PEI November Exhibitions Picks

Queens Museum of Art
Duke Riley: Those About To Die Salute You
Nov. 2, 2009-Mar. 13, 2010
This exhibition is the second installment of a multi-part residency that began with a recreation of a Romanesque bread and circus naval battle or naumachia that drew more than one thousand toga-clad spectators to a World’s Fair reflecting pool adjacent to the Museum. Riley converts the QMA’s Small Triangle Gallery into a diorama revisiting that event through the detritus of the battle - armor, elements of the coliseum backdrop, battle-scarred vessels - while multi-channel video brings the “props” to life. In addition, Riley will be unveiling Morituri Te Salutant (2009), a special edition print depicting the event in laser engraving and dry-point on Plexiglas printed on paper handmade from the same phragmites reeds that Riley harvested in Flushing Meadows Corona Park for the construction of his naval vessels.



Studio Museum Harlem
30 Seconds Off an Inch
Nov. 12, 2009-Mar. 14, 2010
Curated by Philadelphia’s old friend Naomi Beckwith, this survey will bring together contemporary artworks by a group of artists who, having absorbed the lessons of U.S.-based Conceptual art and identity politics, imbue their respective practices with a critical sense of play and irreverence adopted from Fluxus, Arte Povera, Gutai and Neoconcretism, among other international movements. 30 Seconds takes the singular practices and conceptual methods of black artists active on the West Coast in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a starting point—work that inspired a bodily engagement in conceptual practice. It aims to show how this group of artists engages with the body and race in clever, subtle and astute ways.

The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
Ktzysztof Wodiczko: The Veterans Project
Nov. 4, 2009 - March 28, 2010
Wodiczko's immersive new installation explores the chaos and confusion of war. For three decades, Polish artist Krzysztof Wodiczko has addressed timely political, social, and psychological issues in his artwork, creating over 80 large-scale public projections around the world. In these works, he transforms the stories, voices, and gestures of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances by projecting them onto public monuments and landmarks. In a new, projection-based work for the ICA, Wodiczko focuses on veterans engaged in active combat in Iraq, as well as Iraqi civilians. In ...OUT OF HERE: The Veterans Project, the routine sounds of life are interrupted by the noise of destruction and chaos as Wodiczko’s narrative unfolds across three walls of the gallery.

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The one hundred and sixty-third floor:
Liam Gillick Curates the Collection
November 27, 2009 - January 10, 2010
Liam Gillick curates a small selection of works from the MCA's collection as a complement to his major solo survey exhibition. The collection exhibition provides an institutional and historical context for the presentation of Gillick's own work while bringing an unexpected approach to presenting the collection into play. The exhibition reflects his fascination with the role of the collection within the museum, especially in the way that artists whose careers have developed less prominently than others are still represented in such a major institution's holdings and the circumstances involved in each case.