Ellen Zweig: Curated by Eleanor Antin

2006–2007

511

west 25 th street, new york, ny www.cueartfoundation.org

10001

ellen zweig

Ellen Zweig

CUE Art Foundation

October 26 – December 2, 2006

Curated by Eleanor Antin

LEAD SPONSOR OF 2006-07 SEASON OF EXHIBITION CATALOGUES: KYESUNG PAPER GROUP (SOUTH KOREA)

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY: ELIZABETH FIRESTONE GRAHAM FOUNDATION

Forewo rd

CUE Art Foundation

Artist’s Statement

Ellen Zweig

We are honored and grateful to present this exhibition generously curated by Eleanor Antin.

In my artwork over the last 20 years, I have explored the theme of an ambivalent stance toward

For the CUE solo exhibition series, Mrs. Antin has chosen fellow artist, Ellen Zweig, who lives and

travel, including feelings of both ecstasy and guilt—the artwork has been about people who dream

works in New York. Zweig has long been admired among her peers as an artist who has forged a

of Africa or China, Victorian lady travelers who take their own culture with them and explore the

unique artistic voice. Antin’s appreciation of Zweig’s work demonstrates just such admiration.

Nile, the Rocky Mountains, or Tibet, a woman who goes over Niagara Falls in a barrel, a bearded

Were it not for the opportunity that CUE gallery affords, it is unlikely that a

lady who dreams of being a stenographer.

project of this scale by an under-recognized artist would be available for public viewing, whether

In my video and video installation series, HEAP, I come back to my life-long

in a commercial venue or not. Ms. Antin and we, together, wish Ms. Zweig a future of fulfillment

fascination with China. My visual imagery combines footage from three trips to China with footage

and success.

created by constructing China through objects and performances. I am interested in playing with documentary and travel footage, reinterpreting, reinventing, and reenacting the experience of cross-cultural contact. Instead of a search for roots, I explore imaginary identities and the empathy that arises from putting yourself in the other’s shoes.

My installations are created for a particular space, taking into account both site

and potential audience. In April 2006, at DDM Warehouse in Shanghai, HEAP was centered around the idiom: “bringing coals to Newcastle.” After all, I was bringing images of China back to China.

It seemed like I was just adding water to the ocean. Using large projections and small flat-screen monitors, images piled up, creating an environment in which the viewer could contemplate fantasies and facts of China as seen by the Western eye.

Chinese idiom:

My installation at the CUE Art Foundation is centered around another idiom, a (tou shi wen lu). Literally, it means “throw rock ask road.” In English, we

say, “testing the waters.” One friend told me that it is most commonly used to describe a new project.

When you aren’t sure you understand what will happen, you “tou shi wen lu,” you try it out first.

This project is about more than travel. It’s about an on-going cultural encounter,

about learning " ๮ ് ໠ ੥ \W] [PQ _MV T] a new language, both the words and a language of images and gestures. When I was in Shanghai this spring, I was in a market shooting video of bags of rice. A woman put her hand in the rice. Her gestures were unconscious; she was sweeping her hand back and forth over the rice, then picking at individual grains. I wondered if this was a test of some sort, a way of determining if the rice was fresh, for instance. But it soon became clear that she was totally unaware of these actions. She bought some eggs and walked away, without looking back at the rice.

I’ve looked at that image over and over again. The gestures of a hand in a bag of rice. It is beyond my understanding. I can’t unpack it. That’s the kind of image I like to question.

If I imitate those gestures, I might begin to learn the language of a culture other than my own.

Curator’s Statement

Eleanor Antin

Earlier in her career, Ellen Zweig did a series of performances and installations she called Ex (centric) Lady Travelers based on that particular Victorian type, the independent woman unencumbered by family who explored the exotic lands to the east so beloved by the Victorian romantic sensibility. Their “spinster” status made them outsiders to the standard Victorian female domesticity of family life, and the most adventurous of them used this fortunate state of affairs to live a more mobile, liberated and intellectually interesting life than their sisters back home. It is within this historical tradition of the female “outsider” negotiating a foreign landscape and culture that Ellen Zweig’s Chinese works belong. Of course, the major difference is that she is a totally modern avant-garde, American artist, so she is not subject to the orientalism of her predecessors.

