In the Name of the Artists - American Contemporary Art from the Astrup Fearnley Collection
In 2011, the Brazilian public will have a chance to make first contact with some of the biggest names in international contemporary art. In the Name of the Artists - American Contemporary Art from the Astrup Fearnley Collection, an exhibition that will occupy the Bienal Pavilion between September 30 and December 4, will display a selection of 219 works from the collection of the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, from Oslo, Norway.
Names like Jeff Koons, Matthew Barney, Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman will be represented individually in large series of works seen in the country for the first time. In dialogue with this generation of artists, In the Name of the Artists will also present a group of works by the British artist Damien Hirst - another great reference in contemporary art.
Curated by Gunnar Kvaran, director of the Norwegian institution, the exhibition represents an important moment in the history of the Bienal. After reclaiming its prestige in Brazil and abroad with the execution, in 2010, of the 29th Bienal de Sao Paulo, the Bienal plans to promote major exhibitions during the off years between events.
"The vocation of the Bien al is to show what is happening in contemporary art today, and the collection of the Astrup Fearnley Museum is one of the best in the world in this sense," affirms Heitor Martins, president of the Bienal de São Paulo. The collection of the Norwegian museum contains close to 500 works belonging to the businessman Hans Rasmus Astrup, considered by the English magazine Artreview to be one of the 200 biggest collectors in the world in any genre. "Many of the artists who are in the exhibition have never been seen in a broad way here. This was fundamental for choosing this collection," explains Martins.
American Contemporary Art
The selection from the collection to be presented in the Bienal includes works from 50 American artists of different generations, amounting to a temporal arc that spans the 1980s to the present day. Among the group of the most consecrated artists are such icons as Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, Robert Gober, Nan Goldin, Sherry Levine, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Louise Lawler, Charles Ray, Christopher Wool and Shirin Neshat.
Born and raised in the post-war culture of consumption and spectacle that rapidly developed in the USA and spread throughout the world, these artists were (some more than others) confronted and influenced by ideas related to pop, conceptual art and new criticism. "The personal and unique character of their approaches was classified as neo-conceptual, or appropriation art," explains the curator Gunnar Kvaran.
Thirteen works by Jeff Koons, one of the most influential contemporary artists in the world, will be displayed, including Three Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (1983), in which the artist positions three basketballs floating still inside an aquarium full of translucent liquid. The exhibition will also show thirteen works (all making their Brazilian debut here) by Cindy Sherman, one of the great representatives of appropriation art.
From the later generation that arose in the USA in the 1990s, In the Name of the Artists will show works from the internationally consecrated artists Matthew Barney, Doug Aitken, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Tom Sachs. According to Gunnar Kvaran, these artists assimilate the legacy of the previous generation and re-introduce the notion of the artist as creator, inventor and storyteller. "Their works are positioned more or less between performance and installation, and they renewed the notion of narration in visual art," he says.
Five works by Matthew Barney will be shown, including Transexualis (1991), one of his first important works, in which the artist introduces many of the conceptual and structural elements that would be united later in The Cremaster Cycle (1994-2002), the series from which the work Cremaster 5: Lanchid: The Lament of the Queen of Chain (1997) will be shown.
In the Name of the Artists also reserves for the viewer an exhaustive mapping of the artistic, critical and sociocultural context of the United States through an exhibition of works by an emerging generation of artists. Initially conceived as a collective exhibition called Uncertain States of America - 21st Century, curated by Gunnar Kvaran, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Daniel Birnbaum, this specific selection, which is part of In the Name of the Artists, is the result of the three curators' extensive travels through the USA, visiting studios, galleries, alternative spaces and museums.
Among the artists in this group - an expanded version of the original exhibition - are Nate Lowman, Dan Colen, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Aaron Young, Seth Price, Matthew Brannon and Matthew Day Jackson.
The Astrup Fearnley Collection
The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art is a private institution in Oslo, Norway, which collects and exhibits international contemporary art. Though it opened only in 1993, the history of its collection starts in the 1960s.
The Astrup Fearnley Collection always concentrated on individual artists and works and not on movements or historical periods - a diversified focus in the acquisition of great works of contemporary art that challenges the limits of artistic canons. This exceptional collection does not have the intention of presenting an encyclopedic panorama of international contemporary art. On the contrary, it is a group of works of artists that occupy a fundamental position, be it for having created visual languages, objects and images of great originality and quality, or for having re-invented significant aspects of cultural production. In the last decade, the museum dedicated itself intensely to contemporary American artists - Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Matthew Barney and young artists like Paul Chan, Frank Benson, Nate Lowman and Dan Colen, among others. More recently, the focus has moved to the works of contemporary Japanese, Chinese and Indian artists. "The museum's objective is to collect and present these great works by international contemporary artists in a profound and enlightening way, but also in dialogue with the Norwegian art scene, propitiating as real a presence in the city of Oslo as in the world of art," says Gunnar Kvaran.
List of artists
1. Aaron Young
2. Adam Putnam
3. Anthony Burdin
4. Charles Ray
5. Christian Holstad
6. Christopher Wool
7. Cindy Sherman
8. Corin Hewitt
9. Cristina Lei Rodriguez
10. Damien Hirst
11. Dan Colen
12. Doug Aitken
13. Edgar Arceneaux
14. Felix Gonzalez-Torres
15. Frank Benson
16. Gardar Eide Einarsson
17. Gedi Sibony
18. Guyton \ Walker
19. Hannah Greely
20. Jason Dodge
21. Jason Meadows
22. Jason Rhoades
23. Jeff Koons
24. Jim Drain
25. Josh Smith
26. Karl Haendel
27. Kori Newkirk
28. Lizzi Bougatsos
29. Louise Lawler
30. Mario Yabarra Jr
31. Matt Johnson
32. Matthew Barney
33. Matthew Brannon
34. Matthew Day Jackson
35. Matthew Ronay
36. Mika Rottenberg
37. Mike Souchet
38. Nan Goldin
39. Nate Lowman
40. Paul Chan
41. Rachel Harrison
42. Richard Prince
43. Rirkrit Tiravanija
44. Robert Gober
45. Seth Price
46. Sherrie Levine
47. Shirin Neshat
48. Taft Green
49. Terence Koh
50. Tom Sachs
51. Trisha Donnelly