Talk No.7– Conversation With Rita McBride- Artist, sculptor based in LA, USA/ Düsseldorf, Germany
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Part 1
In this part of our talk with Rita McBride, we discussed Rita’s artistic approach and how it developed, with examples of some of her known works.
We discussed what was happening in the U.S.A., specifically on the east coast / LA, from her point of view at the time of the pandemic.
We spoke about how it was to work in a cooperation: for the first-time in a double exhibition with her husband and artist Glen Rubsamen, which took place last year at Mai 36 Gallery, Zurich, and about the special atmosphere she experienced at that time.
00:00 – Introduction
01:14 – What is your general artistic approach?
05:26 – Collaborations in public space, How did it evolve & start?
*Time during the Corona Virus
09:27 – What was happening in the USA?
14:18 – Which new opportunities have been created at work due to the situation
at this time?
17:07 – A moment for sharing
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Part 2
In the 2nd part of our talk with Rita McBride, she shared what happened in the Corona time while working without seeing or experiencing real space.
Another subject was her collaboration with the German-Cypriot choreographer Alexandra Waierstall, students from the Fontys Dance Academy, where they investigated actual movement with her work National Chain 2020/Social Practices at De Pont Museum, Tilburg, Holland.
We discussed what evolved in her work at the time of Corona, such as working with lasers that started with the artwork “Portal” at Liverpool Biennial 2016 and continued afterward to Dia: Chelsea, New York city, guiding systems, digital drawings, and we got a glimpse of her upcoming exhibition at Dia: Beacon New York and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, California next year 2023.
And about her experiences teaching at this time and what evolved from it.
00:00 – Introduction
00:44 – What was the notion of space, and what evolved from it?
12:17 – How was it to teach in the time of social distance & what developed from it?
17:10 – What do you think is changing & you hope will change in the art?
21:04 – Plans for the future?
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Rita McBride
Rita McBride is an American sculptor and installation artist, professor at the Kunstakademie Duesseldorf, and served as its director from 2013- 2017
McBride lives and works between Los Alamos, California, Patria, Spain and Dusseldorf, Germany
She was born 1960 in Des Moines, Iowa, and studied at Bard College, Annandale-on Hudson New York and at the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California with Michael Asher and John Baldessari.
Her sculptures often act on a meta-level of sociological or cultural structures with reference to architecture, design, function and communication.
In her installations, which are often combined with performances, engage architectural and sociological structures.
McBride is known for her large scale public works and site-specific installations, with her wider oeuvre incorporating performance, such as Arena (1997-2022) texts, and smaller scale sculptural work.
Her major works include “Obelisk of Tutankhamun”, 2017, Cologne, “Mae West” 2011 Munich, “Artifacts (C.W.D)”, 2015, P.S. 315 Queens, New York, “Particulates” (2017), Dia: Chelsea, New York.
McBride is the editor and co-author of a series of collaborative novels entitled Ways, each of which engage with a particular literary subgenre.
To McBride her sculptural objects are as important as the processes from which they emerge.
Photos:
Courtesy of Danielle van Broekhoven, Alexandra Waierstall, Rita McBride
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