ART IN THE AUDITORIUM
Screenings every Saturday through November
Goode Crowley Theater, 1-6pm
Free Admission

This Saturday, 1 November, will mark the first installment of Ballroom Marfa’s month-long film and video series, Art in the Auditorium. Organized by the Whitechapel Gallery, London, Art in the Auditorium showcases the work of emerging film and video artists through a global collaboration between Ballroom Marfa and museums in China, Europe, Latin America and the United Kingdom.

Each of the nine participating institutions has selected an artist from their country to be included in the program; Ryan Trecartin has been chosen by Ballroom Marfa as the North American artist.

Born in Webster, TX and now based in Philadelphia, PA, Trecartin is among an emerging wave of artists who have grown up with the internet, and who are consequently making work informed by the evolution of net aesthetics, the hyperactivity of the world wide web and the proliferation of democratic broadcasting platforms like YouTube. In Trecartin’s videos, characters dress up, play up and pose up for the camera – sometimes as fictional personas, other times as themselves – as they share the minutiae of their mashed-up romantic and domestic lives. Their relationships and attitudes are deeply affected by a hyper-awareness of media; the steady slew of pop culture references and the smorgasbord of artistic forms from which his characters draw is reflective of Trecartin’s own post-media generation.

Art in the Auditorium brings Trecartin’s work together with a diverse group of artists and institutions including Lene Berg (Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo); Nathalie Djurberg (Moderna Museet, Stockholm); Leandro Erlich (Fundacion Proa, Buenos Aires); Wang Jianwei (Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing); Ali Kazma (The Institute for the Readjustment of Clocks, Istanbul); Shahryar Nashat (Kunsthaus, Zurich); Cornelia Parker (Whitechapel Gallery, London); and Diego Perrone (Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo).

Across this disparate group, many themes emerge and occasionally recur in different guises as artists explore the tensions between image and reality, the state of the environment, power relationships, media culture, human mortality, hyper-consumerism, nationalist history and idiosyncratic video and cinematic lineages.

Ballroom Marfa will screen works by two different artists every Saturday through November - with a single artist on November 8 - at the Goode Crowley Theater. Screenings begin at 1pm with the scheduled works running continuously through until 6pm.
 
Art in the Auditorium is free and open to the public, however some videos are suitable only for mature audiences. For further program details, please visit the film section of our website at: www.ballroommarfa.org or call us at 432.729.3600

Art in the Auditorium at Ballroom Marfa has been organized by Associate Curator, Alicia Ritson



This program has been made possible by the generous support of Ballroom Marfa Members



Ryan Trecartin, What's the Love Making Babies For, 2003, 20 minutes, color, sound. Courtesy of the artist and Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York.



Ballroom Marfa is a dynamic, contemporary cultural arts space that provides a lively intellectual environment where varied perspectives and issues are explored through visual arts, film, music and performance. As an advocate for the freedom of artistic expression, Ballroom Marfa's mission is to serve international, national, regional and local communities and support the work of both emerging and recognized artists working in all media.

Ballroom Marfa is particularly interested in helping artists and curators achieve projects that have significant cultural impact but would be impossible to realize in a traditional gallery or museum setting.

Ballroom Marfa is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization.

Visit www.ballroommarfa.org