Thursday night opening at Wadsworth Atheneum

Wadsworth Atheneum
600 Main St., Hartford, (860) 278-2670
again: serial practices in contemporary art
Sept. 22—Dec. 30, 2007
Opening reception Thurs., Sept. 27, 7 p.m.

Press release

A 2004 major gift from celebrated art collector Mickey Cartin has inspired a new exhibition at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. A selection from the 125 contemporary photographs gifted to the Atheneum will be on exhibit along with loaned works from the Cartin Collection in again: serial practices in contemporary art from Sept. 22 through Dec. 30, 2007. The Atheneum plans a variety of special programs and events to celebrate the exhibition.

The Cartin gift ranks as one of the most important and largest single donations of contemporary art in the Atheneum's history. According to Betsy Kornhauser, Krieble Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Wadsworth, "While the Atheneum has actively acquired single contemporary works of photo-based art, the Cartin gift which features works by noted artists Roger Ballen, Zarina Bhimji, Edward Burtynsky, Olafur Eliasson, and Arnold Odermatt, among others, is an invaluable and unique addition to the Museum's permanent collection of contemporary art."

again: serial practices in contemporary art features work by fifteen internationally known artists who share the common theme of duplication and repetition to explore single subjects or ideas. Spanning the second half of the twentieth century, the works offer a rich cross section of photographic media and examine a diverse range of cultural issues. The gifted photographic images in the exhibit are supplemented by a selection from the Cartin Collection's own holdings including books, correspondence, video and painting. The exhibit is co-curated by Ash Anderson, a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art program at Yale University, and Steven Holmes, curator of the Cartin Collection, and is made possible by the generous support of The Contemporary Coalition and The Larsen Fund for Photography.

Works by On Kawara, Ed Ruscha, Hans-Peter Feldmann and Jonathan Monk anchor the central theme of again by exploring the serial processes. Images by Arnold Odermatt, Lucinda Devlin, Joe Ovelman, Frank Breuer and Malick Sidibé evoke traditional documentary photography, the classic use of the camera to dispassionately record and order subjects as varied as execution chambers, industrial parks, car crashes and passersby. The work draws its power from repetition rather than selection, in that the more examples of a subject that one can record, the less important any individual image becomes, and the final collective product then represents a more dimensionally complete record. Meaning is therefore accumulated, accrued, aggregated. Works by artists Spencer Finch and Charles Sandison address time itself, allowing one to perceive what otherwise would remain real, but difficult to perceive. In each work within the exhibition, the word again resonates in different ways—sometimes quietly as in the case of the small paintings by Cecilia Edefalk or sometimes with wit, as in the case of Jonathan Monk.

Mickey Cartin commented, "I have always been interested in making my collection available to as many people as possible. The Wadsworth Atheneum is a very special place, and it has meant a lot to me over the years. I am proud and quite happy to support their renewed commitment to bring exciting contemporary art projects to the Greater Hartford area through curated exhibitions such as again."

The Cartin Collection now holds approximately 2,400 objects by over 400 artists, ranging from fifteenth century paintings to modern and contemporary art. It has recently been listed as one of the top 200 art collections in the world by Art News Magazine. Internationally active with as many as forty worldwide venues exhibiting borrowed pieces from the Cartin Collection at any one time, the collection loans extensively, produces artist projects and encourages institutional partnerships.

During the four-month venue, the Atheneum is planning several dates of special programming:

• On Thursday, September 27th at 7:00 pm, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art will host a public opening of the again exhibit, featuring a reception and free lecture: A Conversation with Mickey Cartin and Betsy Kornhauser, in the Avery Theater at the Museum.

• To follow on Friday, September 28th at noon, again exhibition co-curators Ash Anderson and Steven Holmes will give The Dana Engstrom DeLoach Gallery Talk.

• On Thursday, November 1st at 6:00pm, as part of downtown Hartford's First Thursday series, the Atheneum's "Phoenix Art After Hours" program will offer a Gallery Talk with again: serial practices in contemporary art exhibition co-curators Ash Anderson and Steven Holmes.