Guggenheim Exhibition Explores Language and Translation through Video, Film, and New Media

Features Recent Time-Based Works by Eleven Artists Including New Acquisitions of Works by Patty Chang, Omer Fast, Sharon Hayes, and Sharif Waked

Exhibition: The Deutsche Bank Series at the Guggenheim:
Found in Translation
Venue: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York
Location: Annex Levels 2, 4, 5 and 7
Dates: February 11–May 1, 2011
Preview: Thursday, February 10, 2011, 10 am–1 pm


NEW YORK, NY – —The Deutsche Bank Series at the Guggenheim: Found in Translation brings together eleven works by eleven artists that look to translation as both a model and a metaphor to critically comment on the past and to produce richly imagined possibilities for the present. Drawn from private loans and from the Guggenheim’s extensive collection of video, film, and new media, the exhibition focuses on artists who have come of age professionally within the past fifteen years, and includes four recent acquisitions that will be shown at the museum for the first time.

Organized by Nat Trotman, Associate Curator, Found in Translation, the third exhibition in the Deutsche Bank Series at the Guggenheim, will be on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, from February 11 through May 1, 2011, and will travel to Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, in early 2012.

This exhibition is made possible by Deutsche Bank. The Leadership Committee for Found in Translation is gratefully acknowledged.

For the artists whose work is presented in Found in Translation, converting a text from one language to another exposes a discursive field in which the terms of identity—class, race, religion, sexuality—are negotiated, and meaning is generated. An apparently straightforward linguistic task therefore becomes a microcosm for the interaction between cultures, laden with power relations but also open to new aesthetic possibilities.

Delving equally into history and fantasy, the works in the exhibition investigate diverse political and social contexts; language continues throughout to provide the crucial link between the cultures and temporalities they explore. Because language is experienced in real time, Found in Translation concentrates on the time-based mediums of video, film, and 35 mm slide installation, which also allow artists to create immersive environments for their conceptual investigations. Acts of reading and speaking predominate: Patty Chang, Keren Cytter, and Lisa Oppenheim create cinematic reinterpretations of texts that feature or have been transformed by literal translations. Paul Chan, Brendan Fernandes, Sharon Hayes, Carlos Motta, Jenny Perlin, and Sharif Waked look to political history, reperforming and documenting written material from the past to approach issues of identity, protest, privacy, and free speech in the present. Omer Fast and Steve McQueen expand on these temporal displacements, using spoken language to disorient and reposition basic assumptions about contemporary society. Together, these artists highlight ways in which translation can illuminate the complex historical and political processes that govern life in a globalized world.

Public programs offered in conjunction with The Deutsche Bank Series at the Guggenheim: Found in Translation include the following events:

Elaine Terner Cooper Education Fund
Conversations with Contemporary Artists
A series of talks by established and emerging artists whose works are currently on view in Found in Translation. Following the program, guests are invited to enjoy a private exhibition viewing and reception. Tickets are $10, $7 for members, and free for students.

Omer Fast
Tuesday, April 5, 6:30 pm

Sharon Hayes
Wednesday, April 20, 6:30 pm

Sharif Waked
Tuesday, April 26, 6:30 pm

Guided Tours
Free with museum admission. For more information, visit guggenheim.org/publicprograms.

Curator’s Eye
Guggenheim Museum curator Nat Trotman leads a tour of Found in Translation.
Friday, March 18, 2 pm

Mind’s Eye
A program for visitors who are partially sighted, blind, or deaf, through Verbal Imaging, touch, and ASL, focuses on Found in Translation. Registration required at access@guggenheim.org or 212 360 4355.
Monday, April 4, 6:30 pm

Conservator’s Eye
Guggenheim Museum conservator Joanna Phillips leads an exhibition tour focusing on how film and new media works pertain to conservation.
Friday, April 29, 2 pm

The Deutsche Bank Series at the Guggenheim
Found in Translation is the third exhibition in the Deutsche Bank Series at the Guggenheim, which is dedicated to exhibiting works of art commissioned jointly by Deutsche Bank and the Guggenheim Foundation as well as other thematic exhibitions at the Deutsche Guggenheim and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

In 1997 the Guggenheim Foundation and Deutsche Bank opened the Deutsche Guggenheim and launched a unique and ambitious program of contemporary-art commissions. This collaboration has enabled the Guggenheim Foundation to act as a catalyst for artistic production. The Deutsche Guggenheim was conceived as a partnership and consists of three main objectives: the presentation of thematic exhibitions that recognize artists who have contributed significantly to the development of art; the presentation of works from the Deutsche Bank Collection; and the commissioning of site-specific works by both emerging and established artists.

About the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
Founded in 1937, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of art, primarily of the modern and contemporary periods, through exhibitions, education programs, research initiatives, and publications. Currently the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation owns and operates the Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue in New York and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection on the Grand Canal in Venice, and provides programming and management for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. The Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin is the result of a collaboration, begun in 1997, between the Guggenheim Foundation and Deutsche Bank. In 2013, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, a 452,000-square-foot museum of modern and contemporary art designed by Frank Gehry, will open on Saadiyat Island, adjacent to the main island of Abu Dhabi city, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. More information about the foundation can be found at guggenheim.org.


VISITOR INFORMATION

Admission: Adults $18, students/seniors (65+) $15, members and children under 12 free. Admission includes an audio tour of highlights of the Guggenheim’s permanent collection, available in English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian.

Museum Hours: Sun–Wed, 10 am–5:45 pm; Fri, 10 am–5:45 pm; Sat, 10 am–7:45 pm; closed Thurs. On Saturdays, beginning at 5:45 pm, the museum hosts Pay What You Wish.