LITERARY DEVICES Exhibition Opens Today at Fisher Landau Center for Art

Fisher Landau Center for Art is excited to announce "LITERARY DEVICES", an exhibition dedicated to the methods & strategies displayed by visual artists using language to convey their message. The exhibition will be on view today, October 11, 2014 through January 25, 2015. Curated by Nicholas Arbatsky.

Highlighting Emily Fisher Landau's passion for collecting text based artwork, the exhibition includes over 100 pieces by 40 artists spanning all three floors of the Center. Direct references to literary classics are found in Tim Rollins & KOS tribute to Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick" (1851), Shirin Neshat's "Tooba Series" (2002) inspired by Shahrnoush Parsipour's novel "Women without Men."(1990) & separate reflections on Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1891) by Yinka Shonibare & Allen Ruppersberg.

Other techniques employ conceptual approaches such as Glenn Ligon's fragmented literature found in the "Dreambook" (1990), "Narrative" (1993) & "Runaway" (1993) series, Steve Wolfe's precise sculptural reenactments of the novels that shaped his intellectual practice & Carl Andre's operatic ode to de Kooning/Pollack/Gorky, visualized as a typed poem on carbon paper. Richard Artschwager imagines "Diderot's Last Resort" (1992) as a monumental encyclopedia displayed atop a religious pedestal, while Saint Clair Cemin fashions "Homage to Sartre" (1989) in three dimensions, using steel & bronze to evoke the hand of Giacometti. Simon Linke's painted reproduction of an Artforum advertisement for "Galleri Pieroni-Roma" (1988) is displayed next to Ed Ruscha's "Christ Candle" (1987), referencing the iconic square format that Ruscha designed for Artforum's magazine layout in the 1960's.

The Center's lobby houses an installation made from a selection of Rodney Graham's historical bookworks such as "Freud Supplement (170a-170d)" & "Nouvelles Impressions d'Afrique" (1989), displayed on Donald Judd's black walnut "Desk Set" (1985) accompanied by Jenny Holzer's boxed "Survival Series" (1991).

Additional artists include:
Ricci Albenda, Donald Baechler, John Baldessari,, Nayland Blake, Gregory Crewdson, Nancy Dwyer, Barbara Ess, Robert Helm, Adam Fuss, Peter Hujar, Neil Jenney, Alfredo Jaar, Jasper Johns, Cletus Johnson & Robert Creely, Anselm Kiefer, Mike Kelley, Win Knowlton, Barbara Kruger, Robert Motherwell, Richard Pettibone, Richard Prince, Mark Tansey, Kerry Tribe & Cy Twombly.

The exhibition will be augmented by a series of activities including book readings, film screenings and
improv events. For more information contact: fisherlandau@earthlink.net.

Housed in a former parachute harness factory, Fisher Landau Center for Art was designed by Max Gordon in association with Bill Katz and is devoted to the exhibition and study of the contemporary art collection of Emily Fisher Landau. The core of the 1500 work collection spans 1960 to the present and contains key works by artists who have shaped the most significant art of the last 50 years. Emily Fisher Landau's insightful selection of works by contemporary masters, many of which she purchased from the artists at the outset of their careers, is reflected in exhibitions presented at Fisher Landau Center for Art. Her ongoing commitment to emerging artists extends to the annual presentation of the Columbia University School of Visual Arts MFA Thesis Exhibition. In May of 2010, Mrs. Landau made a historic pledge of 419 artworks by nearly 100 artists to the Whitney Museum of American Art, with a curated selection touring the United States through the Fall of 2014.

Pictured: (left to right) Richard Artschwager, Diderot's Last Resort, 1992. Formica on wood, 54-1⁄2 x 54 x 43 inches. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Promised gift of Emily Fisher Landau P.2010.22; Yinka Shonibare, Dorian Gray, 2001. Eleven black-and-white resin prints, one digital lambda print, overall: 130 x 175 inches; Saint Clair Cemin, Homage to Sartre, 1989. Bronze & steel, 46-1⁄2 x 46-1⁄2 x 31 inches.