Jessica Stockholder
Relational Aesthetics
The Contemporary Austin
Jones Center
700 Congress Avenue, Austin, TX 78701
September 15, 2018 - January 13, 2019
This exhibition of the work of the Chicago-based artist Jessica Stockholder (American-Canadian, born 1959 in Seattle, Washington, and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia) spans both of The Contemporary Austin’s sites, with an indoor exhibition on the first floor of the downtown Jones Center on Congress Avenue and a new outdoor sculpture commission, Save on select landscape & outdoor lighting: Song to mind uncouples, 2018, at the entryway to Laguna Gloria.
Bringing painting into three-dimensional space, Stockholder blends an interest in site-specificity with color, form, and abstraction to yield meaning. Everyday objects become building materials alongside the surrounding architecture and environment. As the artist’s first solo presentation in Texas in over a decade, Jessica Stockholder: Relational Aesthetics includes a vibrant painted architectural installation, or “situation,” that doubles as a viewing platform and pedestal, newly created for the exhibition. A selection of new and recent sculptures, some of which incorporate discarded electronic elements, as well as a group of Stockholder’s Assists—hybrid assemblages that require an interchangeable, non-architectural support in order to stand up—are also on view.
Stockholder has invited the renowned First Nations sculptor, painter, and printmaker Robert Davidson (Haida, born 1946 in Hydaburg, Prince of Wales-Outer Ketchikan division, Alaska) to exhibit a selection of works within the Jones Center installation. Davidson’s Haida name is Guud San Glans, which means Eagle of the Dawn. He currently lives and works in White Rock near Vancouver and Massett in Haida Gwaii.