She is neither destroyed by the self-immolating, deliciously languid, if somewhat creepy romanticism of artists like Jane and Paul Bowles, nor, despite her research, passionately devoted to the selfless scholarly study of an ancient, great culture like Fenollosa was, and not at all interested in the fervent, spiritual practice of poets like Ginsberg. Above all, Ellen Zweig’s Chinese works are cool, ironic, beautiful, aloof and perhaps strangely removed from the desperate breakdown of that culture in its headlong rush into the 21st century.

Ellen is basically an artist of images. They are seductive and often mysterious even when they are colloquial and appear to be merely descriptive. Except for the occasional magic of tourists walking briskly through the fog, or the fossil markings and wrinkles on the surface of small, undistinguished stones, or old boats floating down a river in the foreground of a great city, they are rarely, if ever, surprising or especially significant images. But there is a very distinctive poetry to Ellen’s camera. The pictures flow by with a cool, elegant musicality carrying with them an undertow of an unexplained sadness. It may be the sadness of the outsider or as Ellen herself said about her camera’s so-called objectivity, in a conversation with the filmmaker Leslie Thornton, “there is a kind of ecstasy of looking and an embarrassment (You’re not supposed to be looking).” At the core of Ellen’s art is the bemused irony that despite her attraction and affection for China she can never really possess it. She is trapped in what is basically the paradox of an amiable globalism that can never attain to more than an imperfect fit with the object of its desire. And I suppose that that will be China’s fate as well. No matter how aggressively western she may try to be, she will always, like Ellen, be thousands of miles from home.

San Diego, California June 2006

testing the waters

Acknowledgements

Ellen Zweig

Thanks to the following for appearing in the work: Dwight Frizzell who learned to sing Judge Bao Qian Yi who practiced reciting Shakespeare on the street in Shanghai Tom Zummer who lent his mouth and hands Sheng Shiyi who is teaching me to speak Chinese Thanks to: Ron MacLeod for sound design Leslie Thornton for shooting several sequences Weidong Liu for the idiom Tom Zummer, Toni Dove, Janet Zweig, Su-chen Hung

for advice on everything from image quality to metaphor

To everyone at the CUE Art Foundation for help and encouragement To Eleanor Antin for believing in my work

Dimensions variable to site: 5-8 DVDs with DVD players, amps and stereo speakers 3-6 projection screens and projectors, 2 monitors 2 CDs with CD players, amps and stereo speakers all images are video stills from Testing the Waters

Biography

Ellen Zweig

Biography

Eleanor Antin

Ellen Zweig is an artist who works with video, audio, installation and performance. Her most recent

An artist working for many years in photography, video, film, performance, installation, drawing

work is the video series, HEAP. As an installation, HEAP (Shanghai version), was at DDM Ware-

and writing, Antin has an international reputation. She has had one-woman exhibitions at the

house, Shanghai, China, from April 8-28, 2006. The video series, HEAP, has screened at Millenium

Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; the Wadsworth Atheneum

Film Archives, New York; and at Electromediascope (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas

Museum of Art, CT, as well as a major 30-year retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of

City). Parts of the series have been shown at international film festivals including: (tongue tongue

Art, CA which published a book Eleanor Antin by Howard Fox. Her retrospective also traveled to

stone) G. W. Leibnitz at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (world premiere, 2003), (The

Washington University in St. Louis, MO and toured the U.K. She has been in major group exhibi-

Chinese Room) John Searle at Viper Basel (world premiere, 2003.) Three sections of HEAP were

tions at the Hirschhorn Museum, Washington, DC; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles,

shown at the Thailand New Media Art Festival, 2004. (unsolved) Robert van Gulik screened at the

CA; the Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; the Sydney Biennale, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris,

Athens International Film & Video Festival, 2005. a surplus of landscape screened at the New York

among others. She is represented in major collections including The Art Institute of Chicago, IL;

Video Festival, 2005 and at Images Contre Nature International Festival of Experimental Video,

the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; the Museum of Modern Art, NY; The Jewish Museum,

Marseilles, 2006; and many others. Zweig is also working on a related series about her father. The

NY; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. As a performance artist she has appeared in

first in the series, precarious, screened at the San Francisco Art Institute International Film and

venues around the world including the Venice Biennale and the Sydney Opera House. Several of

Video Festival, 2005, as well as at the Thailand New Media Art Festival, 2005 and Images Contre

her mixed media, groundbreaking works such as 100 Boots; Carving; A Traditional Sculpture; The

Nature International Festival of Experimental, Marseilles, 2004.

