Momentum In-At-Around-On Arena Dia Beacon (preliminary)

https://www.diaart.org/exhibition/exhibitions-projects/rita-mcbride-arena-momentum-exhibition

Since the mid-1980s, Rita McBride has developed a conceptual, cross-disciplinary, intermedia, and feminist approach to art-making that holds collaboration at its center. This exhibition centers on the artist’s long-standing interest in architecture, design, and sculpture as they relate to the public sphere in forms such as seating structures, movement-guiding systems, and commercial awnings. At the core of Rita McBride: Arena Momentum, on view at Dia Beacon, is Arena (1997), a lightweight, modular structure in the form of a tribune that is activated by the presence of audiences and performers alike. Alongside Arena are freestanding and wall-mounted artworks from the last two decades that reflect McBride’s long-standing interest in how public infrastructures shape ways of looking.

Arena becomes an arena when animated by people in an ongoing and open process that is punctuated by choreographed engagements. For the duration of the presentation at Dia Beacon, an expanding body of artists, performers, writers, musicians, and dancers will activate physical and virtual spaces as part of a series of engagements with Arena. The series, collectively called Momentum, is initiated by McBride with experimental performance collective discoteca flaming star and choreographer Alexandra Waierstall.

Momentum started in September 2022 and will end in spring 2025