Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual – Selected by Richard Birkett
January 10–February 23, 2013
Press Release
‘Looking Back’ is the seventh installment of the White Columns Annual. The exhibition is now an annual fixture on White Columns’ calendar. Each year, an individual or a collaborative team (e.g. an artist, a curator, a writer, etc.) is invited to make an exhibition at White Columns based on their personal experience of looking at art in New York in the previous year. For the seventh ‘Annual’ exhibition, White Columns has invited Richard Birkett, the curator at Artists Space to make the selection.
In a very straightforward sense, the ‘Annual’ exhibition hopes to reveal something of the complexities involved in trying to negotiate – and engage with – New York’s constantly shifting cultural landscape. The format of the exhibition inevitably encourages highly subjective and deeply personal responses to the realities of viewing art in New York. The ‘Annual’ exhibition series hopes to illuminate aspects of the specific, yet highly idiosyncratic routes – geographical, intellectual, historical, social, etc. – that individuals follow in an increasingly expansive and fragmented cultural environment.
Through the re-contextualization of artworks encountered in other circumstances and contexts, the exhibition hopes to establish – albeit temporarily – a new ‘narrative’, a conversation, of sorts, amongst artists and artworks, that seeks to illuminate and/or explore certain underlying tendencies, conditions, or connections that perhaps might otherwise have remained elusive or obscured. In re-thinking the (fairly) recent past the exhibition hopes to provoke something akin to a sense of deja-vu, establishing a scenario that is at once both reflective and forward thinking.
There are no restrictions as to what type of work can be included. ‘Looking Back’ seeks to eliminate any categorical or hierarchical distinctions we might place upon artworks (e.g. based upon the circumstances in which they were originally seen, or the seniority of an individual artist, etc.) These works might have been originally encountered in exhibitions at institutions, galleries, and not-for-profit spaces, or at performances, readings, during visits to artists’ studios, or online, etc.
Selected Press for previous installments of the ‘White Columns Annual’
Writing in The New York Times in 2006 about the inaugural installment of the ‘White Columns Annual’ critic Holland Cotter said:
“The White Columns Annual does … what the Whitney Biennial used to do: it reconsiders a slice of art’s immediate past. … The idea is welcome affording a chance to linger over art that was seen earlier only in rushed visits, missed entirely or enthusiastically remembered. Maybe “White Columns Annual Pick” will have comparable cachet [to the Whitney Biennial] not so long from now.”
Karen Rosenberg, writing in The New York Times, wrote: “The art world acquired a welcome new tradition when Matthew Higgs inaugurated the White Columns Annual.”
Reviewing curator Bob Nickas’ ‘Annual’ in 2010 Holland Cotter wrote: “One of the things that makes the White Columns annuals so valuable is that they often include artists … who are unlikely to find their way into mainstream institutions. A second, equally important function that “Looking Back” serves, or should serve, is to provide a view of contemporary art that is not entirely determined by art-industry consensus – meaning the market – but rather is seen through a single informed, idiosyncratic, even resistant sensibility.”
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Previous Curators for the White Columns Annual
The inaugural ‘Annual’ exhibition in 2006 was selected by White Columns’ Director & Chief Curator Matthew Higgs; the second in 2007 was selected by curator Clarissa Dalrymple; the third in 2008 was selected by curator and writer Jay Sanders; the fourth in 2009 was selected by Miriam Katz and James Hoff of Primary Information; the fifth in 2010 by curator and writer Bob Nickas; and the sixth edition in 2011 was selected by the artists Ken Okiishi and Nick Mauss.
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For further information about the exhibition please contact the gallery on (212) 924 4212 or at info@whitecolumns.org.
