Press Release Two New Exhibitions to Open– Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in Sports and Contemporary Magic: A Tarot Deck Art Project

The Warhol will open two new exhibitions, Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in Sports and Contemporary Magic: A Tarot Deck Art Project on May 27, 2011. Mixed Signals will be on view through August 7 while Contemporary Magic will be on view through August 15, 2011.

Mixed Signals features works by contemporary artists that probe the stereotype of the American male athlete. This particular theme has become increasingly prevalent during the past several years. The exhibition features such well-known artists as Matthew Barney, Catherine Opie, Collier Schorr, and Sam Taylor-Wood to emerging talents such as Shaun El C. Leonardo and Joe Sola. Mixed Signals demonstrates that the male athlete is a far more ambiguous figure in our collective cultural imagination than ever before. Using elements of wit, sarcasm, and controversy, these artists challenge cultural assumptions that gender is natural or innate. Instead, they emphasize the many ways masculinity is always performed, coded, and socially constructed, perhaps even more so in the spectacular, media-saturated field of sports. Rituals of male bonding typical to various sports are explored as well. Another key theme of this exhibition pertains to the materials, symbols and regalia of sports that signify the prowess of the wearer.

Additional artists featured in this exhibition are: Mark Bradford, Marcelino Gonçalves, Lyle Ashton Harris, Brian Jungen, Kurt Kauper, Kori Newkirk Paul Pfeiffer, Marco Rios, and Hank Willis Thomas.

Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in Sports is a traveling exhibition organized and circulated by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York.

Guest curator for the exhibition is Christopher Bedford. The exhibition, tour, and catalogue are made possible, in part, by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the ICI Advocates, the ICI Partners, Agnes Gund, Gerrit and Sydie Lansing, and Barbara and John Robinson.

Mixed Signals is an expanded version of Contemporary Projects 11: Hard Targets- -Masculinity and Sports, an exhibition curated by Bedford and organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Contemporary Magic: A Tarot Deck Art Project, features 78 Tarot cards created by some of today’s most dynamic artists and fashion designers including Nan Goldin, Marc Jacobs, Yayoi Kusama, Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Louboutin, Nate Lowman, Ryan McGinness, Patrick McMullan, Catherine Opie, Yoshitomo Nara, Richard Phillips, Gareth Pugh, Kenny Scharf, Aurel Schmidt, Andres Serrano, Philip Treacy, Ultra Violet, Vivienne Westwood, and Kehinde Wiley. These artists and designers address both the mythic underpinnings of each figure as well as contemporary life.

The Tarot card deck, originally developed in mid-fifteenth century Europe, typically consists of 78 cards used to play a number of card games. During the eighteenth century through today, these cards have been utilized by mystics for patron readings of spiritual pathways. Typically, Tarot decks are created by one artist and commissioned by one person. Around one hundred years ago the first Tarot deck suit cards were actually given pictorial meaning. Prior to that, all of the suit cards (the wands, the coins, the cups, the swords) were depicted only by numbers. The cards in this exhibition range in media including photography, painting and collage.

Contemporary Magic: A Tarot Deck Art Project is curated by Stacy Engman, curator, National Arts Club. This traveling show is presented and made possible by: KLÜP Foundation.

Exhibition Related Public Programming

Tailgate and Tarot Card Party & Opening Celebration
Thursday, May 26, 2011
7 – 11 p.m.
Join us for a tailgate and tarot card reading party, featuring DJ Huck Finn and DJ Pete Spynda (Pandemic), tarot card readings, scantily clad sports models, and outdoor grilling and beer. Sport your butchest jock attire. We are celebrating the opening of two new exhibitions, Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in Sports and Contemporary Magic: A Tarot Deck Art Project.

Cash bar and lite bites
Tickets $18/ $15 CMP Members & students; visit warhol.org or call 412.237.8300

IN CONJUNCTION WITH… Soccer as Never Before
July 29, 2011
8 p.m.
Soccer as Never Before [Fussball wie noch nie] (Germany, 1970) Directed by Hellmuth Costard.

On September 12, 1970, Manchester United beat Coventry 2-0. A record was preserved of the match that was [until recently – See Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s 2006 variant Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait] unique in the history of film and television. Using eight 16mm cameras, Costard followed every move, over the course of the match’s ninety minutes, of the man in the red #11 jersey, the mercurial George Best. As a reviewer commented at the time, the film’s concentration on one player actually shows “the true extent to which the sport is all about teamwork.”

Screened in conjunction with the exhibition Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in Sports.
Free with Museum admission.

IN CONJUNCTION WITH… The Velvet Underground Tarot Cards
August 5, 2011
8 p.m.
The Velvet Underground Tarot Cards (1966) 16mm film, b/w, sound, 65 minutes.

Directed by Andy Warhol. Starring John Cale, Nico, Susan Bottomly, Mary Woronov, Ingrid Superstar, Eric Emerson, John Wilcock, Lou Reed, Angelina “Pepper” Davis, Maureen Tucker, Sterling Morrison, and Danny Williams Originally shot as background footage for The Velvet Underground and Nico during their Exploding Plastic Inevitable performances, this Warhol premiere documents each member of the band having their cards read at a big apartment party. The tarot reader is continually interrupted in her readings by the chaos created by the characters around her.

Screened in conjunction with the exhibition Contemporary Magic: A Tarot Deck Art Project.
This film has been preserved through the Avant-Garde Masters program funded by The Film Foundation and administered by the National Film Preservation Fund. Tickets $10; Visit warhol.org or call 412.237.8300