CCS Bard Summer Exhibitions

Opening Reception: Saturday, June 14, 1:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Free transportation is available on a chartered bus that leaves from New York City for the opening reception. The bus returns to New York after the opening.

Michael Beutler, Esra Ersen, and Kirstine Roepstorff Personal Protocols and Other Preferences CCS Bard Galleries

Bik Van der Pol I’ve Got Something in My Eye CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art

Lisi Raskin Mobile Observation (Transmitting and Receiving) Station CCS Bard Audrey and Sydney Irmas Atrium

Christian Philipp Müller Hudson Valley Tastemakers Bard College Campus

Michael Beutler, Esra Ersen and Kirstine Roepstorff Personal Protocols and Other Preferences This collective exhibition brings together work by three Berlin-based artists whose practice engages intensively with situations marked by the reality of particular times and places, filtering them through distinct choices of methods and materials. There is a crafty aspect to the work which takes do-it-yourself techniques seriously as a way of questioning what is standard, whether it is man-made machines, videos filmed with a handheld camera or textile-like collages. Although the physical outcomes are radically different, all three of these artists strictly follow their own personal protocols of production.

Bik Van der Pol I’ve Got Something in My Eye Liesbeth Bik and Jos van der Pol have worked collectively since 1995 as Bik Van der Pol.The circulation of knowledge and re-use of existing and left-over spaces, forms and situations are important strategic tools in their work. Much of their work may also be described as context-sensitive and constructively critical: that is, they examine a particular context and question the functions of art, including those of art institutions. For this project, Bik Van der Pol bring together works from the Marieluise Hessel Collection, selections from the collection of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, their own works, and ephemera from the CCS Bard archive. Following Henri Bergson’s idea that perception is a function of time, the artists have allowed themselves to look at how works potentially are surrounded by different sources of knowledge and how they sometimes grow from and are feed back into these connections. Objects, once acquired for specific reasons, are in a constant flux of ch anging meaning, both in the context and dynamics of a collection (which means continuously in the company other concepts and perceptions), as well as in time. Bik Van der Pol describe the project as a process of ‘uploading with circumstantial evidence’, a method that proposes a new circle of communication between different types of 'reflections', based on premises of ambiguity. In other words: adding to the flux of changing meaning.

Lisi Raskin: Mobile Observation (Transmitting and Receiving) Station Mobile Observation (Transmitting and Receiving) Station is a new project by Lisi Raskin commissioned by the Center for Curatorial Studies as part of it's first artist-in-residence program. On April 14, 2008, Raskin departed CCS Bard in a converted cargo van for a month-long journey across the American west to visit sites of nuclear testing and development. Throughout her journey, Raskin will send art works and ephemera back to headquarters at the Center for Curatorial Studies, where they will be processed and displayed by CCS Bard graduate students in a post office/receiving station constructed specifically for the project. The entire Audrey and Sydney Irmas Atrium has been re-configured into a plywood bunker cum post office replete with satellite dish, an artwork receiving station, and an audio and video diary station, which will be updated with intermittent transmissions from the field. The installation will be on view at CCS Bard daily from April 13 - September 7, 2 008.

Christian Philipp Müller Hudson Valley Tastemakers Christian Philipp Müller’s project, Hudson Valley Tastemakers, is an earth sculpture on the grounds of Bard College that examines the specific tastes of foods resulting from the changing nature, soil and climate of the Hudson Valley and creates a “utopian test site” for new ideas and tastes of the Hudson Valley. Originally installed in 2003, this permanent installation is comprised of six ramp-planters that are filled with soil from Putnam, Dutchess, Columbia, Greene, Ulster and Orange Counties; and contains both planned and spontaneous vegetation. The length of each planter is determined by the proportionate farmland still available in the county. This summer CCS Bard will reinvigorate the project with new plantings, including Calendula Zeolights, Amaranth Burgundy and Pepper Chile Pasilla Bajio.

CCS Bard exhibitions are made possible with support from the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation, and the Patrons, Supporters and Friends of the Center for Curatorial Studies. Additional support for I’ve Got Something in My Eye provided by the Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam. Special thanks to the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.

CCS Bard Summer Exhibitions

Künstler: Michael Beutler, Esra Ersen, Kirstine Roepstorff, Bik Van der Pol, Lisi Raskin, Christian Philipp Müller