AISLE 5
Through January 14, 2007
Anna K. Meredith Gallery
Using readily available, commercially produced materials to create their art, the participating artists in Aisle 5 find value in commonplace objects. The artists excavate the artifacts of our time to create often laborious and obsessive, yet beautiful, works of art. The use of everyday materials that can be purchased in any grocery or hardware store represents a form of contemporary archaeology that provides an intriguing view into current art-making practices, as well as social customs and priorities. Aisle 5 places this approach to creating art objects in both historical and contemporary contexts and explores its relationship to the work of Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol, minimalist and performance art, feminist discourse and social critique and, in some cases, traditional craft and handiwork. Here, materiality is paramount, as is the joy of discovery.
Tara Donovan, Tony Feher, Tom Friedman, Shih-Chieh Huang, and Dan Steinhilber participate in the exhibition through new, site-specific installations as well as existing work.
Organized by Director Jeff Fleming, Aisle 5 is sponsored by Meredith Corporation, Substance Architecture Interiors Design, and the Weitz Corporation. Additional funding is provided by the Taipei Cultural Council. Media and promotional support are provided by The Des Moines Register and Hy-Vee.
AISLE 5 is funded by Meredith Corporation, The Weitz Company and
Substance Architecture Interiors Design
With additional support by the Taipei Cultural Council
Tour support for Aisle 5 provided by: Mid-America Group,
Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and West Bank.
Media and promotional funding for Aisle 5 provided by
The Des Moines Register and HyVee
The Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation supported the
AISLE 5 exhibition catalogue.
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Exhibition Related Programs
Exhibition Opening
October 26 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Music by Public Property
Admission $5; members free
Cash bar and refreshments
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Conversations on Art: Artists of Aisle 5
Tara Donovan, Tony Feher, Shih-Chieh Huang, and Dan Steinhilber
Wednesday, October 25
6:30 pm
Levitt Auditorium
Free admission; reservations required*
This program brings together four Aisle 5 artists; each will deliver a 15-minute presentation about his or her work and participate in a question and answer session.
Tara Donovan’s installations and sculptures are impressive feats of assemblage and patience. Known for using ordinary materials in mass quantity (up to millions of units), her work optimizes the inherent physical characteristics of her chosen medium, with the end result often achieving atmospheric effects like moving water and cloud formations.
Using what most of us consider disposable goods, Tony Feher creates commanding works of art that delight in the fact that they are what they are—a bottle proud to be a bottle in a collection of bottles. Feher’s enterprise is often described as incorporating the most poetic strains of minimalism (straightforward presentation techniques, the significance of sequence, and the importance of light), so accordingly, he was asked to create site-specific work that considers these sensitive components for Aisle 5.
Shih-Chieh Huang has an undisputable penchant for tampering with household electronic appliances and long-forgotten childhood toys. Also incorporating air, water, and viewer interactivity, Huang’s assemblages form graceful kinetic creatures that are arresting hybrids of the organic and mechanical realms.
Dan Steinhilber utilizes typically invisible consumer products for his large-scale compositions. With close attention paid to the formal elements of the materials—shape, texture, color—his meticulously engineered structures result in startling aesthetic transformations that don’t sacrifice the integrity or beauty of the original singular object.
*Reservations for this FREE lecture are required and limited.
Reservations are available exclusively through IowaTix beginning Monday, October 9, 2006. Orders are processed on a first-come, first-served basis. Order on-line at www.iowatix.com or by phone at 515.277.3727 (9 am – 5 pm, Monday – Friday). Leaving a message will not guarantee a reservation.
Reservations placed with IowaTix will be checked at the Art Center (with photo ID) the evening of the event beginning at 5:30 pm. The Art Center reserves the right to release seats for any unclaimed reservations at the start of the lecture.
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Gallery Talk
Jeff Fleming, director
Thursday, November 9, 7 pm
Free admission
Join exhibition curator and Art Center Director Jeff Fleming for an illuminating discussion of the work in the show.
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Aisle 6 – Just For Kids!
Museum Lobby
Check out this new hands-on activity for kids, created especially
for this exhibition!
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DESTINATION AISLE 5!
Aisle 5 Community Day
Fun for the whole family.
Sunday, November 19
1 – 3 pm
Free Admission
During Community Day, visitors can explore the wonders of Aisle 5. There will be fun and engaging entertainment for the whole family including music, art, and gallery activities plus an interpretive dance component choreographed by Janice Baker, teacher at Iowa State University and The Dance Place, and performed by her students.
Guided Tours
We are pleased to offer guided tours of Aisle 5 and the permanent collections. We can accommodate groups from two to 100 people. It’s a perfect activity for a family, work team, or social group.
Please schedule at least three weeks in advance. Contact Jennifer Cooley at 515.271.0328 or jcooley@desmoinesartcenter.org.
Adult Group Tours; $2 per person | $20 minimum fee | Student Tours: Free
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ALIVE 5 Film Series: Par•a•dox
Chewing gum, laundry detergent, and toothpicks are probably not the first materials that come to mind when you think about the works of art in the elegant galleries of the Des Moines Art Center. Surprise! Those are precisely the items that have been transformed into the astonishing creations that are on view in Aisle 5. Inspired by this paradoxical incidence, we are showcasing a series of films that also present intriguing contradictions. All films are held in Levitt Auditorium and open to the public.
Friday, November 3, 6:30 pm
*Shakespeare Behind Bars, 2005
Hank Rogerson, director
93 minutes, not rated
*Arts After Hours admission
($2.50 members; $5 nonmembers)
This powerful documentary follows an unlikely Shakespearean acting troupe comprised of convicted felons inside Kentucky’s Luther Luckett Correctional Complex.
Sunday, November 5, 1:30 pm
The Birds, 1963
Alfred Hitchcock, director
119 minutes, rated PG-13
Free admission
The banal nature of ordinary birds turned terrorizing predators is the focus of this Hitchcock classic and the device that gives the film its edge.
Sunday, November 12, 1:30 pm
Belle de Jour, 1967
Luis Buñuel, director
101 minutes, rated R
French with English subtitles
Free admission
Buñuel’s masterpiece of perverse erotica about a repressed housewife cum prostitute weaves together dreams and reality with an effortlessness that makes the distinctions between them seem positively bourgeois.
Sunday, December 3, 1:30 pm
Badlands, 1973
Terrence Malick, director
95 minutes, rated PG
Free admission
Based on the real-life Starkweather-Fugate killings of the 1950s, this film juxtaposes the crystalline beauty of prairie landscapes and the naïveté of its female lead with the offhand way a young couple embarks on a violent murder spree.
515.277.4405