar, Vito Acconci, Byron Kim, Teresita Fernández), and acquired major works by a wide range of international artists. Carlozzi has had a long relationship with Artpace, having served as an early advisor, artist interviewer, and program panelist, member of the 1998 artist selection panel and 2001–03 Board of Visitors. In 2015 she curated Immersed from Linda Pace’s art collection, now called Ruby City.

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Dan Cameron

Newport Beach, California

From 2012 to 2015 he was Chief Curator at the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, California. In 2006, Dan Cameron founded the Biennial Prospect New Orleans, where he worked at until 2011. From 1995 to 2005 he was Senior Curator at the New Museum, New York, where he developed numerous group exhibitions, such as East Village USA and Living inside the Grid, and several individual shows dedicated to the artists Martin Wong, William Kentridge, Carolee Schneemann, Carroll Dunham, Doris Salcedo, José Antonio Hernández Diez, among others.
As independent curator he has organized many exhibitions that brought him international attention, such as El arte y su doble (Fundación Caixa, Madrid, 1987); El jardín salvaje (Fundación Caixa, Barcelona, 1991); Cocido y crudo (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 1995), among many others. In 2003, he was the Artistic Director of the 8th Istanbul Biennial, and in 2006, Co-curator of the 5th Taipei Biennial.
He has published hundreds of texts in books, catalogues and magazines, and has given numerous talks and conferences at museums and universities around the world, also carrying out an important teaching activity in New York.

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Hans Ulrich Obrist

London, England

Hans Ulrich-Obrist is the Co-Director of Exhibitions and Programs and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery in London, positions created for Ulrich-Obrist in April 2006. As a curator at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France since 2000, among many other exhibitions he organized solo shows with Jonas Mekas (2003), Anri Sala (2004), and Cerith Wyn Evans (2006). Before this position Ulrich-Obrist was an independent curator for a decade, organizing the group show Take Me I’m Yours at the Serpentine (1995) and Retrace Your Steps: Remember at the John Soane Museum (1999), also in London, England. Ulrich-Obrist was a panelist in 1998 for the 1999-2000 year of artists, and was invited to be a speaker at the 2003 symposium, but was unable to come due to illness.
Photo by Dominik Gigler

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