ICA Miami welcomes artist Rita Ackermann (b. 1968, Budapest, Hungary) to ICA Speaks at Paradise Plaza in the Miami Design District.
The opposing impulses of creation and destruction mark the touchstone of New York-based artist Rita Ackermann’s practice, which continues to evolve and manifest itself in the shift from representation to abstraction.
Ackermann’s compositions occupy a space between the figurative and the abstract, where human forms simultaneously disappear and re-emerge. In a series titled Chalkboard Paintings, large-scale compositions on canvas were primed with chalkboard paint, on which washes of white chalk and green and blue pigments were applied. These Abstract Expressionist-like works are reminiscent of actual chalkboards in a classroom, covered with unintentional erasures and marks, yet they have been conceptually executed by multiple deletions of figurative drawings and landscapes. By way of these gestures, the revenant outline of the erased drawings often emerges into the foreground. The final picture is a record of these movements.
Ackermann’s recent solo exhibitions include: ‘Brother and Sister’, Hauser & Wirth Zürich (2019); ‘Movements as Monuments’, La Triennale di Milano, Italy (2018); ‘Turning Air Blue’, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, England (2017); ‘KLINE RAPE’, Hauser & Wirth New York, 22nd Street, NY (2016); ‘The Aesthetic of Disappearance’, Malmö Konsthall, Malmo, Sweden (2016); ‘Chalkboard Paintings’, Hauser & Wirth Zürich, Switzerland (2015); ‘MEDITATION ON VIOLENCE-HAIR WASH’, Sammlung Friedrichshof, Burgenland, Austria and Sammlung Friedrichshof Stadtraum, Vi-enna, Austria (2014); ‘Negative Muscle’, Hauser & Wirth New York, 69th Street, NY (2013); ‘Fire by Days’, Hauser & Wirth London, Piccadilly (2012); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami FL (2012); ‘Bakos’, Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary (2011); and ‘Rita Ackermann and Harmony Korine: ShadowFux’, Swiss Institute, New York NY (2010).
