Stylefinder - Fall 2014 WEW

by Dickson Beall
The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at

Washington University opens its fall season with the
works of 10 artists.
Encountering the City: The Urban Experience in
Contemporary Art is smartly curated by Meredith
Malone. Both conceptually and visually, the
exhibition packs a wallop.
At frst, Andrea Zittels installation in the
museums entry room may appear as old-fashioned
patterned wallpaper. A satellite photograph,
mirrored into a repeating pattern of urban sprawl,
Wall Sprawl #6 (Between Enterprise and Henderson)
is Zittels response to memories of growing up in a
rural area, just outside Las Vegas.
Now called Henderson, the city is a self-contained
affuent community, complete with shopping mall,
isolated from the outside world and considered one
of the safest and best cities in America.
Surrounding the neat boundary of Hendersons
grid-like streets is the stunningly beautiful and
undulating geologic pattern of the desert. Yet the
satellite perspective conveys the clear warning that
independence is limited by water supply, a desert
environment on the edge of life and death.
Zittels theme is one of literatures favorites,
man against nature. The large main gallery of the
exhibition reviews mans pull to power fascism
and terrorism, industrialization and development,
stretching into the clouds with skyscrapers, and
coming together in groups yet often resulting in
human disconnection.
Franz Ackermanns painting, Untitled (yet),
captures well the fragmentary, disjointed urban
wanderers of our time. Its central image is a tram car
foating on a blue-black feld of wired connectivity,
where modernism has devolved into neon ephemeral
fragments of de-humanized technology.
A wall-sized installation of offset posters by Jakob
Kolding, How to Build a Universe that Falls Apart
Two Days Later, places hope for change in individual
action. In the face of monarchs and governments
who dominate history, citizens frequently employ
posters, collage and montage to call for economic and
political change. Multiple copies of four black-and-
white posters of Koldings diagonally-collaged images
of power brokers and protesters are mounted edge-
to-edge, to form a powerful foor-to-ceiling pattern.
Stacks of the posters form solid shapes on the gallery
foor, inviting visitors to extend the message.
German photographer Andreas Gursky, famous
for his landscapes in color, is also known for large
format architecture photographs. An oversize
inkjet print, Beijing, commands a wall and displays
Gurskys dispassionate method of cataloging
architecture. The vaulted spaces in his interior view
of Beijings spectacular Birds Nest, the national
stadium built for the 2008 Olympics, suggests a 21st-
century secular cathedral.
Gursky digitally manipulates images and edits
spaces, while maintaining the immediacy of a
straightforward photograph, in this monumental
work that expresses nationalism and economic
power.
Los Angeles, a 35mm flm by British-American
artist Sarah Morris, doesnt waste a frame of its 26
minutes. Morris captures the time and pace of today
always moving, always connected, always making
images, always serving the ego and the obsession
with fame.
Shooting during Oscar week, Morris took her
camera to the Dolby theater, the red carpeted
sidewalks, the stairs, the stage and backstage,
and through the decentralized architecture of Los
Angeles.
Her flm focuses on psychology and economic
power that drives the electronic cigar-smoking deal-
makers and the persona out front Botox on the face,
tanning bed for the body and Xanax covering the
anxiety. With a plethora of celebrities and cameras
and much blowing of kisses, Morris reveals there
is no underwear beneath the tuxedoed or pink-
feathered surfaces.
The rich texture of the flm, without any dialogue,
uses a techno-music soundtrack and brings to mind
Marshall McLuhan. Morris camera glances across
texting and talking on cell phones, robotic flm and
TV cameras, and picture-gazing at magazines and
newspapers, while not-so-cool books remain on
shelves.
An army of remote-controlled cameras scan
the scene and ditto more of everything-the-same.
Paparazzi stand shoulder-to-shoulder, taking the
same picture.
This exhibition focuses on major challenges,
as man is caught between accelerating time and
collapsing space, clouded by the distractions of
media.
Events
Encountering the City: The Urban Experience
runs through Jan. 4, at the Mildred Lane Kemper
Art Museum/Washington University in St. Louis.
Upcoming events include:
Gallery Talk, Sept. 29, 5 p.m.; Meredith Malone,
associate curator.
Artist Talk, Dec. 1, 5 p.m.; Jakob Kolding.
For more information, visit www.
kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.
West End Word | Page 15 September 26 - October 9, 2014
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avai l abl e at:
Encountering The City
On Display At Kemper
Encountering the City: The Urban Experience in Contemporary Art will be on display at the Kemper Art
Museum at Washington University through Jan. 14. Among the art on display is Franz Ackermanns Untitled
(yet), far left in the frame.
panoramic photo by Dickson Beall
Art Review
Andrea Zittel,
Wall Sprawl
#6 (Between
Enterprise and
Henderson),
2011 (detail).
Inkjet on J15
Blueback paper,
dimensions
variable.
Courtesy of
Regen Projects,
Los Angeles and
Andrea Rosen
Gallery, New
York. Andrea
Zittel.
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Stylefinder - Fall 2014 WEW

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by Dickson Beall

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at

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