TRI-ANNUALE
(PART 2): Amy Adler curates Joni Mitchell Wednesday
1 December through Thursday 23 December 1999
Guest curator, artist
Amy Adler, collaborated with artist/musician Joni Mitchell to create
an exhibition of Mitchell's paintings for the second exhibition
in our year-long, three-part series.
Many of us have seen
the paintings of Joni Mitchell. Rather, to be more accurate, many
of us are familiar with the graphic images that cover Mitchell's
albums and CD's. Guest curator Amy Adler addressed Tri-Annuale (Part
2) as an opportunity to exhibit these images, which exist for most
of us as widely distributed reproductions, and place them as unique
objects within the context of a gallery.
Unlike replicated museum
works which also have popular/commercial destinations, Mitchell's
works have not been attached to a point of origination. This presentation
sought to recontextualize and bring form to Mitchell's work, and
to create a situation for questioning our recollection and understanding
of a very public image when we are presented a posteriori
with the very private object it mimics.
Mitchell's compositions
utilize intensive, saturated color and a deliberateness of line
which translate a complex relationship of gesture, music, humor,
history, and a profound love of painting. This exhibition presented
a collection of twelve rarely shown paintings, with an emphasis
on portraiture and landscape. The selections, made from a catalogue
of over a hundred pieces, function as a descriptive profile for
a body of work made in the 1990s.