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Dropout: Sadie Benning, A.K. Burns, Bracha L. Ettinger, Lee Lozano, Ulrike Müller, Lee Relvas

Curated by Photi Giovanis, Site 131, Dallas

Opening: Wednesday, April 13, 6–9pm

April 13 – June 4, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131, including 3 framed drawings by Lee Lozano.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131, including A.K. Burns' fence in the center and excerpts of 3 artworks installed on the wall in the background.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 of Lee Lozano's small graphite drawing in a black frame, hung on the wall.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 which includes an excerpt of Lee Relvas' sculpture and Sadie Benning's black-and-white mixed media artwork installed on the wall.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 that depicts 3 Lee Lozano works on paper on a wall at left, and an excerpt of A.K. Burns' fence at the bottom-left.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 with A.K. Burns' fence in the foreground, and several other works installed on the wall behind it, nearly illegible.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 that include Lee Relvas' wooden figure and an almost entirely black painting by Ulrike Müller.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 that gives a wide look at the room. There are 3 large Sadie Benning white works installed on the wall at right, with A.K. Burns' fence in front of that wall at a slight angle. In the foreground at left is one of Lee Relvas' wooden sculptures, and at left in the background are 3 Lee Lozano framed works installed on a diagonal white wall.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 that includes a fence by A.K. Burns in the background at left, 2 paintings by Ulrike Müller installed around the central and right wall (on either side of the corner), and Lee Relvas wooden shoes in the foreground.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 that includes an A.K. Burns fence (Known Unknown) and a black-and-white Sadie Benning mixed-media work on the wall at right, behind the fence.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 with A.K. Burns' fence in the middle ground (Known Unknown), Lee Relvas wooden shoes in the foreground at right, and an abstract Ulrike Müller painting in the background.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 including Lee Relvas wooden shoes in the foreground and 2 paintings by Ulrike Müller installed around a corner in the background. Only on work is visible (white shape with pink and orange corners).

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 with Lee Relvas underwear on the ground, and a t-shirt leaning against the wall at right. Both items are made of plywood and depict silhouettes, appearing like a single line.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 that shows 2 Ulrike Müller paintings installed around a corner. At left is a painting on a black background with a white shape in the center; at left is a purple textured painting with a red border on the left side.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 that depicts a Lee Relvas sculpture at right (silhouette, standing) and a Sadie Benning mixed-media artwork on the wall in the background.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 that depicts a Sadie Benning mixed media work on the white wall in the background. In front of it is a Lee Relvas standing silhouette sculpture. In the foreground is a fence by A.K. Burns, swung open. In the background at left is an excerpt of another fence by Burns, and an opening in the gallery architecture that leads to another room.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 that shows 2 excerpted sculptures by Lee Relvas, one in the foreground and one in the background. There is a fence by A.K. Burns centrally located, and 2 works by Sadie Benning partially visible on the wall in the background and the wall at right.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of the installation at SITE 131 with Lee Revlas' "Lifting" sculpture in the foreground, and "Looking" in the background. In the middle ground is A.K. Burns' open fence, and there are excerpts of 2 Sadie Benning works in the background.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of 3 white Sadie Benning works in the installation at SITE 131, hung on a white wall next to one another in a row.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

A photograph of Bracha L Ettinger's work in the installation at SITE 131, which includes drawings in a vitrine and a red painting, framed, installed on the wall.

Installation view, Dropout, SITE131, Dallas, TX, 2016

Press Release

SITE131 opens Dropout on Wednesday, April 13, 2016 from 5 to 9 pm. Guest-curated by Photios Giovanis, owner-curator of New York gallery Callicoon Fine Arts, the exhibition brings to Dallas this longtime colleague of SITE131’s co-founders Joan & Seth Davidow.

Dropout is triggered by the life and work of the idiosyncratic artist Lee Lozano. After a “short but major career” (Artforum, September 2006), Lozano removed herself from the art world. Leaving New York in the early 1970s, she eventually moved to Dallas, where she died at 68 in 1999. Two important solo exhibitions—PS 1 in 2004 and an international traveling retrospective in 2006—highlighted Lozano’s dramatically fast career. Surprisingly, Lozano’s work did not appear in Dallas: this exhibition brings the artist’s works, famous to scholars, to Dallas for the first time. 

Lozano’s graphic and expressionistic painting and drawing work in Dropout sets the stage for five currently working artists form New York, Tel Aviv, and Los Angeles: Sadie Benning’s large scale wall works, A. K. Burns’ steel sculptures, Bracha L. Ettinger’s and Ulrike Müller’s oil paintings and works on paper, and Lee Revlas’ figurative sculptures. 

At the peak of her involvement in the art world, in 1970 Lee Lozano began what she considered her most difficult work called Dropout Piece. Lozano’s Dropout Piece does not exist beyond the idea. It never took form in a physical space, performance, or object. Its only record appears in the artist’s personal notebook dated April 5, 1970. The work exists, in a sense, as Lozano’s removal from the art world. Within this context, according to curator Giovanis, Dallas appears as a site of non-production, a place where art in some other unrecognizable form ("dropping out") happens. “To invert this paradox, and to investigate the relationship between center and margins, the exhibition brings works by national and international artists to Dallas that evoke, in different ways, the work Lozano made while not dropped out,” states curator Giovanis. 

Timed with preview week of the Dallas Art Fair, SITE131’s Dropout opens to the Dallas and Fair audiences and continues through June 4, 2016, at its new location on Payne Street in the Dallas Design District. Special thanks go to international gallery Hauser & Wirth, managers of Lee Lozano’s work, and to Photios Giovanis for bringing his talented curatorial vision to Texas. 

On its path to ignite interest in contemporary art and the Dallas Art Fair, Dallas’ newest nonprofit kunsthalle (hall for art), SITE131 will be open and free to the public: Thursday through Saturday 12–5 pm during the Fair at its Dallas Design District site. In following weeks, SITE131 is open Fridays and Saturdays from 12 to 5pm or by appointment. 

131 Payne Street, Dallas, Texas 75207. Email info@site131.com. SITE131.com under construction. For information, contact director | curator Joan Davidow: joan@site131.com.

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