January 29, 2003 News Releases
Released 1/28/03
UTAH
STATE’S NORA ECCLES HARRISON MUSEUM OF ART EXPLORES THE
ROLE OF THE museum in progress — Innovative Arts Institution
Exhibits Contemporary Artists in Media Space
LOGAN — Since 1990, the museum in progress has provided
contemporary artists new and unusual exhibition venues. The
museum, a web-based art consortium in Vienna, holds its “exhibitions”
in newspaper spreads, on billboards, television spots and even
onboard airliners, said Utah State University art department
faculty member and exhibit curator Julie Johnson. Individuals
are more likely to see a work from the museum in progress covering
the facade of an art exhibition hall or hanging over the fire
screen in Vienna’s State Opera house than inside a traditional
art museum.
But it is at Utah State’s Nora Eccles Harrison Museum
of Art that “Medium as Muse: The museum in progress”
can be seen from Feb. 5 through March 29. It is an exhibition
unlike anything the museum has shown before, Johnson said. While
single works from the museum in progress have been included
in contemporary art exhibitions in other art centers, this is
the first exhibition devoted to exploring the creative energy
of the museum in progress.
A number of associated activities are planned, including an
opening lecture Feb. 7 at 7 p.m. in the museum by Roman Berka,
museum in progress representative from Vienna. A reception follows.
Johnson, an assistant professor and art historian at Utah State,
speaks with authority on the exhibition as its curator. The
exhibition emphasizes the theme of spectatorship. Spectators
in Vienna experience this art while they are walking, driving,
riding the subway or watching television, she said.
“Unlike the contemplative, quiet situation most museum
visitors experience, these spectators in transit may be distracted,
talking on cell phones and do not expect to encounter art in
spaces normally reserved for advertisements,” Johnson
said. “The works risk not even being recognized as art
by the majority of observers. The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum
of Art, on the other hand, offers a traditional gallery space
that allows for quiet one-on-one encounters with works of art;
for this exhibition, the museum has also tried to recreate some
of the viewing experiences that spectators typically have with
works from the museum in progress.”
Displaying art in media spaces necessarily involves a surprise
element — people in urban spaces may not expect to encounter
art on billboards or in their magazines. That element of surprise
is difficult to capture in an art museum, which by definition
is a container for art. Many of the artists selected for this
exhibition have taken the new conditions for art in media space
and created work that reveals the conditions of its production,
or that involves the spectator in new and unusual ways, Johnson
explained.
“For example, one artist created puzzles to be distributed
by Austrian Airlines onboard, so that passengers might ‘playfully
interact’ with the art in an ‘exhibition in the
sky,’” Johnson said. “Another exhibition,
which took place on television, invited viewers at home to create
their own works of art using common household objects. The video
shorts are beautifully produced, but theoretically are not the
location of the ‘art,’ which exists in multiples
in domestic space, invisible to the artist who merely provided
instructions for its creation.”
A highlight of the exhibition is the video short in which Steven
Pippin demonstrates to viewers at home how to turn a front-loading
washing machine into a pinhole camera to make a self-portrait.
The demonstrator, a woman in an apron who simultaneously mixes
and bakes a cake, develops the photograph in her kitchen sink,
showing the viewer the final results.
In another exhibition in the newspaper “Der Standard,”
artist Christian Boltanski took a found photograph of a Jewish
high school class, many of whom might have been killed in the
Holocaust, and then printed each face separately with his or
her name and birth date, asking newspaper readers to supply
information on their whereabouts.
“In doing so, he created a museum space of living memory
and actually recovered relevant information about the students,”
Johnson said.
The museum in progress is a digital museum, and can be visited
at any time at www.mip.at. Visitors to the exhibition will have
the chance to see works by very famous contemporary artists,
all of whom said “yes” to creating works for media
traditionally reserved for advertisers and graphic designers,
Johnson said.
“The art on display will be challenging in some instances,
just as it challenged the corporate sponsors who donated their
advertising space,” Johnson said. “Some of the works
are aesthetically beautiful, others humorous or poignant—and
some of the more conceptual works will not meet the definition
of art for many visitors. But the artists who created those
more conceptual works of art meant to provoke debate about the
limits of art.”
As curator, Johnson has worked closely with the staff at the
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, and she acknowledges the
efforts of several.
“Victoria Rowe, who is the museum’s interim director,
and Susanne Lamb, who is very talented at installing exhibitions,
have been working incredibly hard to make this exhibition happen,”
Johnson said.
