The ramp at the ICA, an installation space that has daunted any number of out-of-town big-name wunderkinds from Arturo Herrera (he was the first) to Amy Sillman (she was the most recent), will get the treatment from local photographer Zoe Strauss (here’s a link to one of our many doting posts on Zoe that links to an interview by Roberta in the Weekly (image, Strauss in her studio).
strauss, zoe
Strauss, whose photos of the seamy side of the street have recently won her a well-deserved Pew Fellowship in the Arts 2005, will have at the ramp April 22 to July 30, 2006. Here’s how the ICA described her work:
[She] captures images of the sites and people she encounters in her neighborhood and travels. Prostitutes, urban youth, the elderly, street signs and building facades are all subjects for her camerawork. Like Robert Frank or Diane Arbus, Strauss captures the mundane and freakish and exposes beauty in the gritty city. Twice a year, Strauss takes her work back to the streets by staging exhibitions beneath freeway overpasses. Everyone is invited to participate in the viewing and acquisition of her works, which are produced inexpensively as unlimited editions using the computer. This will be Strauss’s first museum exhibition.
The only other local artist who has handled the ramp is Virgil Marti (he took the space right over).
Two other ramp projects are also on the agenda–one by Ingrid Calame, just before Strauss, from Jan. 21 to March 26, and coming up in September, Fortuyn/O’Brien, one of several architecture/design-related exhibitions in the 2005/2006 ICA schedule.
As for the next main gallery show Sept. 10, it will be “Rodney Graham: A Little Thought,” the only East Coast venue for a survey of Graham’s work organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario (Graham’s a Canadian), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Vancouver Art Gallery. I am soooo looking forward to some work that uses humor.
