DALLAS, TX.- Dallas Contemporary announced its fall exhibition program, featuring solo shows of work by Bani Abidi, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Adriana Varejao, Synchrodogs, and Jason Willaford. The exhibitions opened to the public September 19 and run through December 21, 2015. In October 2015, Dallas Contemporary will present a video project by Ange Leccia extending beyond the walls of the museum throughout Downtown Dallas and the Arts District.
Bani Abidi, An Unforeseen Situation
For her first solo museum exhibition in the US, pioneering video artist Bani Abidi presents an immersive site specific video installation of her 2014 work Funland (Karachi Series II) as well as a new body of videos titled An Unforeseen Situation, commissioned by Dallas Contemporary. Originally presented at the 8th Berlin Biennale of Contemporary Art (2014), Funland (Karachi Series II) considers how melancholia and amnesia become etched into the urban topography of cosmopolitan Karachi by creating a visual narrative that acts as a map of historical conjecture. In parallel, Abidi’s new work examines notions of patriotism, masculinity and foulplay through two fictional videos based on real events. They refer to a series of orchestrated mass events and spectacular individual feats hosted by the Punjab Ministry of Sports in 2014 during which multiple world records were reportedly broken by Pakistan. Picking up from the popular rumors, newspaper clippings and video footage surrounding the events, the artist spins her own version of the events as they unfolded.
Bani Abidi (b. 1971) lives and works between Karachi, Pakistan and Berlin, Germany. Her work has been exhibited at institutions such as The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; and Baltic Center for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, United Kingdom, and are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; and The Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas, among others. She has participated in many biennials, including the Asian Art Biennial, Taichung, Taiwan; AiM International Biennale, Marrakech, Morocco; and the 10th Lyon Biennale.
The exhibition is curated by Justine Ludwig, Director of Exhibitions and Senior Curator of Dallas Contemporary.
Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Walk the Line
Nadia Kaabi-Linke presents six diverse projects that document current culture climates while simultaneously serving as a reminder of the past as omnipresent in the now. For Impunities, she worked with women and men affected by domestic violence. Using forensic techniques to cast impressions of their scars in glass, she creates physical manifestations of the pain they endured. For Bicycle, the artist documents the changing shadow of a bicycle over the span of a day as a critique of the highly masculine futurist art movement, which aimed to present the merger between modern technology and man. The Altarpiece, inspired by the history of WWII violence on the outside walls of a former bunker in Berlin, shines a spotlight on the brutal past of the city that is more and more wiped out by processes of gentrification. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a new installation and performance titled Walk the Line, dealing with the border separating Texas and Mexico.
Nadia Kaabi-Linke (b.1978) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. The recipient of a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne University in Paris in 2008, Kaabi-Linke has had exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland; Center of Modern Art, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Nam June Paik Art Center, Gyeongg-do, South Korea; the HKW and KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. Her work is in the collections of the M+ Museum in Hong Kong; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Burger Collection, Hong Kong, among others. She participated in the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011, the Liverpool Biennial in 2012, and the 9th Sharjah Biennial in 2009. She was awarded the Discoveries Prize from Art Basel Hong Kong in 2014, and the Abraaj Capital Art Prize in 2011.
The exhibition is curated by Justine Ludwig, Director of Exhibitions and Senior Curator of Dallas Contemporary.
Adriana Varejao, Kindred Spirits
Adriana Varejao is recognized for her graphic depictions of historical inaccuracies and hierarchies of power during Brazil’s colonial period. Kindred Spirits expands on her previous body of work the “Polvo” series, which began in 2013. Inspired by the public’s response to the 1976 Brazilian census question, “What is your skin color?” (“Coffee with Milk”, “Not so White”, “Sun Kissed”, etc.), Varejao uses her work to question the absurd notion of racial purity and corresponding racial miscegenation represented in abstract color wheels. For a new series of portraits, she conducted extensive research on 19th century imagery of face painting used in preparation for combat by North American Indian tribes. These latest findings from sources ranging from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University to the work of American portraiture artist George Catlin have been incorporated into her work alongside elements from the pioneers of minimalism such as Donald Judd and Agnes Martin, as well as geometric shapes used by indigenous people of the Amazon resulting in a fascinating amalgamation of cultures based on distinct uses of color and form.
