Four New Exhibitions Open at The Aldrich in March!
March 2008
Four new exhibitions will open at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, with a reception from 3 to 5 pm on Sunday, March 9, 2008. The Public Exhibition Reception is FREE for members!
The Aldrich is pleased to present Painting the Glass House: Artists Revisit Modern Architecture (on view through July 27, 2008); Halsey Burgund: ROUND (on view through July 27, 2008); Gary Panter: Daydream Trap (on view through August 31, 2008); and Ester Partegàs: The Invisible (on view through August 10, 2008).
The Aldrich will host a special behind-the-scenes preview on Friday, March 7, 2008, from 6:30 to 8 pm, where members and area educators are invited to join artists, curators, Trustees, and Museum staff for a private reception and sneak preview of the newly mounted exhibitions! Behind the Scenes will feature a gallery walkthrough with Jessica Hough, one of the two curators of Painting the Glass House: Artists Revisit Modern Architecture. Drinks and hors d’oeuvres will be served. Please call 203.438.4519 to join or renew; memberships will be available at the door. Behind the Scenes is free for members and area educators.
Prior to the March 9 Public Exhibition Reception, there will be a 2 pm Panel Discussion featuring Painting the Glass House: Artists Revisit Modern Architecture, with curators Hough and Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, along with exhibiting artists Daniel Arsham, Angela Dufresne, and Terence Gower. The Public Exhibition Reception will also offer the first opportunity to acquire Panter’s new book, Gary Panter, a major monograph published by PictureBox. Panter will be at the opening and available to sign copies starting at 4 pm. Refreshments will be served. Round-trip transportation from New York City is available; please call the Museum at 203.438.4519 for reservations.
The official media sponsor for the Public Exhibition Opening is WSHU Public Radio. Aldrich exhibitions are made possible with the support of the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism and the National Endowment for the Arts. Special thanks to the LEF Foundation and NOKIA Corporation for their support of Halsey Burgund: ROUND.
Exhibition Summaries:
Painting the Glass House: Artists Revisit Modern Architecture
(on view through July 27, 2008)
Painting the Glass House will bring together the work of sixteen artists, including Daniel Arsham, Enoc Perez, and Lucy Williams, who are interested not only in the potential of utopian ideas, but also the sense of a passing idealism that modern architecture now embodies. This exhibition is curated by Jessica Hough and Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, and has been organized by The Aldrich in cooperation with Yale Art & Architecture Gallery, where a component of the exhibition will be on view. The exhibition will travel to Mills College Art Museum in Oakland, California, following its Connecticut debut.
Halsey Burgund: ROUND
(on view through July 27, 2008)
ROUND is an audio installation that will solicit spoken voice contributions from visitors and use them as part of a musical composition intended to be listened to while viewing the work on view in the galleries. The interactive audio experience will allow visitors to hear a diverse range of voices—including artists, curators, and visitors—sharing their perspectives about the exhibitions and to add their responses. The comments will be collected in a database of recordings and subsequently incorporated into the piece. The flexible infrastructure developed and built for the installation will be the basis for future audio tours at the Museum.
Gary Panter: Daydream Trap
(on view through August 31, 2008)
The Aldrich will open Gary Panter’s first solo museum exhibition. Daydream Trap will focus on three facets of the artist’s career: his sketchbooks, which are the spawning ground for many of his ideas; his paintings, which are a significant part of his artistic output, yet have never been put in critical perspective; and his music, which he has pursued on a “part-time” basis for twenty years.
Ester Partegàs: The Invisible
(on view through August 10, 2008)
Ester Partegàs will present a site-specific sculpture installation that will be anything but unnoticeable on Ridgefield’s historic Main Street. Partegàs will transform the 225-year-old façade of the Museum’s historic administration building, “Old Hundred,” with an illuminated awning based on the designs that grace countless bodegas and convenience stores in American cities. Coincidentally, the original use of the building was as a general store between the years 1783 and 1883 (thus giving rise to its nickname), making The Aldrich a perfect venue for this project. Instead of the usual bodega signage, Partegàs’s intervention will feature text that ingeniously plays with the awning’s change of context: urban/suburban, Latino/Anglo-Saxon, food store/art store, and will actually shelter the front steps from the elements, providing a ‘porch’ for strolling citizens to congregate and socialize.
The Aldrich is one of the few non-collecting contemporary art museums in the United States. Founded on Ridgefield’s historic Main Street in 1964, the Museum enjoys the curatorial independence of an alternative space while maintaining the registrarial and art-handling standards of a national institution. Exhibitions feature work by emerging and mid-career artists, and education programs help adults and children to connect to today’s world through contemporary art. The Museum is located at 258 Main Street, Ridgefield, CT 06877. All exhibitions and programs are handicapped accessible. Regular Museum hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 12:00 noon to 5:00 pm. For more information call 203.438.4519.
