The sophisticated, elegant venue of the Nasher Museum of Art is about to embrace a distinctly urban flair with its newest exhibition, Street Level.
Street Level, which opens today, features the work of Mark Bradford, William Cordova and Robin Rhodes, all of whom address issues of race, pop culture and urban environment through unique approaches to their art. The media of the three artists ranges from sculpture, to performance, to detailed drawing, to aerial imaging.
"Their work has overlapping concerns, but they all deal with it in completely different ways, in different media and process," said Trevor Schoonmaker, curator of the exhibition and curator of contemporary art at the Nasher.
The artists draw inspiration directly from their surroundings in metropolitan centers around the world, ranging from New York, Los Angeles and Miami to Lima, Peru, Berlin, Germany and Johannesburg, South Africa.
William Cordova, a Lima native who spent much of his life in Miami, said that the appeal of such environments lies partly in the concept that one is able to make connections between different places.
"In Miami, you're hyper aware of this because it's so mixed. That's how most of my works evolve, through making connections between home and here visually, and for me, psychologically," Cordova said.
The associations Cordova makes between Lima and Miami can also be made in Durham, which despite its smaller size, serves as a microcosm of larger urban centers through its diversity.
"Durham has its own identity and urban edge," Schoonmaker said, "Every place is so different but the changes that are taking place in Durham take place in every city."
Mark Bradford, a Los Angeles based artist, works a great deal from aerial photographs to create intricate designs which suggest the chaos and vibrancy of urban life. He also focuses upon the aesthetic of movement, particularly in his 2005 video recording, "Niagara."
"Niagara" depicts a middle aged, black L.A. resident as he walks down the sidewalk. Inspired by Marilyn Monroe's three-minute walk at the end of her film Niagara, Bradford chronicles the expressiveness of movement in a far different context.
Cordova works more extensively through detailed drawing, although one of his featured works in the exhibition drastically departs from this medium. "Badussy (or Machu Picchu after dark)" is a large-scale sculpture, assembled from found, recycled and constructed stereo speakers. Both Bradford and Cordova use primarily found paper and recycled or discarded materials in their work.
"'Machu Picchu' was inspired by Inca architecture and ideas of visual landscape," Cordova said. He also noted that he drew from the 1971 Who album cover Who's Next for this piece.
Robin Rhodes, a Johannesburg native, works primarily in video and photographic performance. His work emphasizes movement and process within distinctly urban settings.
His photographic series draw attention to the active and transient nature of urban life. Unlike the other artists, he is physically present in his work, though he remains anonymous by turning his back towards the camera and covering his face with hats or other garments.
Through distinctly different media, the three artists emphasize the essential role of environment in the formation of individual identity.
"When I got to Durham I found myself consistently making visual connections to New Haven or Chicago because for me, or really for anyone, you try to make connections to things that look familiar to feel more confident and more situated," Cordova said.
These connections are evident not only in the physical landscape of the environments but also in the popular iconography that the artists use.
"The pop culture that they draw from is not unique to any one city, it's really universal," said Schoonmaker.
This collaboration comes to fruition out of the artists' mutual conviction that art originates not in the classroom or the studio, but at street level. Their ideas overlap although the three artists come from varied backgrounds and have never met.
As Schoonmaker said, "The idea is to let the work have the conversation rather than the artists."
Street Level will be on display at the Nasher Museum from March 29 to July 29, 2007
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