Space as Medium

November 20, 2009 - February 28, 2010

Space as Medium is a group exhibition focusing on the development of artistic practices that directly address the walls, floors and ceilings of the physical spaces in which they are installed. The exhibition is conceived as an inter-generational dialogue among artists who helped develop these practices in the 1960s and the younger artists whom they have influenced and inspired, either directly or indirectly. Space as Medium combines extant objects with commissioned, site-specific installations and includes works by William Anastasi, Lynda Benglis, Tom Burr, Ryan Gander, Katharina Grosse, Wade Guyton, Nicolas Lobo and Rachel Whiteread.

Space as Medium is structured around three loosely demarcated points of reference: New York in the 1960s and 70s, one of several primary points of origin for space-based practice; the 1980s and 90s, during which some of the assumptions of the previous generation were processed and built upon; and more recent, complex re-engagements with the earlier strategies, which collapse categories of critique and homage, formalism and “criticality,” viewer relation and scale, anti-aesthetics and visual exhilaration. The exhibition presents an ideal opportunity to assess current bodies of radically space-contingent work by artists such as Katharina Grosse in art-historical context, while shedding new insight onto the less chartered theoretical waters that they have opened up in recent years. Space as Medium is curated by Miami Art Museum Associate Curator René Morales. The exhibition is organized by Miami Art Museum and funded by MAM’s Annual Exhibition Fund. Additional support for this exhibition has been provided by Viceroy Miami Hotels Resorts and Residences.

Photo Credit: Space as Medium, Miami Art Museum, Photo by Meg Pukel; William Anastasi, Untitled, 1966. One gallon industrial high-gloss enamel, poured. The Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, 1989.