Roxy Paine/Second Nature is a mid-career survey exhibition which focuses on two distinct yet interrelated bodies of Paine’s work: monumental artmaking machines and naturalistic, botanical environments. These two types of work illustrate a reversal between the artist, whose repetitive processes are machine-like, and machines, which are programmed to emulate human artmaking. In both bodies of work, Paine subverts the viewer’s expectations and raises questions about perceptions of creativity. On the one hand, he builds machines that produce objects that one would expect to be made by hand; on the other, he makes art that appears to have been created by nature.

Paine’s computer-driven machines of sleek steel — programmed by the artist to create sculpture, paintings and ink drawings — challenge our notion of the role and importance of the artist’s hand in the making of a work of art. Ironically, the products of these machines are rich in gesture, nuance and playfulness — characteristics linked more closely to the human hand than mechanical production. In contrast to the “automated” work, installations made by Paine with his own hands include fields of mushrooms, plots of poison ivy, a weed-laden lawn, and a crop of poppies. Modeled and cast from actual botanical specimens, Paine’s tableaux of nature are as metaphorically charged as they are scientifically precise. Through his work, Paine allows us to explore a dynamic place where technology converges with nature and science.

Publication

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue that includes an introduction by Joseph D. Ketner, an interview with the artist by Lynn M. Herbert, and an essay on the artist’s work by Gregory Volk, New York art critic. Also included are color reproductions of all exhibited work and documentation of the artist’s career. The catalogue is distributed by D.A.P. (Distributed Art Publishers, New York).

The exhibition catalogue was supported by The Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston.

Exhibition Tour

The Roxy Paine/Second Nature exhibition tour will culminate at SITE Santa Fe after presentations at The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham Massachusetts (April 25 — July 14, 2002), and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (October 19, 2002 — January 12, 2003).

Thank you!

Roxy Paine/Second Nature is organized by the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, and curated by Lynn M. Herbert, Senior Curator, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and Joseph D. Ketner, Director, Rose Art Museum.

Roxy Paine/Second Nature has been made possible by Sandra and Gerald Fineberg, and contributors to the Contemporary Arts Museum's Major Exhibition Fund: Major Patron Fayez Sarofim & Co.; Patrons Eddie and Chinhui Allen, Mr. and Mrs. A.L. Ballard, Mr. and Mrs. I.H. Kempner III, Ms. Louisa Stude Sarofim, The Susan Vaughan Foundation, and Mr. and Mrs. Michael Zilkha; Benefactors Robert J. Card, M.D./Karol Kreymer, George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation, Max and Isabell Smith Herzstein, Rob and Louise Jamail, Stephen and Ellen Susman; Donors Eddie and Chinhui Allen, Anderson, Baker & Botts L.L.P., Mr. James A. Elkins, Jr., KPMG LLP, Ransom and Isabel Lummis, Lester Marks, Karen and Eric Pulaski, Mr. and Mrs. David Saperstein, Jeff Shankman, Shell Oil Company Foundation, Leigh and Reggie Smith, and Mr. and Mrs. Wallace S. Wilson.