Participating Artists
Yuji Agematsu
Julie Ault / James Benning
Lutz Bacher
Martin Beck
Kaucyila Brooke
Moyra Davey
Disband
Fat Lava / Nicolas Trembley
Peter Fend
Liam Gillick and Henry Bond
David Grubbs and Susan Howe
Lawrence Abu Hamdan
Alex Israel
Gareth James
Rockwell Kent
Alexander Kluge
Chris Kraus
Zoe Leonard
Sam Lewitt
Tan Lin
Chris Marker
Bjarne Melgaard
Alice Neel
Henrik Olesen
Alfred T. Palmer
Sam Pulitzer and Bill Hayden
Sabine Reitmaier
Helke Sander
Amy Sillman
Jason Simon
Harry Smith
(Installation view) Martin Beck, Rumors and Murmurs (Polygon), 2012. Fabric and stretcher bars, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and 47 Canal, New York. (Two-part version for White Columns Annual Plans A Diagram split in half showing the siting location for the pieces; one side labeled “1” and the opposing “2”)
Alice Neel, Hugh Hurd, 1964. Oil on canvas, 47 ½ × 37 ¾ inches framed. Courtesy of the Estate of Alice Neel and David Zwirner Gallery, New York. (An abstract depiction of Hugh Hurd. Hurd sits cross legged with his arm relaxed against the arm of the green curved back chair. He wears a green suit jacket, with blue suit pants and green socks; as well as a watch on his right wrist and rings on both his ring fingers)
Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual, installation view, 2013 (A Gareth James sculpture of a human-like piece of cedar wood is placed on a white pillar to the center right of the image. On the left wall hangs four framed works, and on the back wall two video installations along with an Alice Neel piece are on the wall. A vitrine sits in the center back)
Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual, installation view, 2013 (On the right wall a tv and speakers are hung facing a folding chair. To the left back wall a textile piece is affixed)
Tan Lin, Insomnia and the Aunt, 2011. Three books mounted to the wall, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and Kenning Editions, Berkeley, California (publisher). (The books mounted on the wall, (from left to right) The 1st has black lettering against a white cover, the second is vertical white text against a yellow backdrop reading “INSOMNIA AND THE AUNT ” and the third is white and black text against a white backdrop. On the third book there are large red letters reading “HEATH COURS E PAK”)
Zoe Leonard, Tree and Fence, 2000, Five c-prints. 9 × 6 ½ inches each. Courtesy of the artist and Murray Guy, New York. (Five Black and white photographs are pinned to the wall. Each shows a tree and hollow from different angles. Three of the five images include a fence in front of the tree)
Sam Pulitzer and Bill Hayden, 파멸 , 2012. Adhesive vinyl, UTAC-brand tactical laser sights, Delkin-brand suction cup camera mounts, hand-tooled aluminum mounting plates, assorted hardware, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and Real Fine Arts, New York. (Two tactical laser sights are mounted onto the wall. The black devices have a green light glowing in their centers)
Sa, Lewitt, Fluid Employment (Little Attractions), 2012. Pigment print, silkscreen, Ferromagnetic liquid and Mylar, edition 3 of 5, 36 × 60 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Miguel Abreu, New York. (A rectangular shaped mylar sheet containing a brown liquid is attached to the wall. There are various words in gray text spread across the sheet. On bottom centered is a gray warning reading “PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO OPEN AIR CIRCULATION CAUSES EVAPORATION TO OCCUR AT ACCELERATED RATES”)
Sam Pulitzer and Bill Hayden, 파멸 , 2012. Adhesive vinyl, Instillation view. (An adhesive white dragon, made up of many scales and eagle-like wings spans across the front doors. Two green lasers beam out the glass panes creating eyes. Korean characters are on the door reading “파멸” or “RUIN”)
Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual, installation view, 2013 (Two Commercial Psycho magazine covers enclosed in glass are hung on the wall. To the left a black haired woman stands against a purple background holding a finger above her lips, almost to shoosh the viewers. In the right frame, a brunette woman sits against a peachy backdrop lightly touching her cheeks with her fingers, looking off into the distance).
Martin Beck, Rumors and Murmurs (Polygon), 2012. Fabric and stretcher bars, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and 47 Canal, New York. (An series of off-white polygons can slightly be distinguished against their white borders)
Liam Gillick & Henry Bond, 26 November 1991, Milan Italy, 17:30. City Council Debate On The Majority Crisis. Comune Di Milano, Palazzo Marino, Piazza Della Scala., 1991, Black and white photograph, wooden frame, Plexiglas textboard, 20 ½ × 26 ¾, Courtesy of the artists and Esther Schipper, Berlin. Courtesy of the artists and Esther Schipper, Berlin. (A black and white photograph. Two naval officers and three civilians wearing suits and trench coats are discussing politics; behind them is a large gate and grand stone pillars at the sides)
Liam Gillick & Henry Bond, 21 June 1991, London England, 12:00. News Conference To Announce Details Of Tuesday’s “Pavarotti In The Park” Concert. Hyde Park Hotel., 1991, Black and white photograph, wooden frame, Plexiglas textboard, 18 ½ × 26 ¾. Courtesy of the artists and Esther Schipper, Berlin. (Luciano Pavarotti, Tibor Rudas, and … are sitting on a panel against a blue backdrop and cream wall. The three are announcing “Pavarotti In The Park”,in the upper left a golden crest is hung on the wall)
Liam Gillick & Henry Bond, 21 June 1991, Monaco, 10:30. 3rd Salon For Prestige Buildings: Official Inauguration With Bernard Fautrier, Advisor To The Government Of The Principality Of Monaco. Beach Plaza Hotel., 1991. Black and white photograph, wooden frame, Plexiglas textboard, 20 ½ × 26 ¾. Courtesy of the artists and Esther Schipper, Berlin. (A black and white photograph. Various men in suits are having casual conversation.)
