Blown Away
ORGANIZER Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion, University of Illinois, Champaign
DATES January 25 –March 30, 2008
DESCRIPTION Serving as the visual focus of Hollywood blockbuster films and television news stories on wars, explosions have become a part of popular culture. A healthy fascination that begins with a childhood fireworks display becomes an uncomfortable attraction to the more disturbing displays of car crashes and bomb detonations. As physical forms, explosions are simultaneously unnerving and beautiful. As subjects, they offer an extreme image through which artists can convey powerful anti-war sentiments, provide straightforward observations of an action frozen in time, or subtly render the violent in a contemplative way.
This exhibition featured work in a variety of media, each expressing an interest in explosions—from the intensity of an impending event to the sensation of the release and the reverberations of the ensuing shockwaves. Exhibition design and photographs by Rice+Lipka Architects, New York.
ARTISTS Michael Bell-Smith, Boym Partners Inc., Adam Cvijanovic, E. V. Day, Heide Fasnacht, Barnaby Furnas, Carlos Garaicoa, John Gerrard,
Penelope Gottlieb, Fabrice Gygi, Jone Kvie, Pia Lindman, Stefana McClure, Cornelia Parker, Sarah Pickering, Michael Rakowitz, Gerhard Richter,
Thomas Ruff, Charles Sandison, Eduardo Santiere, David Svensson
CATALOGUE A fully-illustrated book includes essays by curators Ginger Gregg Duggan and Judith Hoos Fox; Dave King, author of The Ha-Ha (2005);
and Anthony Leggett, 2003 Nobel Laureate in physics.