A gallery guide with an essay written by the curator encourages
visitors to think about how the works were originally displayed
and how they might have reacted to the unannounced presence
of art in media space.
“Medium as Muse: The museum in progress” is appropriate
for all ages, but very young children should be closely supervised
due to the nature of the exhibit and the opportunities for hands-on
viewing.
The exhibition is made possible with the support of the Marie
Eccles Caine Foundation, the Austrian Cultural Forum New York
and the Utah Humanities Council.
The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art is open Tuesday, Thursday
and Friday 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Wedneday., 10:30 a.m. to
8 p.m. and Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. The museum is closed Sunday,
Monday and holidays. All exhibits are free and open to the public.
For information call (435) 797-0163.
January 28, 2003
Contacts: Julie Johnson, curator of “Medium as Muse,”
(435) 797-7126, Juliej@cc.usu.edu Victoria Rowe, Nora Eccles
Harrison Museum of Art (435) 797-0164 vrowe@cc.usu.edu
SIDE BAR — museum in progress RELATED
ACTIVITIES
LOGAN — Several events are planned in conjunction with
the museum in progress exhibit at Utah State University. The
events are designed to expand on the exhibition themes of museums
and media culture in public spaces, curator Julie Johnson said.
Here is an overview of activities. All events are free and are
held in the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art.
• Feb. 7 — A representative of the museum in progress,
Roman Berka, will deliver a lecture on the opening night at
7 p.m.
• Feb. 13 — The curator’s lecture, “Blueprints
for No-Man’s Land: The museum in progress and the Ideology
of the White Cube,” 5 p.m.
• March 3 — Utah State University professor Len
Rosenband will deliver a lecture titled “The Rise of the
Vernacular in the Eighteenth Century,” 7 p.m.
• March 18 — English department faculty will present
“Museums and Fiction: An Evening of Readings,” with
a reception at 6 p.m., followed at 7 p.m. by an introduction
to the theme from assistant professor Pallavi Rastogi and readings
by Keith Grant-Davie, Kristine Miller, Jennifer Sinor, Jeffrey
Smitten and Jeannie Thomas.
• March 26 — As the final event, actor Kevin Doyle
and director Adrianne Moore will stage a dramatic reading of
Thomas Bernhard’s “Old Masters,” a play that
takes place in Vienna’s famous Kunsthistorisches Museum,
7 p.m.
All events will take place in the museum, and are free and
open to the public.
January 28, 2003
Contacts: Julie Johnson (435) 797-7126, Juliej@cc.usu.edu
Victoria Rowe (435) 797-0164 vrowe@cc.usu.edu
A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION JOKE SHOW SATURDAY
LOGAN — Did you hear about the snail that got beat up
by two turtles?
He went to the police and they asked him, “Did you get
a good look at the turtles who did this?” He said, “No,
it all happened so fast.”
Such is a typical offering from the seventh annual “A
Prairie Home Companion” Joke Show, Saturday night on Utah
Public Radio.
“A Prairie Home Companion” is heard on UPR each
Saturday night, 6 - 8. This week’s Joke Show special will
also feature soundeffects men Fred Newman and Tom Keith in a
long-awaited “sound effects off.”
PHC’s 2002-03 season consists of nearly three dozen live
shows, about half of them from The Fitzgerald Theater in Saint
Paul, Minn. The remaining shows originate from tour locations
across the United States.
“A Prairie Home Companion” is carried on about 500
public radio stations in this country, with an audience of almost
three million nationwide. Overseas, the program can be heard
on the Armed Forces Network Europe, the Far East Network and
in dozens of European cities via the Astra satellite network.
Program host and executive producer is Garrison Keillor who
has been with the program since its beginning the summer of
1974 as a Saturday afternoon live variety show.
“Along with the show,” he said, “I carry on
a parallel life as a writer. Writing is pure entrepreneurship
and a great way of life. And then, if you do a radio show every
Saturday, you have a built-in social life. So it’s a pretty
good deal.”
PHC is produced by Minnesota Public Radio.
A service of Utah State University, Utah Public Radio is heard
on KUSU (91.5 FM) and KUSR (89.5 FM) in Logan and throughout
Utah on a system of 26 translators.
The Utah Public Radio Web site has more information at www.upr.org.
January 27, 2003
Contact: Richard Meng (435) 797-3132
utah
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