The Pleasures of Challenged Perspective-Rashomon at Montalvo
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For Immediate Release Contact: Leah Ammon, (408) 961-5814
March 13, 2013 [email protected]
The Pleasures of Challenged Perspective: Rashomon at Montalvo
Groundbreaking sculpture by Chuck Ginnever installed on newly-reopened Great
Lawn launches Montalvos 2013 Art on the Grounds program
SARATOGA, Calif. Montalvo Arts Center is pleased to announce
that on Wednesday, March 13, with the reopening of its newly
replanted Great Lawn, an important work of art will go on view to
the public: Rashomon, an installation created by contemporary
sculptor Chuck Ginnever. Hailed by art critic Kenneth Baker as one
of the most significant and little-celebrated innovations in late 20th
century art, Rashomon is organized by the San Jose Institute of
Contemporary Art, California, in cooperation with Gayle Maxon-
Edgerton, Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is presented to the public as part
of the 2013 season of Montalvos Art on the Grounds program.
It is an honor to bring Rashomon to Montalvo, said Executive
Director Angela McConnell. The guiding vision for Art on the
Grounds is to orchestrate thought-provoking interactions between
visitors and contemporary art in unexpected settings. With this
installation, we reaffirm our aim to be one of the Bay Areas most
engaging sculpture parks.
As part of our On the Roadprograma satellite exhibitions series developed with partner venues throughout
the Bay Areawe sought a new venue for the Rashomon exhibition after it closed at the ICA last month. I
immediately thought of Montalvo, said Cathy Kimball, Executive Director and Chief Curator at the ICA. The
setting on Montalvos Great Lawn is ideal. Ginnevers ultimate intention was for the work to be presented out
of doors.
A contemporary of artists Sir Anthony Caro, John Chamberlain, Mark di Suvero, and Eva Hesse, Chuck Ginnever
ABOVE: Rashomon, by Chuck Ginnever, is an
installation of 15 identical geometric forms.
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is a prolific and engaging artist known primarily for his large-scale abstract sculpture in welded steel and
bronze. Ginnevers work directly engages with notions of subjectivity and perception, and questions our
presuppositions about rationality and universal views. As Kenneth Baker has written, much important
sculpture of our era has concerned itself with tensions between the bodily and mental grasp of the real.
Rashomon goes to the heart of that matter.
The installation consists of 15 identical geometric forms, each three feet tall, with 15 unique sides and eight
balancing points. Fashioned out of bands of steel, the pieces have been made without right angles or parallel
lines. They are installed at Montalvo in an organically-shaped grouping.
For the viewer, the pleasure of experiencing Rashomon is a two-fold exercise in challenged perspective:
moving through the installation, shifting vantage points cause one to read forms alternately as two-
dimensional shapes with flattened planes, and three-dimensional objects in space. The viewer is furthermore
challenged to weigh the perception of the individual pieces as unique objects against the intellectual
knowledge they are exactly identical. Ginnever explains, my work sits motionless and is only activated by the
viewer moving around itonly then does it start to perform. This inspires slow and deliberate engagement
with the work, and encourages visitors to savor each new moment of uncertainty.
The title of the work is borrowed from Akira Kurosawas 1950 film of the same name in which the mutually
contradictory testimony of four eyewitnesses to a violent crime demonstrates the inherent unreliability of
subjective experience. As John Yau, writing for the web publication Hyperallergic, observed, the gap between
sight and memorybetween the object and how we remember it in the minds eyeis one of Ginnevers
preoccupations. According to Kimball, Ginnevers fascination with shifting perspectives dates back to his
childhood in San Mateo, where, as a boy, he observed the movement of fog banks across the hills. The
passage of light and shadow across the landscape impressed upon him at an early age that each individuals
perception of the world is highly personal and always in flux.
This investigation of perspective is especially relevant to Flourish: Artists Explore Wellbeing, Montalvos
programmatic theme for 2013-2014. I am delighted to welcome Rashomon on our grounds, said Kelly Sicat,
Director of Montalvos Sally and Don Lucas Artists Residency Program. I believe the experiential nature of
Ginnevers work will engage visitors with wonder as they move through the sculpture hoping to capture its
illusive form. Through that quest to identify the similarities in each perspective, a deeper understanding of the
nature of perception, reason, and imagination will be achievedvaluable tools in the pursuit for happiness and
wellbeing.
Rashomon was originally produced by the artist as a maquette for a monumental 13-foot-high series. To date,
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the artist has created three of these full-scale sculptures, which were last on view at the Cantor Arts Center at
Stanford University in 2000.
RASHOMONBY CHUCK GINNEVER
What: A perspective-bending sculpture installation
When: Wednesday, March 13 through Sunday, September 15, 2013
Where: The Great Lawn of Montalvo Arts Center, 15400 Montalvo Road, Saratoga
Admission: The grounds of the Montalvo Arts Center are open for free to the public daily from 8am-6pm M-F;
9am-5pm Sat-Sun. For more information about accessibility, please visit www.montalvoarts.org/about/visit/.
Quotes above from Kenneth Baker are taken from his article Ginnever's 'Rashomon' suite in San Jose, San
Francisco Chronicle, November 23, 2012. Quote above from John Yau is taken from his article The World
According to Charles Ginnever, Hyperallergic.com, posted January 13, 2013.
# # #
Montalvo Arts Center is an oasis of culture and nature whose mission is to create and present arts of all types,
nurture artists, and use our historic Villa, buildings, and grounds in innovative ways that engage people in the
creative process. Located in Silicon Valley's Saratoga hills, Montalvo occupies a Mediterranean-style Villa, built
in 1912 by Senator James Duval Phelan, surrounded by 175 stunning acres, including the campus of our
international Lucas Artists Residency Program. Senator Phelan bequeathed the villa and grounds to the people
of California for the encouragement of art, music, literature and architecture, a mandate that Montalvo has
carried forward ever since its founding. For more information about Montalvo Arts Center, call (408) 961-5800
or visit www.montalvoarts.org.
The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is an energetic art space located in downtown San Josededicated to making contemporary art accessible and exciting to audiences of all ages and backgrounds.
The ICA has long been committed to presenting exhibitions that include visually compelling and conceptually
challenging contemporary art, as well as a variety of educational programs intended to help our audiences
reflect upon these works. Exhibitions are presented in three galleries and the space is activated by opening
receptions, First Friday gallery walks, programming in the front windows, panel discussions, printmaking
workshops in the on-site Print Center, brown bag lunches and impromptu conversations in the galleries.
Founded in 1980, the ICA is a member-supported, non-profit organization. For more information, please visit
www.sjica.org.
Chuck Ginnever was born in San Mateo, California, in 1931. After traveling and studying photography and
sculpture in Europe and California in the early 1950s, Ginnever moved to New York City and completed his
MFA at Cornell University in 1959. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe and
is part of numerous important private and public collections including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture
Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Iris and B. Gerald
Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University; Runnymeade Sculpture Garden in Woodside, California;
Storm King Center in Mountainville, New York; and the Southern Vermont Art Center in Manchester. A
California native, Ginnever currently resides in Putney, Vermont. For further information, please visit the
artists website at www.chuckginnever.com.
Gayle Maxon-Edgerton, GME LLC, Santa Fe, New Mexico, is Exclusive Artist Agent for Chuck Ginnever.