Lehmann Maupin is pleased to announce its participation in the first edition of the Westbund Art & Design fair, with a presentation of American artist Jennifer Steinkamp’s digital animation, Judy Crook 4.
Employing 3-D computer animation and new media to create projection installations, Steinkamp explores ideas about space, motion, and the viewer’s relationship with digital imaginings of the natural world. Her digitally rendered animations simulate the movement of natural phenomenon and abstract forms, including colorful waves, trees and flowers. These are projected within architectural surroundings, resulting in immersive environments that blend awareness of the physical and ethereal, and challenge the viewer's preconceived ideas of form and space.
Named after Steinkamp’s influential professor of color theory at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Judy Crook 4 is part of an on-going series of digital animations. Each animation is of a different tree that honors a teacher who profoundly impacted the artist’s life and fostered her artistic career. In this animation, a gently swaying tree moves through the seasons, shedding its leaves and subtly changing color. Once its branches are bare, the tree begins to bud and the cycle begins again.
Animations from Steinkamp's Judy Crook series are currently on view through 2015 at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska as part of the museum's permanent collection and also will be presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, Ohio this fall.
About Jennifer Steinkamp
Arriving in Los Angeles in 1980, Steinkamp (b. 1958, Denver, Colorado) was influenced by the west coast art scene that had evolved since the 1970s into the Light and Space movement and Structuralist Cinema, in addition to the next generation of artists experimenting with art and technology. She completed her BFA and MFA from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California in 1989 and 1991 respectively, and also received an honorary PhD in 2011. Recently, Steinkamp created a large-scale animated projection on the
facade of the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, Missouri providing new perspectives on the architectural structure. Other important recent exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California (2011); Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Texas (2012 and 2014); Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2012); and the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska (2013). In 2006, a retrospective of her work opened at the San Jose Museum of Contemporary Art and travelled to the Kemper Museum in Kansas City, Missouri and Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, New York. Also in 2006, the Denver Art Museum commissioned an installation by the artist for its new Daniel Libeskind designed building. Steinkamp's work was also included in the 8th Istanbul Biennial (2003) and the 11th Cairo International Biennial (2008). Her work is included in numerous public and private collections internationally, including The Chrysler Museum of Art, Virginia; Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Malaga, Spain; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California; Istanbul Museum, Turkey; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Florida; and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas.