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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SPACE IS THE PLACE

A dynamic presentation of artists’ inventive response to space-age potential provides a back-to-the-future exploration of space travel's endless possibilities.

February 2 – April 13, 2008

Exhibition Sponsor: Otto M. Budig Family Foundation

CINCINNATI—The Contemporary Arts Center presents Space Is the Place, an inventive collection of space-age dreams developed by artists with only imagination to limit their creations. The exhibition is curated by Alex Baker, senior curator of contemporary art at the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia and Toby Kamps, senior curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Space Is the Place comprises 34 works organized and circulated by Independent Curators International. The exhibition is on view February 2 through April 13. An opening reception celebrates the winter season Friday, February 22 at 7 pm.

“We are pleased to bring this thoughtful and inventive exhibition to Cincinnati,” says Raphaela Platow, Alice & Harris Weston Director and Chief Curator of the CAC. “This is a perfect exhibition to speak about the fact that contemporary art reflects the world we life in.  This is also an imaginative show, miraculous, and at times, challenging; a show that broadens our minds about a subject that captures our fascination – outer space.”

Participating artists include Laurie Anderson, Colette Gaiter, Lia Halloran, Ronald Jones, Nina Katchadourian, Oleg Kulik, Julian LaVerdiere, Aleksandra Mir, MIR Project, Damián Ortega, Marko Peljhan in collaboration with Pact Systems, Steve Roden, Jason Rogenes, Adam Ross, Katy Schimert, and Jane and Louise Wilson.

“As our nation agonizes over global warming and geopolitical conflict, outer space emerges as a destination of refuge and peace,” says co-curator Toby Kamps. “Why at this especially earthbound moment is the art world thinking about space exploration? The future is not what it once was. Can you be nostalgic for the future?”

Almost 20 years after the end of the Cold War and the Space Race, human beings still gaze up at the stars with a collective feeling of urgency and longing. Co-curator Alex Baker writes in the exhibition catalog, “Although space has always been conceived as a realm of infinite possibility and wonder, the reality of space travel is governed by the political wills of nations and by technological limitations. The Space Age, once imbued by the hopefulness of the future, now conjures nostalgic images of the past.”

Polish-born artist Aleksandra Mir’s video, First Woman on the Moon (1999) is a direct challenge to President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 promise to land “a man on the moon” before the end of the ‘60s.  This 12-minute film shows a beach-bound faux moonscape conquered by “astronettes.” Mir’s work not only embraces Kennedy’s dream-made-real, it also reframes history, challenging dominant assumptions of exploration and cosmology as a masculine vocation.

Self-described “space junkie,” artist, astronomer and skateboarder Lia Halloran creates drawings and paintings depicting the physics of space travel halted in action. Her lush, heartbreaking paintings show great movement and vibrancy, created from real-life photography of women skateboarders she used as models.

Oleg Kulilk’s life-like wax replica Cosmonaut (2003) wears an authentic Soviet spacesuit and helmet and hangs suspended, grinning wildly and moving slowly in space, representing a space-oriented society in cultural freefall.

The sci-fi aesthetic of Adam Ross’s beautifully rendered alien cities in his paintings The City at the Edge of Time, 02, The City at the Edge of Time, 07 and The City at the Edge of Time, 08 (all 2004) demonstrate the combined realism and abstraction of the hyper-technological futuristic civilizations of our imagination.

Space Is the Place also includes new works, such as a piece from NASA’s first artist-in-residence, Laurie Anderson. “When you hang out at NASA,” Anderson observed, “you realize that a lot of research has to do with beauty, starting with Einstein, who rejected certain theories because they violated his aesthetic sense.”  Recent works, relating to Anderson’s musical/performance pieces inspired during her time at NASA, highlight the importance of imagination and dreaming in the quest for space travel.

The CAC is uniquely positioned to examine the theme of space exploration in art, as this region has made many significant contributions to space travel. Dayton, Ohio is home to the National Museum of the United States Air Force, and 24 American astronauts live in or are from Ohio, including John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, Neil Armstrong, one of the first men on the moon and Judith Resnik, who was on the crew of the Orbiter Challenger.
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Space Is the Place
February 2-April 13, 2008

The exhibition Space Is the Place is organized and circulated by iCI (Independent Curators International), New York. The guest curators are Alex Baker and Toby Kamps. The exhibition, tour, and catalogue are made possible, in part, by a grant from the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, with additional support from the iCI Exhibition Partners.