One of Brazil’s most renowned contemporary artists, Adriana Varejão’s (b. 1964) work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows at international galleries and institutions, including solo shows at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris; Hara Museum, Japan; Museu de Arte Moderna de Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her work is included in the collections of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Tate Modern, London; The Hara Museum, Japan; and Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, among others. In 2008, the Centro de Arte Contemporanea Inhotim opened a permanent pavilion devoted to her work.
The exhibition is curated by Pedro Alonzo, Adjunct Curator of Dallas Contemporary.
SYNCHRODOGS, Supernatural
SYNCHRODOGS’ first ever solo exhibition is comprised of a commissioned body of work photographed during their one month residency in the United States. Traveling through Texas and the American Southwest, SYNCHRODOGS searched for wilderness and the supernatural within a traditional American landscape. Their new project combines portraits and sceneries that convey the artists’ insightful experiences caused by serene and abandoned natural settings. The show strikingly documents their passion for surreal foreplay, eccentricity, franticness, and intuitive gestures.
SYNCHRODOGS is a collaboration between Ukrainian photographers Tania Shcheglova (b. 1989) and Roman Noven (b. 1984). Since the group's inception in 2008 they have extensively exhibited in group shows worldwide at institutions such as the Chelsea College of Art and Design, London; SBK Gallery, Dordrecht, Netherlands; Public Works Gallery, Chicago; and the Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev. They have excelled in major art competitions, including winning first prize in Arts Rebels x Canon, and the art photography award for Ukraine from Harper’s Bazaar in 2011. Additionally, SYNCHRODOGS are known for fashion house commissions which include recent advertising campaigns for Bimba & Lola, KENZO, and Urban Outfitters. Their work has been published in New York Magazine, Vice, Esquire, NEON, L’Imparfaite and Jalouse among others.
The exhibition is curated by Lilia Kudelia Assistant Curator of Dallas Contemporary.
Jason Willaford, "Sorry, this will only take a minute."
Jason Willaford debuts a new body of work produced during his summer residency at the Elaine de Kooning house and studio in East Hampton, NY, which toys with the notion of time and contemporary obsession with being busy. Inspired by a “gift of time” and complete removal from the frenetic pace of everyday life, Willaford had the idea to construct a visualization of a parallel reality. Using the woods of East Hampton as his workshop, Willaford manipulated a vinyl sheet in order to create a mercurial picture plane, from which he cut canvases shaped vaguely like smart phone application icons. The resulting series of paintings prompts the viewer to imagine what he or she might do in the abandonment of daily obligations, and to question the impact of modern technology on the way we experience time.
Dallas/Marfa based artist Jason Willaford (b. 1969) is a native Floridian who received his BFA from Florida State University. His work has been exhibited at galleries throughout the United States including Boltax Gallery, Shelter Island, New York; Galleri Urbane, Marfa/Dallas, Texas; and Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico. His pieces are in both private collections and corporate collections such as the Bloomingdales corporate collection and The Neiman Marcus Collection.
The exhibition is curated by Peter Doroshenko, Executive Director of Dallas Contemporary.
Ange Leccia
Ange Leccia is a major artist, one of the pioneers of video art in France. Since the early 1980s, his work has explored the human dimension through the combination of light and images. For Dallas, exhibits five video works outside and around the city center, beginning with the one-night multi-media event, Aurora (with has 100,000+ visitors). Dallas Contemporary is the information hub for all of the outdoor projections and offers learning programs and lectures about Leccia’s work. The large-scale and various locations around Dallas has never been attempted by one artist in Dallas or anywhere in the United States.
Ange Leccia (b.1952) currently works and lives in Paris. He has had solo exhibitions at institutions and galleries such as Almine Rech Gallery, Paris; Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; Creative Time, New York; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; and Villa Medicis, Rome, Italy; among many others. His work has been part of group exhibitions at locations such as Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Centre International d’art Contemporain, Montreal, Canada; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan; The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo, Norway; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Tate Modern, London. In addition to his work as an artist, Leccia is in charge of ‘Le Pavillon’ research unit of the Palais de Tokyo Space for Contemporary Creation, Paris.
The exhibition is curated by Peter Doroshenko, Executive Director of Dallas Contemporary.
