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Center for Curatorial Studies and Hessel Museum of Art announces Haim Steinbach and Helen Marten exhibitions

Center for Curatorial Studies and Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College presents two major summer exhibitions: Haim Steinbach: once again the world is flat., curated by Tom Eccles, CCS Bard Executive Director, and Johanna Burton, and Helen Marten: No borders in a wok that can’t be crossed, curated by Beatrix Ruf. The opening reception for both exhibitions will take place on Saturday, June 22, 2013 from 1 to 4pm.

Haim Steinbach and Helen Marten
Presented in the Hessel Museum of Art, once again the world is flat. is an expansive exhibition of works by Haim Steinbach. Comprising a number of the artist’s grid-based paintings from the early 1970s, as well as a series of reconfigured historical installations and major new works created in relation to a selection of works drawn from the Marieluise Hessel Collection, the artworks in the exhibition span Steinbach’s forty-year career.

once again the world is flat. is curated by Tom Eccles and Johanna Burton, and will travel to Kunsthalle Zürich in 2014.

Haim Steinbach was born in 1944 in Rehovot, Israel. He has lived in New York since 1957. He received his BFA from Pratt Institute in 1968 and his MFA from Yale University in 1973. Until the mid-1970s he produced paintings that, responding to minimalism’s limitations, examined the codes of visual language through a calculated placement of colored bars around monochrome squares. He abandoned painting for a series titled “Linopanel,” using linoleum as a material that mirrored cultural traditions of flooring (Rococo patterns, Colonial wood, generic tiling, etc.). In the late 1970s his practice delved into spatial questions of visual syntax, honing in on the quotidian rituals of collecting and arranging objects through a continued engagement with the Display works. His presentation of found, bought, or gifted objects alters the lens of cultural histories, mapping otherwise concealed bonds of attachment and desire between object, place, and viewer.

Following his historic exhibition at Artists Space in 1979, Steinbach has had several international solo exhibitions at institutions such as Witte de With, Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; CAPC musée d’art contemporain, Bordeaux; and Haus der Kunst, Munich. His work was included in Documenta IX and the Sydney Biennial in 1992, the 1993 and 1997 Venice Biennales, the 2000 Biennale de Lyon, and La Triennale, Paris 2012. Steinbach’s work can be found in numerous international public collections such as the CAPC musée d’art contemporain, Bordeaux; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Metropolitain Museum of Art, New York; Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the Tate Modern, London.

Also opening in June, CCS Bard presents the first U.S. museum exhibition of British artist Helen Marten. Titled No borders in a wok that can’t be crossed, Marten’s exhibition is curated by Beatrix Ruf and is the first major collaboration between CCS Bard and the Kunsthalle Zürich and was presented as part of the inaugural program of the Kunsthalle’s newly expanded Löwenbräukunst complex in 2012.

For No borders in a wok that can’t be crossed, Marten has created a group of works which interweave the diversity of her work in terms of media—from sculptures to wall pieces and floor works—in a comprehensive installation including many new works created specifically for the CCS Bard exhibition.

This exhibition is the third and final iteration of a joint project with the Kunsthalle Zürich (September–November 2012); the Chisenhale Gallery, London (November 2012–January 2013); and CCS Bard. In Zürich the exhibition was titled Almost the exact shape of Florida and at the Chisenhale, Plank Salad (November 2012–January 2013).

Helen Marten (b. 1985, Macclesfield) lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions include Evian Disease, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012); Dust and Piranhas, Park Nights, Serpentine Gallery (2011); Take a stick and make it sharp, Johann König, Berlin (2011) and Wicked Patterns, T293, Naples (2010). Marten will participate in the 2013 Venice Biennale. Recent group exhibitions include New Pictures of Common Objects, MoMA PS1, New York (2012); March, Sadie Coles, London (2012); The New Public, Museion, Bolzano (2012); Standard operating procedures, Blum and Poe, Los Angeles (2012); and Hasta Mañana, Greene Naftali, New York (2011). Marten received the Lafayette Prize in 2011 and the LUMA Award in 2012.

About the Center for Curatorial Studies
The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard) is an exhibition, education, and research center dedicated to the study of art and curatorial practices from the 1960s to the present day.

In addition to the CCS Bard Galleries and Hessel Museum of Art, the Center houses the Marieluise Hessel Collection, as well as an extensive library and curatorial archives that are accessible to the public. The Center’s two-year M.A. program in curatorial studies is specifically designed to deepen students’ understanding of the intellectual and practical tasks of curating contemporary art. Exhibitions are presented year-round in the CCS Bard Galleries and Hessel Museum of Art, providing students with the opportunity to work with world-renowned artists and curators. The exhibition program and the Hessel Collection also serve as the basis for a wide range of public programs and activities exploring art and its role in contemporary society.

General information on the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College can be found on its website at www.bard.edu/ccs.