ART IN THE ANCHORAGE '96

Celebrating our 13th year under the bridge, Creative Time returned to the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage with cool new projects by digital and media based artists and a hot new music series guaranteed to bend your mind and challenge your senses. Art In The Anchorage '96 opened on June 20th with a party featuring D.J. Spooky That Subliminal Kid, who was spinning his aural magic.

This year's visual artists included Doug Aitken collaborating with composer U-Ziq, California digital artists Rebeca Bollinger and Jim Campbell, French video artist Pierrick Sorin making a rare New York appearance as well as Shirin Neshat, Yau Ching, Penelope Umbrico, and multipolyomni.

SHIRIN NESHAT. For the last few years, Shirin Neshat has been exploring the complex condition of women in revolutionary Islamic society. Through this self-critical discourse about Islamic society and culture, Neshat brings issues related to femininity and violence, martyrdom and terrorism, submission and pride to her photographic work. She has had recent shows with Annina Nosei and has participated in both the Istanbul and Venice Biennials. She lives in New York where she is the co-director of Storefront for Art & Architecture in Soho. The piece created for the Anchorage is her first video projection work.

PIERRICK SORIN. Through short solo narratives and skits that he performs and films himself, Pierrick Sorin deals with the misadventures of daily life--from awkward behaviour and wasted actions to slips of the tongue. His work refers to silent cinema and to the slapstick comedy he enjoyed as a child, but also reflects on the psychological states of our times, affected by boredom and inertia and fed by television and media. Sorin lives in Paris and although he rarely exhibits in the United States, he has had numerous exhibitions throughout Europe and Asia.

PENELOPE UMBRICO. Although best known for her photographic works, Penelope Umbrico has begun a new exploration into the tension between machines designed to replicate human visualization, in this case cameras, and their ultimate inability to mimic human sight and perception. In the end, Umbrico sates the viewer with aesthetic stimulation and lets the game of interpretation play itself out.

MULTIPOLYOMNI. In the early 1990's this collective of multi-media artists launched weekly music events in abandoned Brooklyn spaces, directly influencing the New York "rave" scene and pioneering today's ambient happenings. multipolyomni's installation at the Anchorage is the group's first large scale visual arts piece.

DOUG AITKEN. A visual artist living in both Los Angeles and New York, Doug Aitken, has had recent shows at the 303 Gallery, New York's Kunsthalle, and the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Although Aitken works primarily with video and photography, for this exhibition he has created his first audio installation in collaboration with the well known British composer, U-Ziq. His work challenges established identification processes and encourages the viewer to question his or her relationship with mass media images.

REBECA BOLLINGER. She is a recent graduate from the San Francisco Art Institute and the first student to graduate from the school's New Genre Department. Rebeca Bollinger is currently participating in a prestigious residency at Headlands Center for Contemporary Art in Marin County, California, and will be in a show later this Fall at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Incorporating digital images, photography, video, and interactive media on CD ROM, Bollinger explores the inscription of language, communication, and gender in the virtual realm.

JIM CAMPBELL. Also based on the West Coast, Jim Campbell lives and works in San Francisco. He has recently shown his multi-media installations at the Rena Bransten Gallery, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the ISEA 95 festival and the Carpenter Center at Harvard. On immediate contact, the viewer is seduced by the essence of Campbell's pure and simple expression. Yet upon closer examination, one finds that his sculptures and video works are rather complicated, involving the creation of complex software programs.

YAU CHING. Born in Hong Kong, Yau Ching attended graduate school in the United States and later participated in the Whitney's prestigious Independent Study Program. Through her films and video installations, Ching interrogates the politics of representation, with a particular focus on issues of exile, socialization and assimilation, and cultural translation.

MUSIC IN THE ANCHORAGE '96

DIRECTIONS

The Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage is located inside the base of the Brooklyn Bridge at Cadman Plaza West at the intersection of Hicks Street and Old Fulton Street in Brooklyn. Take the 2 or 3 train to Clark Street or the A or C train to High Street. Walk down Cadman Plaza West toward the river under the BQE overpass, the Anchorage entrance is to the right.

Special Thanks to The Brooklyn Brewery, Etant Donnes, the Village Voice and Waste Management of New York.

Mail to: staff@creativetime.org