New Art Dialogue Series: New China/New Art

Richard Vine Discusses the Future of Chinese Contemporary Art

Thursday, February 11, 2010, 6:00 p.m.
 @

Graham Auditorium
Walters Art Museum
600 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD

Managing Editor of Art in America Richard Vine will examine the exponential growth of contemporary art in China and its cultural impact during the Contemporary Museum’s New Art Dialogue Series lecture New China/New Art.

Vine will share experiences from his many trips to China and his close examination of the country’s rapidly evolving contemporary art scene. This new era of Asian contemporary art will be illustrated by Vine’s firsthand accounts with installations, exhibitions, and encounters with emerging artists. He will also review movements that have shaped contemporary art in post-Tiananmen China.

Admission to the lecture is $10 for the general public, $5 for students, and free for members of the Contemporary Museum and Walters Art Museum. Tickets will be available at the door.

The Contemporary’s New Art Dialogue Series presents lectures and conversations by distinguished artists, critics, art historians, and curators whose work is defining the field of contemporary art. The series cultivates critical discourse responsive to the cultural, social, and political issues of our time.

The New Art Dialogue Series is sponsored by the Louise D. and Morton J. Macks Family Foundation.

For additional information, visit www.contemporary.org.

FAX / Contemporary Museum

Exploring the Intersection of Art and Technology with FAX
Real-time Fax Submissions from Artists, Creative Thinkers, Students Contribute to Evolving Exhibition

Matt Sheridan Smith, Untitled (contrast test) (detail), 2008.
Courtesy of the artist and Lisa Cooley Fine Art.

Saturday, September 12 through Sunday, December 20, 2009

Contemporary Museum
100 West Centre Street
Baltimore, MD 21201

The Contemporary Museum will explore the potential of the fax machine as a device for creating, transmitting, and distributing an artist’s ideas and images with FAX, announced Contemporary Museum executive director, Irene Hofmann. The exhibition will feature more than 120 fax-based works, on view from September 12 through December 20, 2009. The Contemporary is the first institution to host FAX during its national tour

In FAX, the exhibition’s dedicated fax machine will continually receive and print incoming communications by artists from around the world. As faxed artworks arrive, they will be added to the gallery walls. In addition to the hundreds of faxed images, the exhibition will include the inevitable transmission errors and junk faxes received during the run of the show.

The exhibition invites visitors to explore artists’ creative expression through their drawings and to consider ideas of reproduction, originality and distribution.

FAX will feature works created by more than 120 international artists, designers, architects, scientists, and filmmakers who utilize the fax machine as a thinking and drawing tool. Visitors will see drawings, text, and collage works from contributors including Joseph Grigley, John Armleder, Fia Backstrom, Barbara Bloom, Liam Gillick, Glenn Ligon, and Kay Rosen. Included in the diverse roster of contributing artists are 20 Baltimore-based artists including Hugh Pocock, Leslie Furlong and Soledad Salamé.

FAX is co-organized by The Drawing Center, New York and iCI (Independent Curators International). The exhibition is curated by Joäo Ribas, curator of The Drawing Center, and is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue co-published by iCI and The Drawing Center. Following its run at the Contemporary, the show will next travel to California. FAX will be on tour through August 2012.

Obama Portrait on View at Contemporary Museum

An original photographic portrait of President-elect Barack Obama will be on view at the Contemporary Museum from January 14 through February 1, 2009. The President-elect commissioned renowned African American artist Dawoud Bey to photograph the portrait, which was taken in the Obama residence in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood in 2008.

President Obama’s portrait will join more than 35 of Dawoud Bey’s other striking portraits in an exhibition titled Dawoud Bey: Class Pictures. Class Pictures will be on view at the Contemporary through Saturday, February 21, 2009.

Admission to the museum is free.

The Contemporary Museum
100 W. Centre Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
410.783.5720