Art & Art History
The Tiny Ventriloquist
With endearing wit, Chicago-based, Canadian-born Steve Reinke makes work in a mock confessional mode about sex, death, and whatever comes in between. This exhibition premieres a new suite of videos, The Tiny Ventriloquist, commissioned by Gallery 400, as well as works in other media including drawing and needlepoint. New and recent collaborative videos are also featured alongside solo works by the following collaborators: Dani Leventhal, John Marriott, Jessie Mott, and James Richards. The exhibition will be accompanied by the forthcoming publication of Reinke ’s book, The Shimmering Beast.
Related:
MEDIA COVERAGE
Kuennen, Joel. “Hey There!” artslant.com, Nov. 8, 2010.
Shedd, Jeremy Stephen. “A Bit of This and a Little of That: Steve Reinke at Gallery 400.” fNewsMagazine (Chicago), Dec. 12, 2010.
Westin, Monica. “Steve Reinke/Gallery 400.” newcity.com, Nov. 22, 2010.
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
The Shimming Beast
Steve Reinke
Coach House Press, 2011
180 pp., 7 1/2 x 9 in., with color reproductions
This catalogue can be purchased for $20.00 plus shipping by calling Gallery 400
at 312 996 6114.
ARTIST’S WRITING
Steve Reinke
I had a dream last night. I was in a room with Joy Behar, and she had wrapped a dog in aluminum foil, and the dog couldn’t get out. It was trying to get out, it was walking into things, I was afraid it was going to hurt itself. But then it got loose and it bit Joy, and Joy shrugged and said, “Well, comedy is dangerous.”
And when I woke I checked my email and I had a Google alert. It linked to a review of Vivienne Dick at Artists Space, and says one of her works has a tone “situated between Steve Reinke’s lazy confessions and Su Friedrich’s more formally precise autobiographical films.” And I thought, hey, its great to be mentioned alongside Su Friedrich, but really my work is also formally precise. Whatever is going on on top, there’s a precise machine at work below, and this machine is digging little grooves, and these grooves slowly join together and become the conduits by which all meaning is drained from the world.
–from Reinke’s Great Blood Sacrifice
A humourist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practices dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so humour is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific.
–Henri Bergson, from Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic
If I say I dreamt these images and then found them in the archive, it is because I already had the images in my head, but not as memories. Memory and archive are fundamentally opposed, antagonistic. The affront of the archive is the assumption that it exists to redress memory’s supposed flaws: its ephemeral nature, corporeal ties, fleeting subjectivities, gaps, mistakes, vested interests. The archive is not a repository of cultural memory, but of dreams, a bank of dream material. The work of history is not memory work but dream work.
Both memory and archive embrace death, but from contrary positions. The archive is a mausoleum that pretends to be a vast garden. Memory is an irradiated zoo in which the various animals are mutating extravagantly and dying slowly.
–from Reinke’s Not Torn (Asunder from the Very Start)
Three Act Play
Act One. The voice forgets who is speaking.
Act Two. The voice forgets its speaker.
Act Three. The voice leaves its speaker behind.
–from Reinke’s Three Act Play
****
Steve Reinke, Steve Reinke: The Tiny Ventriloquist, November, 2010.
Excerpts of Steve Reinke’s writing were distributed in the gallery during the run of the exhibition.
EXHIBITION CHECKLIST
Steve Reinke
Beethoven –> Stockhausen, 2010
Print mounted on Dibond
Birds, 2010
Drawing on found print
Boy/Analysis, 2009
Print
Bruce Nauman, 2009
Pigmented gel medium on Mylar
Guernica, 2005
Found photograph, pigmented gel medium on Mylar
Needlework, 2009–10
Sign, 2010
Neon
Various Drawings, 2009–10
Ink on paper
Video Program – Steve Reinke
screened every hour, on the hour
Great Blood Sacrifice, 2010
Video, 4:00 min.
Artist / Entropy / Foam / Worm, 2010
Video, 6:01 min.
Not Torn (Asunder from the Very Start), 2010
Video, 6:35 min.
Commissioned by SAW Video (Ottawa) as part of “Public Domain,” with the Canada Council Media Arts Commissioning Program and the cooperation of the National Library and Archives, Canada
Beaver Skull Magick, 2010
Video, 16:14 min.
Footage courtesy Chris Naka and the National Library and Archives, Canada. Commissioned by Impakt through their artist-in-residence program, supported by the City of Utrecht and the Mondriaan Foundation
Cartoon for those who have a certain fondness for ideas, but are tired of thinking, 2010
Video, 22:00 min.
