The Sorcerer’s Burden: Contemporary Art and the Anthropological Turn
September 13 - January 19,2019
"On view at the museum’s two locations, the Jones Center in downtown Austin (700 Congress Avenue) and the Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria on the shores of Lake Austin (3809 West 35th Street), the exhibition will consist of new commissions, existing works, and site-specific iterations of previous works by eleven international contemporary artists working in a variety of media. The exhibition is made possible, in part, by generous grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Sorcerer’s Burden: Contemporary Art and the Anthropological Turn will occupy both museum sites and is loosely organized around four themes: Things (works focusing on material culture and appropriation and taking its title from critical theorist’s Bill Brown’s 2001 “Thing” theory); Ritual, Magic, Myth (works exploring history and culture through the lens of storytelling, ritual, and fantasy); The Archaeology of Culture (works “mining” culture through people, architecture, and the fragmentation of modernism); and Farther Afield (works revolving around fieldwork, community, and performance, and a nod to writer and critic Lucy R. Lippard’s 2010 text of the same name)." More information can be found here.
Opening: September 13, 2019 | 6-9 pm
Members' Preview & Opening Reception
Conversation: November 14, 2019 | 7-8 pm
Curators in Conversation: The Sorcerer's Burden: Contemporary Art and the Anthropological Turn, with Chief Curator Heather Pesanti and curator Robert Storr, at The Contemporary Austin – Jones Center
Conversation: December 17, 2019 | 7-8 pm
Dario Robleto and Marina Peterson in Conversation
Conversation: January 14, 2020 | 7-8 pm
Nathan Mabry and David Odo in Conversation at The Contemporary Austin – Jones Center
