The Nasher Sculpture Center announces three exhibitions for fall 2015, featuring approximately 20 works spanning the career of the influential Italian Arte Povera artist, Giuseppe Penone; an immersive and evolving social installation by LA-based artist and Italian-native, Piero Golia; and a medley of objects related to Hollywood and pop-culture by Los Angeles-native, Alex Israel.
“This fall, the Nasher offers an unprecedented variety of exhibitions, from the meditative, process-rich work of the influential Italian artist Giuseppe Penone to the participatory and socially-activated space of Piero Golia’s Chalet Dallas to the pop culture-infused objects of Alex Israel,” says Director Jeremy Strick. “These shows promise to shift how we engage with the space of the Nasher, with the natural world, and with each other in ways that are surprising and profound.”
The fall exhibition schedule runs from September 19, 2015 to February 7, 2016.
Giuseppe Penone: Being the River, Repeating the Forest
September 19, 2015 – January 10, 2016
Italian artist Giuseppe Penone has played an integral role in the development of art over the past five decades. From his conceptual and performative works of the 1960s and 70s to the large-scale sculptural installations of the past ten years, Penone has explored intimate, sensate, and metaphysical connections with nature. Working in a stunning variety of materials—including clay, wood, stone, metal, plaster, resin, acacia thorns—the artist makes palpable and present the analogous processes of nature and art: carving large trees along their growth patterns to reveal the sapling contained within; elaborating the interior space of his closed hand into a large-scale sculpture that both contains his hand and enlarges the space it contains; rendering the swirling mists of his breath in the cold in tactile clay forms that contain the impression of his body. The exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center will feature a selection of work in a variety of materials highlighting the development of Penone’s ideas over the course of his career.
Piero Golia: Chalet Dallas
October 3, 2015 - February 7, 2016
In collaboration with architect Edwin Chan, artist Piero Golia has designed a physical space that will completely transform the Nasher’s corner gallery into a luxurious salon comprised of fine materials such as white oak wood furniture and chandeliers, Venetian blue plastered walls, cork wood floors and works of art by Pierre Huyghe, Mark Grotjahn, and Jeff Wall. Golia’s intention is to create an intimate gathering spot for influential and creative minds to meet and interact in a relaxed and beautiful environment. The artist also seeks to provide an entertaining and unpredictable structure to organized gatherings. During the daytime it will be a space that museum visitors can walk into, see, and experience, but during certain evenings it will have a different life as an artists’ salon in the tradition of Gertrude Stein’s Paris apartment.
Sightings: Alex Israel
October 24, 2015 – January 31, 2016
The work of Alex Israel deals in the images and cultural eccentricities of his native Los Angeles. From his sunglass company Freeway Eyewear to his YouTube talk show called As it LAys, wherein he interviews famous and not-so-famous Hollywood personalities, Israel is always plumbing the surface of the iconic pop culture of LA to better understand its global influence. For his Sightings exhibition at the Nasher, Israel will combine new sculptural objects made in the vernacular vocabulary of Hollywood movies with objects from the Nasher Collection to make quasi-narrative installations within the gallery.