For the week of December 18 - 23, 2002

Center exhibit examines concepts of home

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By ADAM TANOUS
Express Arts Editor

What exactly is a home? What defines it? What makes it ours? What are traditional notions of home, and what lies behind those notions of home?

These are some of the many questions explored in two new exhibits at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Ketchum. The shows, titled "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" and "Informing Architecture," open Monday, Dec. 23.

"Untitled" by Todd Hido, chromogenic print. Courtesy the artist and Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco

 

The Beautiful Day exhibit features contemporary paintings, photography, drawing, sculpture and sound art that illuminates the subjects of neighborhood and home.

Jennifer Gately, curator of the shows, noted that of particular interest are three works by photographer and Yale professor Gregory Crewdson. One of those photographs is 4 feet by 5 feet and depicts a "housewife madly planting colorful annual flowers in her living room," Gately said. She described Crewdson’s work as "psychologically charged staged photography influenced by Hollywood set designs."

"Perhaps the most compelling contributions are small abstract ink drawings by Los Angeles conceptual artist Steve Roden, which are based on the subtle ambient sounds of architect Rudolf M. Schindler’s famous 1922 modernist home and studio. Accompanying these drawings is Roden’s sound art piece composed of the same sounds emitted by the architectural masterpiece and its surroundings, recorded, and then remixed digitally. The result is an abstract soundscape reflecting the house and its history," Gately stated.

San Francisco artists Tucker Schwarz, Yoram Wolberger and Allison Shields represent emerging artists in the show. Schwarz works with denim, stitching streetscapes on it. Wolberger exposes private domestic life by turning a middle class bedroom set inside out. Shields works in a similar vein by using photographs to document the contents of her parents’ and siblings’ bedside tables.

In the Center’s inner gallery room, Gately will exhibit "Informing Architecture." This is an effort to explore the history of architecture and its effect on those working in the field today. The Center asked a number of local architects to select a residence that "embodies philosophies, design elements, or revolutionary ideas that have had a lasting impact on their own architectural practices." The architects were asked to share their thoughts and an image that expresses their experiences with the works.

The responses varied quite dramatically¾covering everything from Anasazi ruins in Chaco Canyon, N.M., to Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto, Japan, to Frank Lloyd Wright designs. Wood River Valley architects participating in the exhibit are Dale Bates, Linda Bergerson, Jill Fehr Corney, Susan Desko, Tobin Dougherty, Linda L. Kelsey, Curtis Kemp, John King Mark Pynn, Jack Smith, Derek Ryan, Carolyn Wicklund and Jeff Williams.

In addition to a Gallery Walk tour slated for Friday, Dec. 27, Gately will lead free tours of the exhibits every other Saturday in February and March from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Also beginning in February, the Center will offer three evening lectures and panel discussions on architecture. The first guest in the series will be Robert Ivey, editor in chief of "Architectural Record."

 

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