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Parcours and Parcours— a French word for "route" or "path" — in the United States designates an educational or exercise trail, a loop marked by sights or gymnastics, always with explanatory texts and often with diagrammatic drawings as well. It is, one could say, an outdoor exhibition circuit for the improvement of one's mind and body. The Art Institute of Chicago's own Parcours — a sort of model exhibition and conceptual art project — presents a similarly conceived itinerary indoors and online. Parcours — masterminded by contemporary artists Liz Deschenes and Florian Pumhösl — not only encourages visitors to walk through a mini "labyrinth" with a sparse hanging of photographs, but to also participate in a conversation between the artists and the curator. Both components of the project are supervised and moderated by Matthew Witkovsky, Richard and Ellen Sandor Chair and Curator, Department of Photography at the Art Institute. Parcours takes inspiration from an unrealized 1930s exhibition proposal by Austrian-born Bauhaus designer Herbert Bayer. Bayer conceived of a gallery space configured into a maze, with text and the works of art serving as a guiding thread for visitors. Expanding on this premise, Deschenes and Pumhösl selected photographs from the permanent collection of the Art Institute, such as Florence Henri's Self-Portrait (1928), and László Moholy-Nagy's Untitled (c.1923/25), and placed them like route markers on temporary walls modified expressly for this show. The artists' own works — a set of specially tempered glass panels by Pumhösl and lustrous photograms by Deschenes — will reflect these works and the surrounding space. Outside of the physical gallery, Parcours takes the shape of a web module that, like the path through the exhibition, documents a journey replete with unexpected twists and turns--in this case the complex endeavor of planning a museum exhibition. The numerous communications between artists and curatorial staff, as well as discussions between departments at the Art Institute, are presented online to illustrate the course that an exhibition takes from initial idea to opening day. Online visitors can sift through transcripts and email chains that discuss the gallery floor plan, the works on display, and travel arrangements; read promotional copy; and view graphic design of exhibition materials. An ongoing blog provides a forum for discussion throughout the run of the exhibition.
Florence Henri, Untitled (Self-Portrait), detail, 1928, Gelatin Silver print, 39.3 x 25.5 cm. Promised gift of a private collector. |
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Niki de Saint Phalle, SHE, beyond a Woman's Place With her “shooting paintings,” Niki de Saint Phalle dramatically entered the art world of the 1960s, and with her spectacular exhibition SHE, the French artist forever secured a place within the international history of art. Saint Phalle is today strongly represented in Moderna Museet’s collection, thanks to donations from the artist herself and from the former museum director Pontus Hultén. The Girl, the Monster and the Goddess presents a majority of these works, some for the first time, together with archival material, newly produced documentaries and a few carefully selected loans. With the exhibition, Moderna Museet wishes to reflect both the vibrant vitality but also the darkness of Saint Phalle’s captivating work. In 1959, in an era when few women were allowed to make a professional career, Niki de Saint Phalle left her husband and two small children in order to dedicate herself wholeheartedly to her art. The following year she made her first “shooting paintings,” in which encapsulated sacks of paint exploded when shot with a rifle, causing the paintings to bleed. The shooting paintings made a huge splash in the media and Saint Phalle developed them into large-scale reliefs and altar panels depicting the hypocrisy of the church and the waning hegemony of the patriarchy. In preparation for the shootings, she dressed in a special white pantsuit. Siting down the barrel of a gun at the painting, she appeared like nothing less than a fairy-tale heroine, or perhaps a more contemporary action hero like Emma Peel or Modesty Blaise. “Throughout her entire career as an artist,” says curator Joa Ljungberg, “Niki de Saint Phalle returned to the personal wounds and traumas that led her to become an artist in the first place. In the film Daddy, for example, or in the artist book The Devouring Mothers, we encounter her as a young girl trying to relate to a father who can’t control his own sexuality. With the help of fantasy and mythology Saint Phalle was able to tame the monsters within her, while at the same time bring them together with global and gendered power structures.” In the late 1950s and early 60s Saint Phalle managed to establish herself internationally. As the first and only woman she joined the French artistic movement, Nouveau Réalisme, which also included Arman, Christo, Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, and Jacques de la Villeglé. In 1961 she had her first solo exhibition in Paris, got to know the artist duo Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and participated in the influential group exhibition The Art of Assemblage at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Niki de Saint Phalle, Ange luminaire, n.d. © Niki de Saint Phalle/BUS 2012. |