In a global moment preoccupied with terrestrial conflicts, why are so many artists fascinated by extraterrestrial subjects? Space Is the Place features an international selection of recent works on the theme of space exploration—its history, limitations, and potential. Certainly, the utopian promise of an intergalactic future promoted during the Cold War-era Space Race has not been realized. Today, however, the excitement and mystery of Star Trek’s “final frontier” inspires contemporary artists around the world. Space research has advanced tremendously since the 1960s, but the challenges of technology, politics, and human nature have reshaped our conceptions of outer space. Space Is the Place reflects significant new attitudes toward the cosmos and a human role in it. The exhibition’s paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations, and sound and video works depict outer space as a realm of infinite possibility, while they also reflect the dramatic social changes of the nearly 50 years since the launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite.

An illustrated catalog, co-published by iCI and the Contemporary Arts Center, accompanies the exhibition.  Essays by guest curator Alex Baker and Toby Kamps, and text by Svetlana Boym, are featured in the publication.
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Images (High- resolution Images available. Please e-mail pr@cacmail.org
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Events celebrating Space Is the Place

Sunday, December 30 • 1- 4 pm • UnMuseum®  
Family Sunday: Create in Oh Eight
Family Sunday is where CAC families use current and upcoming exhibitions to inspire learning and creativity through guided artmaking activities. Artist: Antwan Jones. Inspiration: Take your creativity into the future; create in ‘08
*Please note this is the fifth Sunday.
Members: Free. Nonmembers: CAC admission.
Family Sunday is sponsored in part by The Charles H. Dater Foundation
KIDS & FAMILY

Saturday, February 2 • 2 pm • 4th and 5th Floors
Educator Gallery Talk: Space Is the Place
CAC Curator of Education Scott Boberg leads a tour of the exhibition Space Is the Place.
Members: Free. Nonmembers: CAC admission.
PUBLIC PROGRAM

Monday, March 10 • 6:30 pm • Performance Space • FREE
Perspectives Film Screening: Obshee Delo / The Common Task
The Cincinnati premiere of this film produced by the Museum of Jurassic Technology, Obshee Delo interweaves tales of an impoverished yet influential philosopher-librarian, Nicolai Federov, the accomplishments and tribulations of Russia’s historic Pulkovo Observatory, and the life and work of Constantin Tsiolkovski, whose inspired visions of human space travel and habitation changed the course of humanity. (60 minutes; Russian and English.)
Located in Culver City, California, the Museum of Jurassic Technology (www.mjt.org) is an extraordinary institution founded by 2001 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship recipient and subject of Lawrence Weschler’s book Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonders, David Wilson.
Admission is free.
FILM

Sunday, March 23 • 1 – 4 pm • UnMuseum®  
Family Sunday: Spaced Out
Family Sunday is where CAC families use current and upcoming exhibitions to inspire learning and creativity through guided artmaking activities. Artist: Pat Andreadis (Mrs. A.) Inspiration: Space Is the Place
Members: Free. Nonmembers: CAC admission
Family Sunday is sponsored in part by The Charles H. Dater Foundation
KIDS & FAMILY

Monday, March 24 • 6:30 pm • Performance Space • FREE
Perspectives:  Craig Niemi, Astonished by Saturn
Craig Niemi, Director of the Cincinnati Observatory Center, will discuss the visual splendor of space, the intertwined histories of photography and astronomy, and the astonishing power of directly perceiving objects in space by eye or telescope.
Admission is free.
PUBLIC PROGRAM

Monday, March 31 • 6:30-9:30 pm • 4th and 5th Floors at the CAC, and at Cincinnati Observatory Center • FREE
Other Perspectives: From the CAC to Saturn:  Space Is the Place and the Cincinnati Observatory Center
Travel with the CAC and Cincinnati Observatory Center across the solar system. The trip begins with the exhibition Space Is the Place at the CAC. Travel on your own to the Cincinnati Observatory Center for a tour of this historic 1842 building, known as the birthplace of American astronomy. The evening reaches its literal high point with the opportunity, weather permitting, to see the rings of Saturn through the 16” Alvan  Clark & Sons telescope, a 1904 scientific instrument that is itself a beautiful sculptural object.
The CAC program is free; there RSVP required.  
RSVP with Andrea Blake at 513 345 8434 or ablake@cacmail.org
PUBLIC PROGRAM SPECIAL EVENT

Sunday, April 27 • 1 – 4 pm • UnMuseum®
Family Sunday: Spaced Out
Family Sunday is where CAC families use current and upcoming exhibitions to inspire learning and creativity through guided artmaking activities. Artist: Pat Andreadis (Mrs. A.) Inspiration: Space Is the Place
Members: Free. Nonmembers: CAC admission.
Family Sunday is sponsored in part by The Charles H. Dater Foundation
KIDS & FAMILY
 
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The CAC is supported by the individuals and business that give annually to the Fine Arts Fund; Ohio Arts Council; City of Cincinnati; All Over Media; and the generous contributions and grants of individuals and corporations and foundations, CAC memberships, facility rentals, special events and sales from the CAC Store.