December 9, 2003
Exhibitions I wish I could see, #1
This will perhaps become a regular feature of the site, like the weekly roundup of New York events. Here is a list of exhibitions now on view that I wish travel budgets and time would allow me to see:
As mentioned in the last post, I'd love to see Gerhard Richter's Atlas (book link), now on view at the Whitechapel in London.
Didier Courbot, a French artist whose name has come across my desk via various articles (most notably this one, which posits a 'Romantic Conceptualism' to which I am greatly attracted), has a solo exhibition in Japan. It is at the oddly-named SCAI The Bathhouse.
"Now What? Dreaming a better world in six parts" is the type of group exhibition I suspect can only be found in (and around) European kunsthalles: sprawling, multifaceted, socially engaged, often accompanied by extensive publications, and with an optimism that seemingly comes only from the young and idealistic. This exhibition is hosted by the BAK, basis voor actuele kunst in Utrecht.
"Yearning for Beauty: For the 100th anniversary of the Wiener Werkstatte" opens tomorrow at the MAK, Vienna's museum for applied arts and contemporary art. It is the most beautiful museum I visited on my European vacation this summer, one whose permanent collection alone is worth the price of admission.
Matthew Ritchie's Proposition Player just opened at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston. It includes four new works created specifically for the exhibition, the most spectacular of which is surely the a 100-foot "three-dimensional drawing." When I worked at MIT, Ritchie was finalizing his proposal for a 77-foot mural commissioned as the Percent-for-Art project accompanying a new sports complex on campus, which I also hope to see someday soon.