Angel of Mercy; Recollections of my Life with Diaghilev; The King of Solana Beach; The Adven-

In her previous installations, Zweig has used optics to create camera obscuras,

tures of a Nurse are frequently referred to as classics of feminist postmodernism. She has written

video projection devices, and miniature projected illusions. She has also created multi-channel

four books, Being Antinova (Astro Artz); Eleanora Antinova Plays (Sun & Moon Press); 100 Boots

video installations that have toured the US. Among the solo projects are the following: She

(Running Press); The Man Without a World: a Screenplay (Green Integer, Sun & Moon Press).

Traveled for the Landscape (New Music America, Houston, 1986); A Barrel of Her Own Design

She has made nine videotapes, among them Representational Painting, 1971; The Ballerina and

(Artpark, Lewiston, New York, 1988); Such Ruins Give the Mind a Sense of Sadness (permanent

the Bum, 1973; The Little Match Girl Ballet, 1975; The Nurse and the Hijackers, 1977; and From the

installation, Exploratorium, San Francisco, 1989); The Invisible Woman… (P.S. 1 Contemporary Art

Archives of Modern Art, 1989. She has written, directed and produced narrative films, such as The

Center, New York, 1993); Botanizing on the Asphalt, (Art in General, New York, 1993); Hubert’s

Man Without a World, 1991; The Last Night of Rasputin, 1989; and video installations including

Lure, (42nd St. Art Project, Creative Time, New York, 1994); Critical Mass (jointly with Meridel

Loves of a Ballerina, 1986, and Vilna Nights, 1993. The first of her new large scale photographic

Rubinstein: Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, 1994; List Visual Arts Center,

works, The Last Days of Pompeii, premiered at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc. in NY in 2002 for

MIT, 1995; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, 1997) among others. In the 1980s,

which she won a Best Show AICA Award (International Association of Art Critics) and Roman

she toured the U.S, Europe and Australia with a series of performances, including the ones at the

Allegories opened at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc. in 2005. Other recent awards include an AICA

Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane, 1982); Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, 1984); San Francisco

Best Show award in 1999 for her Los Angeles County Museum of Art retrospective; a Guggenheim

Art Institute (San Francisco, 1984); Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (Melbourne, 1986); The

Fellowship in 1997; National Foundation for Jewish Culture Media Achievement Award in 1998;

Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, 1986); Festival de la Batie (Geneva, 1990); Whitney Museum of

and the Woman’s Caucus of the College Art Association for Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.

American Art (New York, 1991) and others. Zweig was an Artist in Residence at the Massachusetts

Antin is an Emeritus Professor of Visual Arts at the University of California at San Diego. She is

Institute of Technology, where she created a performance on the Internet in 2000.

represented by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc.

Mission Statement

CUE Art Foundation

CUE Art Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit arts organization, is dedicated

Board of Directors

to providing a comprehensive creative forum for contemporary art by

Gregory Amenoff

supporting under-recognized artists via a multi-faceted mission spanning the

Theodore S. Berger

realms of gallery exhibitions, public programming, professional development

Patricia Caesar

programs and arts-in-education. The Foundation was established in June of

Thomas G. Devine

2002 with the aim of providing educational programs for young artists and

Thomas K. Y. Hsu

aspiring art professionals in New York and from around the country. These

Brian D. Starer

programs draw on the unique community of artists, critics, and educators brought together by the Foundation’s season of exhibitions, public lectures,

Advisory Council

workshops, and its studio residency program: all are designed to be of lasting

Gregory Amenoff

practical benefit to aspiring and under-recognized artists. The entire CUE

William Corbett

identity is characterized by artistic quality, independent judgment and the

Meg Cranston

discovery of genuine talent, and provides long-term benefits both for creative

Vernon Fisher

individuals associated with CUE and the larger art marketplace. Located in

Malik Gaines

New York’s Chelsea gallery district, CUE’s 4,500 square feet of gallery,

Deborah Kass

studio and office space serves as the nexus for educational programs and

Irving Sandler

exhibitions conducted by CUE. executive Director Jeremy Adams Director of development Elaine Bowen

programs coordinator ISBN: 0-9776417-6-7

Beatrice Wolert-Weese

All artwork © Ellen Zweig

programs assistant

Catalog designed by Elizabeth Ellis

Kara Smith

Printed on TriPine paper of KyeSung Paper Group (South Korea) Cover: TriPine Art Nouveau 209gsm (78lb), Text: TriPine Silk 157gsm (106lb) Printer: Yon Art Printing (South Korea)

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