This fall, the ASU Art Museum will host a new exhibition by well-known artist and filmmaker Brent Green titled, Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then. The project is inspired by the true story of an idiosyncratic house in Louisville, owned by hardware store clerk Leonard Wood. When his wife Mary was diagnosed with cancer, Leonard started building the house room by room, with the tragic hope that his labor would save his wife. Even after Mary’s death, Wood continued to build the house. Over the next 20 years, he strove to bring something as tangible and powerful as his love for Mary into the world.
Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then will feature Green’s version of Wood’s house, transplanted and reconstructed from the artist’s studio in rural Pennsylvania. The house, along with sculptural elements and structures, will be installed in one of the ASU Art Museum’s galleries, where it will appear to be both constricted by and bursting out of the space. Video and sound pieces will be shown inside and around the house to create an immersive environment.
Green will be in residence for three weeks at the ASU Art Museum, Aug. 16 – Sept. 3, installing the exhibition and interacting with students and school groups. Students from MetroArts High School in Phoenix, guided by Sue Chenoweth, and ASU Intermedia students, guided by Angela Ellsworth and Gregory Sale, will work closely with Green in the gallery as he installs his house, sculpture and films.
Green lives and works in a barn in Cressona, PA. His work is a regular feature at Sundance and he has performed at The Hammer Museum, The Wexner Center and The Getty Museum of Art. In 2007, Green screened three works and performed a live soundtrack at the 11th Annual ASU Art Museum Short Film and Video Festival. Recent solo shows include Site Santa Fe (2009) and the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (2008). Upcoming exhibitions and performances include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Berkeley Museum of Art, CA; Site Santa Fe Biennial; the American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore; and Diverse Works, Houston. As part of MoMA’s exhibition of Creative Capital artists (Green is a 2005 Creative Capital Grant recipient), the Museum will host a screening of several of Green’s short films followed by a live performance with members of the music group Califone and indie rock legends Fugazi.
For more information, contact Heather Lineberry, Senior Curator and Interim Associate Director of the ASU Art Museum, 480.965.5272 and heather.lineberry@asu.edu .
About the Artist: Brent Green in residence: Aug. 16 – Sept. 3, 2010
Image credit: