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Combining sight and sound, Jennifer Steinkamp’s Loop installation on view at the Corcoran Gallery of Art July 15–September 30, 2005
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The Corcoran Gallery of Art announces the reinstallation of Loop, a multi-sensory visual art and music installation commissioned specifically for the Corcoran’s 46th Biennial Exhibition Media/Metaphor by internationally known media artist Jennifer Steinkamp and renowned electronic composer Jimmy Johnson. Media/Metaphor, the Corcoran’s 2000 Biennial, took as its theme the complex relationships between painting and photographic arts. At its center was Loop, a site-specific environment designed for the Corcoran’s neo-classical Rotunda. Steinkamp and Johnson’s special brand of transformative art interacted with both the building and its visitors, making the installation one of the most popular aspects of the exhibition. Now an important part of the Corcoran’s permanent collection, Loop will be on view now through the end of September 2005. Using architectural qualities of this particular room, Steinkamp and Johnson situated electronic visual and aural patterns to dematerialize the space and accentuate its details. Entering into Loop, the audience is immediately surrounded by rows of multicolored digital rope, lifting and undulating, seemingly blown from anchors at the base of the high ceiling. While in the space, visitors observe their shadows in motion on the walls and actually feel like they are part of the installation – disrupting or eliminating traditional barriers that separate audiences and art. Like three-dimensional moving abstractions, the resulting environment is interactive, immersive and even hypnotic, challenging preconceptions about the relationship between people and their environments. To create Loop, Steinkamp used a Silicon Graphics workstation, the same type of computer used by Hollywood animators, to “paint” her striking colors and shapes that now dance around the rotunda. The colors and shapes are projected onto the walls using six video projectors. Johnson then created music that it is played along with the moving projections. “Much of Loop’s wonder rests in its playful alliance between artifice and reality,” said Paul Roth, assistant curator of exhibitions. “It provokes us to consider what lies between our architectural past and technological future.” ABOUT THE ARTISTS Born in 1969 in Evanston, Illinois, Johnson studied music at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, and composition and computer music at Florida State University in Tallahassee. He has taught at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and currently lives in Seattle, Washington, where he works as a composer, producer and sound designer for film, television and new media. He has recorded music under the pseudonym Grain for the labels Astralwerks, Moonshine, Domestic, and Fragrant Music. ABOUT THE CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART Founded in 1890, the Corcoran College of Art + Design is Washington’s only 4-year college of art and design. The college currently offers a four-year Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree program; a two-year Associate of Fine Arts (AFA) degree program; Master of Arts (MA) degree programs in Interior Design and the History of Decorative Arts; and a Continuing Education program encompassing more than 250 courses and seven certificate programs for part-time adult students; as well as year-round classes designed especially for children and teens. The Corcoran Gallery of Art is located at New York Avenue and 17th Street,
NW, Washington, DC and is open Wednesdays - Sundays from 10 am - 5 pm and until
9 pm on Thursdays. The museum is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, but open on
holiday Mondays. Admission to the Corcoran is: $8.00 for adults; $6.00 for
senior citizens and U.S. military personnel; $4 for students with current ID;
and $3 for Member guests. Admission is always free for Members and children
under 12. Admission is “pay as you wish” on Thursdays after 5 pm.
For information about the museum, call (202) 639-1700.
For information about the college, call (202) 639-1800. :: View images and further details from this exhibition
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