Fine Art PR Publicity Announcements News and Information
Fine Art PR Publicity Announcements News and Information

Pat Steir Creates Panoramic Installation for Cincinnati at the Contemporary Arts Center

Cincinnati, OH – Noted artist Pat Steir will transform a vast trapezoidal gallery within the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) into an immersive environment of her famous drips. The work will be on view from May 22 through August 22, 2010.

In Water & Stone, Steir treats the over 1800 square-foot gallery space at the CAC, located in the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art designed by Zaha Hadid, as if it were a canvas, painting the surfaces and creating one of her signature waterfalls directly on a 24-ft. tall wall at the end of the gallery.

Raphaela Platow, the Alice & Harris Weston Director and Chief Curator of the CAC, explains “This site specific installation is an experimental reflection of sorts, one that synthesizes many of the forms of expression Pat has pioneered in a career extending more than four decades.” The project allows Steir, one of the nation’s most esteemed artists a celebrated and established figure in the art world, to interact with a singular architectural space for the first time. The result is envisioned by the artist to be a dark, mysterious work of complex interplay between wall paintings, conventionally hung paintings, paintings conceived as three-dimensional objects, and diaphanous scrim paintings.

Immediately upon entering the installation, visitors encounter a wall-sized, concavely curved panoramic waterfall painting which leads them into a windowless space of blue and black. Amid the darkness, light animates three diaphanous scrims of waterfalls. On other surfaces the shifting light will reveal shapes and marks such as rectangles, moons, frets and scratches. “I hope this becomes confusing,” says Steir, “as visitors see paintings appear and disappear into a perpetual dark, it will be like a nocturnal underwater experience.”

Wind & Stone is the culmination of a long line of inquiry by Steir. Among the predecessors to this project are works such as Panorama at the Newcastle Biennale, Newcastle, England (1990); her installation at Documenta IX, Kassel, Germany (1992); and Likity Split at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1998).

About the Artist
Born Iris Patricia Sukoneck in 1940 in Newark, New Jersey, Pat Steir has been a working artist for over 40 years. Her work has been the subject of many museum exhibitions, including solo shows at The Brooklyn Museum (1984) and The New Museum (1987), which traveled in the U.S. and Europe. Among the public collections holding artwork by Steir are The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Museum of Modern Art (New York), National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), The Tate (London) and Whitney Museum of American Art (New York).

As well as achieving notoriety for installation work, painting, and drawing, Steir is an important printmaker—working with Crown Point Press and Pace Editions. Crown Point Press began publishing her prints in 1977 and a print retrospective at the Cabinet des Estampes in Geneva traveled to The Tate in 1990.

In 1990 Steir received an honorary Ph.D. from Pratt Institute. In 2001 she received an Alumni Achievement Award from Boston University and in 2008 she received one from Pratt Institute. Steir has taught art at Parsons School of Design, Princeton University, Hunter College and at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). She currently lives and works in New York and Amsterdam.

Press Inquiries: Molly O’Toole [email protected] 513.345.8404
LeAnne Anklan [email protected] 513.345.8421

About the Contemporary Arts Center
Founded in November 1939 as the Modern Art Society by three visionary women in Cincinnati, the Contemporary Arts Center was one of the first institutions in the U.S. dedicated to exhibiting the art of our time. In May 2003, the CAC relocated to its first free-standing home, the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, designed by Zaha Hadid. Throughout its distinguished history, the CAC has earned a reputation for stimulating thought and introducing new ideas by presenting the work of diverse artists from around the world, including hundreds of now-famous artists such as Laurie Anderson, Jasper Johns, Louise Nevelson, Nam June Paik, I.M. Pei, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Kara Walker and Andy Warhol. The CAC focuses on new developments in painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, performance art and new media, presenting six to 12 exhibitions and over 20 performances annually. The CAC receives ongoing support from: Fine Arts Fund; Ohio Arts Council; The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. /U.S. Bank Foundation, City of Cincinnati Arts Grant Recipient; The National Endowment for the Arts; the generous contributions and grants of individuals, corporations and other foundations; CAC memberships, facility rentals, special events and sales from the CAC Store. UnMuseum programs and artists are sponsored in part by the Charles H. Dater Foundation, Josephine Schell Russell Charitable Trust, PNC Bank, Trustee, and The Ladislas and Vilma Segoe Foundation.

Contemporary Arts Center is located in the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art
44 East 6th Street, Cincinnati, Ohio / 513.345.8400

Gallery hours:
Monday: 10am–9pm (FREE after 5pm)
Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday-Friday: 10am–6pm
Saturday & Sunday: 11am–6pm

CAC Store hours:
Store is open during normal museum hours and Tuesday: 1am-6pm

www.contemporaryartscenter.org