6 Feb 2010 to 16 May 2010
Hours : Monday-Sunday 10.00-18.00.
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
South Shore Road,
Gateshead
NE8 3BA
Newcastle
United Kingdom
Europe
p: +44 (0) 191 478 1810
m:
f: +44 (0) 191 440 4944
w: www.balticmill.com
JORDAN BASEMAN 6 February - 9 May 2010 The Most Powerful Weapon in this World
BALTIC presents an exhibition of recent work by American artist Jordan Baseman. Developed from the interview process that is at the heart of Baseman’s practice, the works in the exhibition use found footage and original material to accompany voice-driven narratives
Enigmatic archive footage and an original soundtrack in Inside Man, accompany a story of criminality, pride and shame. Joy on Toast tells of the dynamic life of a botanical explorer that is tinged with sadness. In Nasty Piece of Stuff, images of street life provide a frantic, agitated counterpoint to the even tones of the narrator. Questioning documentary, narrative and authenticity, the exhibition explores belief systems, human motivation and experience through three thought-provoking, poetic and moving works.
Jordan Baseman is represented by Matt's Gallery, London.
JENNY HOLZER 5 March - 16 May 2010
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art proudly announces a major exhibition of internationally renowned American artist Jenny Holzer opening on Friday 5 March 2010. In 2002 Holzer participated in the B.4.B pre-opening programme, projecting her haunting texts onto facades throughout Tyneside. For her new exhibition, the artist will present work spanning the last two decades, filling two floors of BALTIC’s galleries. Including painting and sculpture alongside her spectacular LED installations, the exhibition is Holzer’s largest and most comprehensive for fifteen years and the first its scale to be shown in the UK.
Best known for her use of text as art, Holzer combines an investigative use of language with an innovative use of materials and modes of distribution – LEDs, billboards, marble benches, T-shirts, condom wrappers, projections and, most recently, paintings - to confront some of the most potent issues of our time: love, pain, peace, longing, conflict and survival. One of the earliest works in the exhibition, Lustmord Table (1994), was triggered by events during the war in the former Yugoslavia. Human bones, some wrapped with silver bands engraved with text, are ordered and presented on large wooden tables, articulating one of the artist’s most transparent engagements with the physical and psychological aspects of violence and trauma.
The exhibition was conceived by the artist and Elizabeth A.T. Smith from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and Philippe Büttner from the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen / Basel. It was previously presented at the MCA Chicago, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and at the Fondation Beyeler and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by Elizabeth Smith and Joan Simon and an interview with Holzer by Benjamin H.D. Buchloh.
The exhibition is co-organized by the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Switzerland, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Major support for the exhibition is provided by Donald and Brigitte Bren, Anne and Burt Kaplan, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Additional support is generously provided by Andrea and Jim Gordon, Penny Pritzker and Bryan Traubert, Sara Szold, Gretchen and Jay Jordan, the Kovler Family Foundation, Cari and Michael Sacks, Howard and Donna Stone, Kathy and Steven Taslitz, Helen and Sam Zell, Lannan Foundation, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Cheim & Read, Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers, Yvon Lambert, Barbara Ruben, Irving Stenn, Jr., Lynn and Allen Turner and The Orbit Fund. Transportation provided by American Airlines, the official airline of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. The exhibition at BALTIC is supported by The Henry Moore Foundation
ŽILVINAS KEMPINAS 5 March - 14 March 2010
BALTIC presents a work by Lithuanian-born, New York-based artist Žilvinas Kempinas. His unique installations often use unspooled videotape and electric fans to conjure transfixing visual conundrums such as Flying Tape, which consisted of a vast loop of videotape suspended in mid-air upon the currents from a circle of fans; and White Noise a monumental kinetic screen of vibrating videotape. Kempinas represented Lithuania at the 53rd Venice Biennale, 2009.
