The Henry Art Gallery at the U Washington Shows Carel Balth's "Videowatercolors"

Written by Kananda Hickman Thursday, 13 October 2011 01:08

Seattle, Washington.- The Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington is pleased to show "Videowatercolors: Carel Balth Among His Contemporaries", on view from October 15th through January 22nd 2012. Dutch artist Carel Balth is one of a steadily growing group of artists exploring the intersections between photography, painting, and new media. In his most recent series Videowatercolors (started in 2001 and still ongoing), Balth combines on watercolor paper or canvas two or more nearly identical moments from a digital video recording, thereby drawing analogies between the constant flow of pixels and the fluidity of watercolor. Ostensibly simple, the subtle differences between the images trace complex shifts in time, movement, rhythm, orientation, light, and color, blending into a multifaceted ensemble and reflecting on essential conditions of perception, imaging, and imagination.

This exhibition will place Balth’s oeuvre of four decades in the context of a group of his contemporaries from the Henry’s collection, among them Gerhard Richter, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Luisa Lambri. Carel Balth (born November 25, 1939, Rotterdam) is a Dutch artist and curator. His work is characterised by the innovative use of new media, where a synthesis of light, motion and space occupies a central position and where new means of perception are investigated. Balth uses a wide array of tools to get to the core of human perception and consistently utilises unconventional means and materials, from vinyl to Plexiglas to deliberately pixilated images. Important influences in his work are Mondriaan and Lucio Fontana. "Videowatercolors: Carel Balth Among His Contemporaries" is curated by Marek Wieczorek, University of Washington Associate Professor of Art History with generous support from the Mondriaan Foundation.

The Henry Art Gallery engages diverse audiences in the powerful experience of artistic invention and serves as a catalyst for the creation of new work that inspires and challenges. Exhibitions, collections, and public programs stimulate research and teaching at the University of Washington, provide a creative wellspring for artists, students, and educators, and reveal a record of modern artistic inquiry from the advent of photography in the mid-19th century to the multidisciplinary art and design of the 21st century. Founded in 1927 when business leader Horace C. Henry donated funds and a collection of 19th- and early 20th-century paintings to the University of Washington for creation of the facility, the Henry Art Gallery was the first public art museum in the state of Washington. The museum’s major renovation and expansion, completed in April 1997, quadrupled the museum’s size – from 10,000 square feet to over 40,000 square feet. Increased size allowed for the addition of a 154-seat auditorium, a multimedia gallery, a café, and an outdoor court. We also gained improved facilities for art handling, art storage, and collections research. An architectural collage of glass, textured stainless steel and cast stone, designed by Charles Gwathmey, complements the original red-brick, collegiate-Gothic structure designed by Carl Gould in the 1920s. The Henry’s James Turrell Skyspace, Light Reign, was unveiled to the public in July of 2003. Combining architecture, sculpture, and atmosphere, the work is not only a spectacular addition to the museum’s permanent collection, but it is also an important part of the building’s architecture. The Henry's collection includes over 20,000 objects. The collection includes strong holdings in photography, both historical and contemporary, due to the partial gift and purchase of the Joseph and Elaine Monsen collection. In 1982 the Henry inherited a sizable collection from the University of Washington's former Costume and Textile Study Center. The Henry has made their collections available for research or general public interest by providing in-house and online public access though the Reed Collection Study Center, new online catalog, and in-house Digital Information Gallery (DIG). These resources allow students and the general public to more fully explore collections for personal or professional research. Though resources online offer general information, DIG provides access to images and data for over 24,000 objects in the collection and can help make better use of the Reed Collection Study Center. Objects in the collection can be accessed on-site, by reservation only, through the Reed Collection Study Center or academic classes, adult study groups, and researchers. Visit the museum's website at ... http://henryart.org

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