Arena- Rita McBride
Arena (1997), an enormous structure that emulates large public spaces designed to hold crowds, where concerts, political rallies, and large-scale events are temporarily held. Arena is a kind of huge amphitheatre that is brought inside the museum space and transforms the conventional relationships between subject and object. Its very presence changes a space intended for visual contemplation into another that is ready to host actions, while its circularity favors encounters among spectators, who become both perceiving subjects and objects of perception. In conjunction with the artist, the institution that displays this special work programs a series of activities (lectures, screenings, performances) that are usually excluded from the exhibition space. As such, the neutrality required for the rituals of contemplation of the artistic object disappears and the artwork becomes an animate object with a life of its own.
read more
Arena (1997), an enormous structure that emulates large public spaces designed to hold crowds, where concerts, political rallies, and large-scale events are temporarily held. Arena is a kind of huge amphitheatre that is brought inside the museum space and transforms the conventional relationships between subject and object. Its very presence changes a space intended for visual contemplation into another that is ready to host actions, while its circularity favors encounters among spectators, who become both perceiving subjects and objects of perception. In conjunction with the artist, the institution that displays this special work programs a series of activities (lectures, screenings, performances) that are usually excluded from the exhibition space. As such, the neutrality required for the rituals of contemplation of the artistic object disappears and the artwork becomes an animate object with a life of its own.
read more