Commissioned by Impakt through their artist-in-residence program, supported by the City of Utrecht and the Mondriaan Foundation
Achterberg Conversion Matrices, 2010
Video, 24:10 min.
Commissioned by Impakt through their artist-in-residence program, supported by the City of Utrecht and the Mondriaan Foundation
Stockhausen Intro, 2010
Video, 30:41 min.
My Name is Karlheinz Stockhausen, 2010
Video, 32:08 min.
Voice: Vera Frenkel
Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, 2010
Video, 38:27 min.
Director: James Richards, Editor: Steve Reinke
Painter, 2010
Video, 43:48 min.
Living, Loving, Learning, 2010
Video, 48:06 min.
Boy/Analysis: An Abridgement of Melanie Klein’s “Narrative of a Child Analysis”, 2009
Video, 48:36 min.
Three Act Play, 2010
Video, 54:02 min.
Painter (Reprise), 2010
Video, 54:36 min.
Steve Reinke and James Richards
Disambiguation, 2009
Video, 45:00 min.
Dani Leventhal
Untitled, 2006
Pencil and beaver fur on paper
Untitled, 2006
Ink, photographs, and pressure-sensitive tape on paper
Dani Leventhal and Steve Reinke
Picnic, 2006
Video, 4:00 min.
Music at Night, 2009
Video, 5:00 min.
John Marriott
Critical Care, 2009
Video
Vomit Star, 2010
Fake vomit, armature
John Marriott and Steve Reinke
Vomit Star, 2010
Video, 5:00 min.
Jessie Mott
Coyote 1, 2010
Gouache and watercolor on paper
Coyote 2, 2010
Gouache and watercolor on paper
Mouthy Serpent, 2010
Gouache and ink on paper
Wolf, 2010
Gouache and ink on paper
Jessie Mott and Steve Reinke
Everybody, 2009
Video, 4:00 min.
Blood & Cinnamon, 2010
Video, 5:00 min.
PRESS RELEASE
Steve Reinke
The Tiny Ventriloquist
Gallery 400
Chicago, Illinois
November 2–December 18, 2011
Opening Reception: Wednesday, November 3, 2011, 5-8 pm
With endearing wit, Chicago-based, Canadian-born Steve Reinke makes work in a mock confessional mode about sex, death, and whatever comes in between. This exhibition premieres a new suite of videos, The Tiny Ventriloquist, commissioned by Gallery 400, as well as works in various other media: drawing, needlepoint, etc. New and recent collaborative videos are also featured alongside solo works by the collaborators Dani Leventhal, John Marriott, Jessie Mott, and James Richards. The exhibition is accompanied by the upcoming publication of Reinke ’s book The Shimmering Beast.
Events:
Tuesday, November 2, 5 pm Lecture by John Marriott
Tuesday, November 9, 6 pm Lecture by Molly Zuckerman-Hartung
Thursday, November 11, 5 pm Lecture by Cauleen Smith
Tuesday, November 16, 5 pm Lecture by Nicholas Frank
Thursday, November 18, 5 pm Lecture by Steve Reinke
Wednesday, December 1, 7 pm Film and video screening curated by Steve Reinke
Steve Reinke is an artist and writer best known for his work in video. His work is in many collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and the National Gallery, Ottawa; and has screened at many festivals including Sundance, Rotterdam, Oberhausen and the New York Video Festival. In 2006 he received the Bell Canada Video Award. Coach House Press published a book of Reinke ’s scripts, Everybody Loves Nothing, in 2004. He is currently an associate professor of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University.
Further information:
http://www.myrectumisnotagrave.com/
http://blog.musicisplaying.com/
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Steve Reinke (born 1963) is an artist and writer best known for his work in video. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and the National Gallery, Ottawa; among other institutions. His work has been screened at major festivals including Sundance, Rotterdam, Oberhausen, and the New York Video Festival. In 2006 he received the Bell Canada Video Award. Coach House Press published a book of Reinke ’s scripts, Everybody Loves Nothing: Video 1996-2004, in 2004. He is currently an associate professor of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University.
PRINT COLLATERAL
Postcard: The Tiny Ventriloquist
Poster: The Tiny Ventriloquist – Events
EXHIBITION SUPPORT
The Tiny Ventriloquist is supported by Unnamed Future Space, Chicago; Impakt Foundation/City of Utrecht/Mondriaan Foundation; SAW Video, Ottawa; Canada Council Media Arts Commissioning Program; National Library and Archives Canada; Coach House Books, Toronto; Birch Libralato, Toronto; WhiteWalls, Chicago; Weinberg College/Art Theory & Practice, Northwestern University; the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the College of Architecture and the Arts, University of Illinois at Chicago; and a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.