LOS ANGELES, CA - Contemporary art will be a major part of the J. Paul Getty Museum’s program of exhibitions this spring with the presentation of Zoopsia: New Works by Tim Hawkinson, March 6 – September 9, 2007 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Center.  Hawkinson’s newly commissioned work will be on view in a special gallery on the Terrace Level of the West Pavilion, adjacent to the Museum’s new galleries for photographs.  At the same time, the artist’s monumental Überorgan will make its West Coast debut in the Museum’s Entrance Hall.  The Zoopsia will be comprised of four interrelated objects involving zoological forms: a photographic collage Octopus, an ink wash painting Dragon, and two sculptures Bat and Leviathon. They have been installed in a single space of approximately 750 square feet.

Hawkinson frequently uses his own body as a source and subject for his works, and has been known to use diverse household and industrial materials that range from cardboard, soda cans, and duct tape to human hair and fingernails to traditionally cast bronze and lead in the making of his art. His creations defy characterization. Zoopsia marks the beginning of a new program of exhibitions at the Getty Museum focused on contemporary art and its relevance to the Museum’s collection and mission.

 

“We are tremendously excited by the opportunity to present new work by Tim Hawkinson, one of the most inventive artists of our time,” says Michael Brand, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum.  “Between the growing strengths of our photographs collection, exhibitions like Bill Viola’s The Passions in 2003, the active engagement of artists in our educational and performing arts programs, and more recently the acceptance of the late Fran and Ray Stark’s gift of modern and contemporary sculpture, the Getty Museum has already demonstrated a selective, but very creative, commitment to contemporary art.  Exhibitions like this one allow us to put our own collections in a new light and make explicit the links between historical and current artistic practice, while also providing artists like Tim Hawkinson with a unique venue in which to display their work.”

 

Zoopsia: New Works by Tim Hawkinson is curated by Peggy Fogelman, assistant director for education and interpretive programs at the J. Paul Getty Museum.  Fogelman was associate curator of sculpture at the Getty Museum from 1987 to 2000 and has wide-ranging expertise in sculpture from the Renaissance to the present.  She co-organized several sculpture exhibitions at the Getty Museum, including Rome on the Grand Tour (2001), Adriaen de Vries, Imperial Sculptor (1999-2000), and Foundry to Finish: Bronzecasting in the Studio of Adriaen de Vries (1999-2000). She was also an advisor on the development of programs for the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas and co-authored a book on Robert Graham’s Great Bronze Doors for the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles.  

In conjunction with Zoopsia: New Works by Tim Hawkinson, the Getty has installed, for the first time on the West Coast, the artist’s monumental Überorgan, a self-playing, walk-in organ, comprised of six large biomorphic balloons and 12 horns each tuned to a different note in an octave. The installation’s musical score consists of a 250-foot-long scroll of dots and dashes encoding old hymns, pop classics, and improvisational melodies.  Clear tubes channel air from a compressor to inflate the balloons and connect them one to the other.

Each installation of Überorgan is unique to the site.  At the Getty Center, the piece will be exhibited in the Museum’s Entrance Hall, transforming the space and the visitor’s first experiences.  Hawkinson will oversee the installation.

Born in San Francisco in 1960, Tim Hawkinson lives and works in Los Angeles.  He is a graduate of San Jose State University and earned his MFA at UCLA in 1989.

 

Hawkinson’s first comprehensive solo show was the 1996 exhibition Humongolous: Sculptures and Other Works by Tim Hawkinson, organized by the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, which traveled to the Akron Art Museum (1996), the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco (1996), and other venues. Hawkinson’s work has since been seen in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad, including at the Venice Biennale (1999), the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (2000), the Power Plant in Toronto (2000), the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. (2201), the Whitney Biennial in New York (2002), and the Corcoran Biennial in Washington, D.C. (2002–2003). In 2005, a large survey of Hawkinson’s work was mounted at the Whitney and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

 

Although Hawkinson intentionally leaves his work open to individual interpretation and experience, many critics perceive themes of mortality, temporality, and spirituality in Hawkinson’s art, particularly in those works which incorporate temporal and physical measuring devices and evocations of the human body.  Many of his pieces are mechanized, and their movements are sometimes keyed to musical compositions, emit sound, emulate breathing, cause the release of water, or record the passage of time.  Other works result from a reconfiguration of reality.  Regardless of which medium Hawkinson chooses, the materials and processes he uses are integrally connected to their reception and meaning.

 

The J. Paul Getty Trust is an international cultural and philanthropic institution devoted to the visual arts that features the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Foundation, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Getty Research Institute. The J. Paul Getty Trust and Getty programs serve a varied audience from two locations:  the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Getty Villa in Malibu. The Center is open Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. It is closed Monday and major holidays. Admission to the Getty Center is always free.   Additional information is available at www.getty.edu