Upcoming Exhibitions

Rebecca Warren

Perhaps best-known for her brash, unfired clay sculptures of female figures, Rebecca Warren (b. 1965) has developed a body of work distinguished for its formal risk-taking and the shrewd humor with which she faces the long, male-dominated tradition of figurative sculpture. For the solo exhibition at The Renaissance Society, her first in an American museum, Warren will be presenting all new work, including roughly half a dozen floor sculptures and nine wall pieces.

The show will be presented in collaboration with The Art Institute of Chicago, where three new site-specific bronzes will be installed on the Bluhm Family Terrace above the new Renzo Piano-designed Modern Wing. Placed in the open air against the dramatic Chicago skyline, Warren’s sculptures morph and abstract the human form, providing an organic counterpoint to the linearity of the cityscape.

Gerard Byrne

A Thing is a Hole in a Thing it is Not

The Renaissance Society, Lismore Castle Arts, C. Waterford, Ireland, and the 2010 Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, in collaboration with Van Abbemuseum, co-commissioned Irish artist Gerard Byrne (b. 1969) to create this new multi-channel film installation titled A Thing is a Hole in a Thing it is Not. As this title--a quotation of Carl Andre's famous dictum--suggests, Byrne's attention here will be on the historical reception of Minimalism as a movement, a history that is resonant within the context of The Society's early engagement with that movement's artists.

The Age of Aquarius

This show will address the lingering cultural fallout of the 1960s, in particular its effect on a generation of younger artists and their engagement with the period as it becomes more somberly remote. Fifteen years ago Newt Gingrich said the 1960s would come to be seen as a "temporary aberration" within the overall trajectory of U.S. history. Even if he is right, the '60s remains a period with whose ideals we still reckon no matter how misguided, dark, or farcical they have since proven. This exhibition will include video and installation works by Luke Fowler (b. 1978), Amy Grappell (b. 1965).

William J. O'Brien

Chicago artist William J. O’Brien (b.1975) works in multiple mediums, including ceramic, textiles, wood, and metal, along with works on paper. His corpus reflects a playful attention to the expected properties of each material, and a subsequent subversion of their ordinary uses. This exhibition will include a mixture of new, previously unseen, and older ceramic works.