October 4, 2020 – May 6, 2021
The Art Gallery, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa (UHM), Art Building
October 6, 12:00-1:15 pm: Talk with Ruba Katrib, curator, MoMA/PS1 and curator of Carissa Rodriguez: The Maid (Zoom link; Meeting ID: 944 4839 4918; Passcode: 605167)
April 1 12:00-1:15 pm: Talk with Carissa Rodriguez, artist, on her exhibition Carissa Rodriguez: The Maid (Zoom link, Meeting ID: 641 863 5286; Passcode: Manoa2021). This talk is co-presented by The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art where Rodriguez is the Spring 2021 Henry Wolf Chair in photography. It is made possible by the Student Activity and Program Fee Board and the John Young Museum.
The Art Gallery, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa (UHM), is proud to present Carissa Rodriguez: The Maid. Carissa Rodriguez‘s solo exhibition features a major video work entitled The Maid (2018). The exhibition will be on view from October 4, 2020 – May 6, 2021.
Taking its title from a 1913 short story by Robert Walser about a devoted maid searching for a lost child who has been put under her care, The Maid follows a selection of American artist Sherrie Levine’s Newborn sculptures throughout the course of a day in various residences, private and institutional, from New York to Los Angeles. Famous for her works of appropriation, Levine based the forms of her sculptures on Newborn, Constantin Brancusi’s iconic sculptures of 1915 and 1920. Filmed in the homes of collectors in Los Angeles and New York, Levine’s two works and the specific worlds they inhabit ultimately reference multiple environments and histories. The Maid thus becomes a recursive study of art in context.
Two other works in the exhibition-the short video The Girls (1997-2018), and five framed photographs, All the Best Memories Are Hers (2018)-draw attention to the ethical and legal boundaries of technologies of reproduction. Through these works together, Rodriguez poses a meditation on reproduction, collecting, and labor that points to an uneasy future. This exhibition, which premiered at Sculpture Center in January, 2018, was subsequently presented at the MIT Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA (2018), the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2019), and The Art Institute of Chicago (2020).
Carissa Rodriguez (US, born 1970 in New York) lives and works in New York City. Her solo exhibition The Maid has been shown at the Art Institute of Chicago (2020); the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2019); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (2018); and SculptureCenter, New York (2018). Recent solo exhibitions include CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco (2016); Front Desk Apparatus, New York (2013); Karma International, Zürich (2012). Rodriguez participated in the Whitney Biennial of 2014 and 2019 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. She attended the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2001 and was a core member of Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York from 2004 to 2015. She is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Art, Film and Visual Studies at Harvard University.
Carissa Rodriguez: The Maid is organized by SculptureCenter, New York, and curated by Ruba Katrib, Curator, MoMA/PS1 and former curator at SculptureCenter, New York. The Hawai’i presentation is organized by Maika Pollack, director and chief curator, John Young Museum of Art and University Galleries and assistant professor of curatorial studies and art history, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.
The video commission, The Maid, is underwritten by Valeria Napoleone XX SculptureCenter.
University of Hawai’i at Mānoa’s Department of Art + Art History and College of Arts + Humanities; Hawai’i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, through appropriations from the Legislature of the State of Hawai’i and by the National Endowment for the Arts; Student Activity and Program Fee Board, UHM; Halekulani Hotel– Hospitality Sponsor for the Arts at UH Mānoa; and anonymous donors.
Mon. – Thurs. 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., Sun. 12:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Closed Saturdays; Election Day, Nov. 3; Veterans Day, Nov. 11 and Thanksgiving, Nov. 26 & 27; spring holidays Feb. 15, Mar. 26, Apr. 2, Apr. 4; and spring break Mar. 15 -19.
Free admission.
Parking fees may apply during weekdays. Parking is free on Sundays