Lawrence Abu Hamdam, Aural Contract, 2012, Silver Sound Box and audio recordings, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and Audio Visual Arts, New York. (To the left a rectangular silver sound box is attached to the wall, headphones and wires hang at its lower left. To the right, a little of the recording a displayed on a white sheet with black and red lettering)
Fat Lava / Nicolas, Fossils (crystals and rocks), 1960 – 1980, Four porcelain vases, Dimension variable. Courtesy of the artists and Alex Zachary Peter Currie, New York. (Four white irregularly shaped textured porcelain vases are displayed on a floating shelf)
Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual, installation view, 2013. (A vitrine filled with a collection of books and a variety of printed matter by Chris Marker are displayed)
Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual, installation view, 2013. (A vitrine filled with a collection of books and a variety of printed matter by Chris Marker are displayed. Titles such as “JAPON, I’M MEMORY, LE DEPAYS, and Perception of a Memory” are displayed)
Harry Smith String, String Figure, 1970, String mounted on board, 15 ½ × 27 ¼ inches framed, Collection of Terry Winters. (A white string looped and woven in geometric forms and shapes, mounted on a black board. The piece is matted and sits within a light wooden frame.)
Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual, installation view, 2013. (To the left A textile piece with varied rows of thin lines is pinned to the wall. Three small mounted books with covers colored white, yellow, white are placed in the center. On the right, two magazine works are mounted and framed.)
Henrik Olesen, s.7., 2012, Metal screws, adhesive on primed canvas, 58 × 75 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York. (A white canvas is affixed to the wall. It is covered in organized rows of screws which resemble thin lines.)
David Grubbs & Susan Howe Frolic Architecture, 2011, Sound and video documentation, RT: 30 minutes. Courtesy of the artists and Harvard University. (A video screen showing an older male using a mac laptop and soundboard and a woman speaking into a microphone. Two speakers sit below the TV)
Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual, installation view, 2013. (Two Commercial Psycho magazine covers are framed and mounted.)
Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual, installation view, 2013. ( Color analog images. Nine framed photographs by Alfred T. Palmer of surrounding the production of the Boeing B-17 and the female aviation working to build them)
Chris Kruas, Kelly Lake Store and Other Stories, 2012 Installation view. (Nine pages of text from Kelly Lake Store and Other Stories, to the lower right is the green book cover with white lettering)
Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual, installation view, 2013. ( To the right of the image a framed woven white string against a black mat board is affixed to the wall, below it a shelf displays four irregularly shaped textured sculptures. To the left four framed works on paper of different clothing items. A red shirt, a black and white striped jacket, denim jeans, and a blue and green patterned shirt.)
Moyra Davey, Les Goddesses, 2011 HD video, color, sound 61 minutes. Courtesy of the artist and Murray Guy, New York. (A still screen of Moyra Davey’s Les Goddesses. A woman wearing jeans and a blue t-shirt peers holding a reading book in one hand and the other against the windowsill.)
Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual, installation view, 2013 (A table displaying an upright book and a few documents)
Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual, installation view, 2013. (A still screen of a man on a laptop and a woman reading some text . Two black and white and one color photograph are hung on the wall, text descriptions are beneath them.)
Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual, installation view, 2013. (Nineteen works installed along adjacent walls. There are various mediums and dimensions. A video installation is displayed on tv’s in the center of the frame.)
Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual, installation view, 2013.
Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual, installation view, 2013.
Yuji Agematsu, Not Yet Titled, 2011, Mixed media, Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and Real Fine Arts, New York.
Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual, installation view, 2013.
