The Dissolve
A paradigm shift in contemporary art is rare and hard to recognize at its inception, but that is what curators Sarah Lewis and Daniel Belasco did in The Dissolve, SITE SANTA FE’s Eighth International Biennial. The curators presented a new sensibility in the art of our time, a mingling of up-to-the-minute technology and traditional visual arts (painting, drawing, and sculpture) with dance, music, and film. The fundamental form of this new work was animation, uniting the technological (the camera) with the handmade (drawing).
The Dissolve traced the development and reinterpretation of moving image techniques in wonderfully surprising juxtapositions. In 15,000 square feet of exhibition space, imaginatively designed by renowned architect David Adjaye, the exhibition featured historic work from the Edison Manufacturing Company and the Fleischer Studios, as well as seminal works by masters of the moving image genre – Paul Chan, William Kentridge, Raymond Pettibon, Martha Colburn, Kara Walker, and Federico Solmi. An emerging group of exciting, newer voices were showcased to bring us the most recent developments in experimental forms.
Among the many highlights of The Dissolve were two SITE SANTA FE-commissioned pieces, offering important artists in the field opportunities to push their practice in new directions.
MacArthur “Genius” Award-winner, dancer, and choreographer Bill T. Jones was commissioned to create a live performance piece for presentation at the Lensic Performing Arts Center combining dance, movement, and video. A tenth anniversary updating of Ghostcatching, a work that animated Jones’s body as three-dimensional, computerized drawings, was featured at SITE SANTA FE for the duration of the exhibition.
Exhibited Artists:
Robert Breer
Paul Chan
Martha Colburn
Thomas Demand
Brent Green
George Griffin
Ezra Johnson
Bill T. Jones & OpenEnded Group
William Kentridge
Avish Khebrehzadeh
Laleh Khorramian
Maria Lassnig
Jennifer & Kevin McCoy
Joshua Mosley
Oscar Muñoz
Jacco Olivier
Raymond Pettibon
Robert Pruitt
Christine Rebet
Mary Reid Kelley
Robin Rhode
Hiraki Sawa
Berni Searle
Cindy Sherman
Federico Solmi
Kara Walker
With historical works by:
Edison Manufacturing Company
Fleischer Studios
Lotte Reiniger
Dziga Vertov
Curators:
Sarah Lewis & Daniel Belasco
Robert Breer
Avant-garde multimedia artist Robert Breer was born in 1926 in Detroit, Michigan. Breer studied painting at Stanford University and after moving to Pa...LEARN MOREPaul Chan
From video to drawing, writing to publishing, to kinetic objects and beyond, the Hong Kong-born, New York-based artist Paul Chan has found ever-new me...LEARN MOREMartha Colburn
Born in rural Pennsylvania, Martha Colburn is an artist filmmaker based in Pasadena, California and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She travels extensivel...LEARN MOREThomas Demand
Born in Munich in 1964, Thomas Demand lives and works in Berlin. Demand studied art the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and received an MFA from G...LEARN MOREBrent Green
Brent Green is an American self-taught artist and filmmaker living and working in rural upstate New York. Green’s sculptures, films, live performances...LEARN MOREGeorge Griffin
George Griffin was born in 1943 in Atlanta, Georgia. He studied political science as an undergraduate at Dartmouth where he created a cartoon strip fo...LEARN MOREEzra Johnson
Ezra Johnson was born in 1975 in Wenatchee, Washington. He received an MFA in painting from Hunter College, New York, in 2006 after earning a BFA in p...LEARN MOREBill T. Jones & OpenEnded Group
Bill T. Jones was born in Bunnell, Florida, in 1952, and later moved to upstate New York. He began his dance training at the State University of New Y...LEARN MOREWilliam Kentridge
William Kentridge is internationally acclaimed for his drawings, films, theatre and opera productions. His method combines drawing, writing, film, per...LEARN MOREAvish Khebrehzadeh
Born in Iran, Avish Khebrehzadeh has lived in Madagascar, UK, Italy and the United States. The experience of migrating to different countries is expre...LEARN MORELaleh Khorramian
Laleh Khorramian studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI and received her BFA at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, Chic...LEARN MOREMaria Lassnig
Maria Lassnig was born in 1919 in Carinthia, Austria and passed away in 2014 in Vienna. Underappreciated for most of her life, Lassnig is now rightful...LEARN MOREJennifer & Kevin McCoy
Born in Sacramento, California in 1968, Jennifer McCoy received a BA in Theater Arts with a concentration in Film Studies from Cornell University in 1...LEARN MOREJoshua Mosley
Joshua Mosley is Professor of Fine Arts in the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his M.F.A. and B.F.A. from The...LEARN MOREOscar Muñoz
Born in Popayán, Colombia, Oscar Muñoz studied art at the Instituto Departamental de Bellas Artes in Cali in the 1970s. As an art student, he began ma...LEARN MOREJacco Olivier
Born in 1972 in Goes, the Netherlands, Jacco Olivier studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam and continues to live and work th...LEARN MORERaymond Pettibon
Raymond Pettibon was born in Tucson, Arizona, in 1957. As an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles, Pettibon studied economics bu...LEARN MORERobert Pruitt
Robert Pruitt was born in Houston, Texas, in 1975. He received his BFA from Texas Southern University and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austi...LEARN MOREChristine Rebet
Christine Rebet was born in 1971 in Lyon, France. She studied painting and scenography at the Art Academy in Venice and theater design at Central Sain...LEARN MOREMary Reid Kelley
Mary Reid Kelley combines painting, performance, and her distinctive wordplay-rich poetry in polemical, graphically stylized videos. Made in collabora...LEARN MORERobin Rhode
With his research-based and socially engaged practice, Robin Rhode engages the urban landscape to create complex, symbolically rich narratives that di...LEARN MOREHiraki Sawa
Hiraki Sawa was born in Ishikawa, Japan, in 1977 and lives and works in London. In 2003, he earned an MA in sculpture from the Slade School of Fine Ar...LEARN MOREBerni Searle
Berni Searle was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1964, where she lives and works. Searle earned an MFA from the University of Cape Town after recei...LEARN MORECindy Sherman
Since the 1970s, Cindy Sherman has mimicked many pictorial genres – the film still, fashion photography, the centerfold, and historical portrait paint...LEARN MOREFederico Solmi
Federico Solmi’s work utilizes bright colors and a satirical aesthetic to portray a dystopian vision of our present-day society. His exhibitions often...LEARN MOREKara Walker
New York-based artist Kara Walker is best known for her candid investigation of race, gender, sexuality, and violence through silhouetted figures that...LEARN MOREEdison Manufacturing Company
Owned by Thomas Edison, the Edison Manufacturing Company was America's first commercial film studio and the industry leader from 1894 to 1918. Its ear...LEARN MOREFleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios, Inc. was a pioneering American animation studio founded in 1921 by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer. The company was Walt Disney Pro...LEARN MORELotte Reiniger
Lotte Reiniger was born in 1899 in Berlin, Germany and was among the first women to achieve a successful career in animation and film direction. In he...LEARN MOREDziga Vertov
Born in 1896 in Bialystok, Poland, Dziga Vertov moved with his family to Moscow in 1915. He became an avant-garde filmmaker and cinema theorist primar...LEARN MORESarah Elizabeth Lewis
Sarah Elizabeth Lewis is an art and cultural historian and founder of the Vision and Justice initiative. Her research focuses on the intersection of v...LEARN MOREDaniel Belasco
Daniel Belasco is a curator and art historian specializing in postwar and contemporary art and design. He is Henry J. Leir Assistant Curator at The Je...LEARN MORE