Eleanor Antin: "What time is it?"

May 14 - June 18, 2016

Overview

Diane Rosenstein Gallery is pleased to announce Eleanor Antin: "What time is it?", a solo exhibition of sculpture by the San Diego-based artist. This exhibition will recreate two groundbreaking installations of conceptual portraiture – California Lives (1969) and Portraits Of Eight New York Women (1970) – originally presented at alternative spaces in New York City.

Eleanor Antin’s California Lives was shown at Gain Ground, Robert Newman and Naomi Dash’s space on West 80thStreet. The artist, who lived in Solana Beach with her husband, poet David Antin, and son Blaise, returned to New York with a series of portraits of both real and fictitious Californians that she assembled from consumer goods and household artifacts. A narrative text panel accompanied each assemblage.

In her essay for the announcement at Gain Ground, Amy Goldin wrote: “This is a show that takes style out of art and puts it back in the human world where it belongs.”

Portraits Of Eight New York Women was staged from November 21 – December 6, 1970 in Room 322 of Hotel Chelsea on West 23rdStreet. Here, Antin presented “consumer goods” sculptures as metaphorical portraits of eight women who were “known” players on the New York art and cultural scene at the time. The portraits included Carolee Schneeman, Yvonne Rainer, Naomi Dash, Lynn Traeger and poet Hannah Weiner.

The lavender announcement for her solo show at Hotel Chelsea included this poem:

If you were a food, what food would you be?

If you were a garment, what garment would you be?

If you were an appliance, what appliance would you be?

If you were a room, what room would you be?

If you were an illness, what illness would you be?

If you were a war, what war would you be?

Eleanor Antin: What time is it? is on view from May 14 – June 18, 2016. There is a reception for the artist on Saturday, May 14th, from 4 – 6 pm.