Artists Space

U.S. Projects: Bruce Charlesworth and Tad Savinar

April 10 – May 15, 1982

Bruce Charlesworth's installation, Lost Dance Steps serves as the context/location for a story in which Charlesworth appears on videotape as an escape artist in crisis. His role changes as he reconstructs for an absent visitor/narrator various fictionalized episodes. In addition to video, the photographic serials that line the gallery provide a detailed account of character and plot. The rhythm between the still and moving images as well as the theatrical setting presented in the video story, "draw in, control and release the viewer's attention. Although Lost Dance Steps is site-specific, it expands upon themes Charlesworth has developed in previous installations.

Tad Savinar's installation, Rock which consists of a large painted sheetrock construction (8 x 12 x 8 feet) suggests the conventional shape of a diamond. His intention in the construction of Rock is to make an object whose physicality and meaning is familiar and easily recognizable as a symbol of wealth. In Rock, Savinar represents an art object and a diamond, both tangible commodities that he regards as having "value REGARDLESS of national or language barriers". By creating a monument of wealth and power, Savinar comments on the institutions, such as museums and world trade markets, whose control of the value of objects inevitably effect our personal value systems. In pointing out the process, Savinar acknowledges Rock as a"product of this financial fever".

Bruce Charlesworth lives in Minneapolis and has exhibited his work at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and "Film in the Cities", St Paul, Minnesota. Hs photo narratives are in the collection of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Polaroid Corporation. Lost Dance Steps is the first work of this type shown in New York City. Earlier photo-narrative installations shown in New York include Eddie Glove and Special Comminiques, which were featured in the Persons show at the New Museum.

Tad Savinar is an artist from Portland, Oregon. He is showing in New York City for the first time. He has had one-man exhibitions at the Portland Center for the Visual Arts, Portland Arts Museum and/or Seattle, Washington.

The U.S. Projects is a series of ten individual installations. Ten art professionals around the country have each selected one artist from their region. Bruce Charlesworth lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was chosen by Lisa Lyons. Tad Savinar lives in Portland, Oregon, and was chosen by Mary Beebe.

The U.S. Projects series has been funded by the Museums Programs of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Artists Space regular exhibition program is sponsored by the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, the Samuel Rubin Foundation, and the Walter Foundation. Corporate sponsors are: American Can Company, The Art Dealers Association, AT&T Long Lines, Consolidated Edison, Exxon Corporation, I.M. Pei & Partners, and Phillip Morris Incorporated.