September 03, 2009

Gallery exhibition explores how artists engage broadcast media

Broadcast is an exhibition that explores the ways in which artists since the late 1960s have engaged, critiqued, and inserted themselves into official channels of broadcast television and radio. Read more.

An exhibition exploring how artists have intervened in broadcast media opens at the Ronna and Eric Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art at Lewis & Clark on September 8.

Broadcast explores the ways in which artists since the late 1960s have engaged, critiqued, and inserted themselves into official channels of broadcast television and radio. The exhibition features 13 works in video, sound, photography, and installation by an international group of artists.

At times, the works in Broadcast are hostile, as in Chris Burden’s infamous 1972 hostage-taking of a TV-host at knifepoint; at other times, an artist’s engagement with broadcasting involves the critical reuse of previously broadcasted material, such as Dara Birnbaum’s use of archival media coverage from the 1977 kidnapping of the German industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer by the Baader Meinhoff group. In still other instances, the artist encourages visitors to get involved, such as Gregory Green’s pirate FM radio-station installation, initiated in the basement of his New York gallery in 1995.

“Gregory Green’s installation is one of the most exciting things about this exhibition,” said Linda Tesner, director of the Hoffman Gallery. “From his live pirate radio station, visitors to the Hoffman Gallery are invited to DJ, do talk radio, or otherwise ‘perform.’ Visitors can bring their own music or other audio-based media to broadcast live from the Hoffman Gallery.”

Green will broadcast from his installation throughout the exhibition opening, and he will offer an artist’s talk on campus on September 8.

Broadcast is the first exhibition the Hoffman Gallery has presented to coincide with the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s Time Based Art Festival (TBA), a celebration of contemporary performance. Learn more about TBA online.

“Another ‘first’ for the Hoffman Gallery is that there will be a cell-phone audio tour available to visitors,” Tesner said. “A local phone number will be posted in the gallery so that visitors can dial the number and hear the curator of the exhibition, Irene Hofmann, discuss individual works.”

Broadcast opens with a reception on September 8 at 5 p.m. and will run through December 13. The Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art is open Tuesday through Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The show is free and open to the public; parking is free on weekends. For more information, please visit the gallery’s website

Broadcast is a traveling exhibition co-organized by the Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, and iCI (independent Curators International), New York; circulated by iCI. The exhibition and tour are made possible, in part, with support from the iCI Exhibition Partners.