Diana Thater

"Published in conjunction with the exhibition Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California (November 22, 2015-February 21, 2016)"-- Colophon.

Mit der überblicksartig angelegten Ausstellung "Diana Thater. Keep the faith." präsentiert die Kunsthalle Bremen und das Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen eine umfassende Werkschau der kalifornischen Künstlerin Diana Thater (*1962). Sie bezieht in der noch jungen Videokunst eine höchst eigenständige Position, weil sie die Videoprojektionen mit dem Raum durch eingefärbtes Tages- und Kunstlicht verschmilzt. Ihre Themen kreisen um das Verhältnis von unberührter und kultivierter Natur, das sie am Bild des wilden oder gebändigten Tieres vorführt. Die zeitgleichen Ausstellungen in Siegen und Bremen ergänzen sich: In Bremen wird der Schwerpunkt auf die jüngeren Arbeiten seit 1998 gelegt, während das Siegener Museum sich den grundlegenden frühen Arbeiten widmet, die zwischen 1993 und 1997 entstanden sind. Der Katalog dokumentiert umfassend mit großen Farbabbildungen die in beiden Häusern installierten Arbeiten. Erstmals ist im Buch ein Verzeichnis aller bisher entstandenen Installationen und Monitorarbeiten von Diana Thater veröffentlicht. Die Katalogtexte nähern sich dem Werk der Künstlerin aus drei unterschiedlichen Perspektiven. Diana Thater erläutert in ihrem grundlegenden Aufsatz ihre Konzepte zu den in beiden Ausstellungsteilen gezeigten Arbeiten. Sie gibt damit zugleich einen Überblick über die bisherige Entwicklung ihrer künstlerischen Interessen. Barbara Engelbach untersucht den Umgang der Künstlerin mit dem Medium Video im Kontext der Diskussionen um Medienspezifik der 1960er und 1970er Jahre. Wulf Herzogenrath entwickelt zum künstlerischen Umgang Thaters vom projizierten Bild im architektonischen Raum eine Vorge-schichte ähnlicher Auffassungen von Künstlern früherer Medien, die mit Film- und Diaprojektionen arbeiteten.

Since 1900, the connections between art and technology with nature have become increasingly inextricable. Through a selection of innovative readings by international scholars, this book presents the first investigation of the intersections between art, technology and nature in post-medieval times. Transdisciplinary in approach, this volume?s 14 essays explore art, technology and nature?s shifting constellations that are discernible at the micro level and as part of a larger chronological pattern. Included are subjects ranging from Renaissance wooden dolls, science in the Italian art academies, and artisanal epistemologies in the followers of Leonardo, to Surrealism and its precursors in Mannerist grotesques and the Wunderkammer, eighteenth-century plant printing, the climate and its artistic presentations from Constable to Olafur Eliasson, and the hermeneutics of bioart. In their comprehensive introduction, editors Camilla Skovbjerg Paldam and Jacob Wamberg trace the Kantian heritage of radically separating art and technology, and inserting both at a distance to nature, suggesting this was a transient chapter in history. Thus, they argue, the present renegotiation between art, technology and nature is reminiscent of the ancient and medieval periods, in which art and technology were categorized as aspects of a common area of cultivated products and their methods (the Latin ars, the Greek techne), an area moreover supposed to imitate the creative forces of nature.

Bringing together cultural history, visual studies, and media archaeology, Bruno considers the interrelations of projection, atmosphere, and environment. Projection has long been transforming space, from shadow plays to camera obscuras and magic lantern shows. Our fascination with projection is alive on the walls of museums and galleries and woven into our daily lives. Giuliana Bruno explores the histories of projection and atmosphere in visual culture and their continued importance to contemporary artists who are reinventing the projective imagination with atmospheric thinking and the use of elemental media. To explain our fascination with projection and atmosphere, Bruno traverses psychoanalysis, environmental philosophy, architecture, the history of science, visual art, and moving image culture to see how projective mechanisms and their environments have developed over time. She reveals how atmosphere is formed and mediated, how it can change, and what projection can do to modify a site. In so doing, she gives new life to the alchemic possibilities of transformative projective atmospheres. Showing how their “environmentality” produces sites of exchange and relationality, this book binds art to the ecology of atmosphere.

This collection of never-before-published talks at one of the leading art schools in the United States, documents an exciting decade in the development of contemporary art and arts education, featuring interviews with renowned artists, curators, and writers. Contributions by Beth B, Rosetta Brooks, Luís Castro Leiva, Meg Cranston, Charles Gaines, Jack Goldstein, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Susan Hiller, Roni Horn, Kellie Jones, Mike Kelley, Justen Ladda, Thomas Lawson, Sylvère Lotringer, John Miller, Constance Penley, Brian Routh, Mira Schor, Allan Sekula, Robert Storr, and Lynne Tillman Introduced in 1986 as an initiative by Richard Hertz (Chair, Academic Studies, 1979–2003), the Graduate Art Department of the ArtCenter College of Design, located in Pasadena, California, celebrates its thirtieth anniversary in 2016. This book documents the first decade of the department’s existence by presenting a selection from over three hundred talks, including a 1990 symposium conducted by renowned curator and art historian Robert Storr, as well as twelve talks from its artists and critics lecture series known as the Graduate Seminar. Discussions between students and faculty members range from what it means to be an artist and the changing role of art in society, to how artists function within an academic setting. Alongside the newly transcribed talks, this volume also includes reproductions of slides used by participants at the time. Bringing the presentations to life, these archival images offer a sense of the context and spirit of the original seminars. Together, an introduction by Stan Douglas—ArtCenter Graduate Art faculty member—and a foreword by Diana Thater and Jason E. Smith, Chair and Associate Chair of Graduate Art, present historical context for these illuminating talks.

Exhibition held at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 13 November 2001 to 3 February 2002.

Updated and reorganized to offer the best collection of state-of-the-art readings on the role of critical theory in contemporary art, this second edition of Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985 brings together scholarly essays, artists’ statements, and art reproductions to capture the vibrancy and dissonance that define today’s art scene. Incorporates new and updated topics that have become central to art theory and practice over the past decade New and updated chapters cover such topics as: international biennials, historicizing of the term “contemporary art”, aesthetics, art and politics, feminism and pornography, ecology and art, the Middle East and conflict studies, Eastern European art and politics, gender and war, and technology Features a thematic reconfiguration of sections and new introductions to make readings user–friendly Extensively illustrated throughout with an expanded color-plate section New contributions to this edition include those by Alexander Alberro, Claire Bishop, T.J. Demos, Anthony Downey, Liam Gillick, Marina Gr?iniæ, Mary Kelly, Chantal Mouffe, Beatriz Preciado, Jacques Ranciere, Blake Stimson, and Chin-Tao Wu.