Nasher Sculpture Center Presents Rachel Whiteread Drawings

NASHER SCULPTURE CENTER // JAN 28

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Nasher Sculpture Center | 2001 Flora Street | Dallas | TX | 75201
nashersculpturecenter.org.

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Elliott Hundley
January 28 – April 22, 2012

Elliott Hundley, eyes that run like leaping fire, 2011.
Wood, sound board, inkjet print on Kitakata, string, pins, paper, photographs, plastic, wire,
and found embroidery 98 1/2 x 240 5/8 x 11 3/8 inches, 5 panels.

The Nasher Sculpture Center is pleased to present Elliott Hundley: The Bacchae, January 28 – April
22, 2012, featuring 11 recent medium- to large-scale wall-mounted and free-standing
constructions highlighting Elliott Hundley's investigations of the ancient Greek tragedy The
Bacchae (ca. 406 BC) by Euripides. Encompassing a variety of media including assemblage,
theatrical staging, and photography, this exhibition continues the Nasher’s exploration of
sculpture’s rich and myriad possibilities.

“Elliott Hundley has garnered accolades for his dazzling, densely-layered reliefs and free-standing
sculptures that bring together in novel fashion an extraordinary array of materials” notes Nasher
Sculpture Center director Jeremy Strick. “His exhibition offers works that are at once remarkable
technical achievements, and powerful meditations on topics both primal and contemporary.”

Hundley conceives of his imposing mixed-media collages—or billboards, as he sometimes calls
them—as theatrical landscapes that restage and animate classical texts. First orchestrating
elaborate photo shoots using sitters who play characters from Greek mythology, he interweaves
the resulting photos with a vast array of organic and found materials, from wood to textiles,
bamboo to spray paint, and a variety of found ephemera. The works become dense narratives
that take the form of monumental wall-mounted collages complemented by free-standing,
obliquely figural sculptures. Drawing on classical mythology, art history, philosophy, and drama –
subjects of long-standing interest to Hundley - he uses his idiosyncratic visual language to collapse
historical and narrative time and to examine current social and political conditions.

The Bacchae is a tale of revenge set in the ancient city of Thebes. The god Dionysus (Bacchus to
the Romans) has decided to punish its citizens when they refuse to accept his claim that he is the
son of Zeus. After bringing the women of Thebes under his influence, Dionysus leads them out of
the city and into the wilderness where they join his followers, the Bacchae, in worshipping him in
ecstatic rituals. The god then convinces the king of Thebes, Pentheus, to spy on the women, who,
upon discovering him, mistake him for a wild beast. Led by Pentheus’s own mother, Agave, the
women rip the king limb from limb, killing him in the process. Agave then returns to Thebes, carrying
her son’s head as a trophy, still unaware of her delusion. When Dionysus’s influence on her finally
loosens, she is horrified to discover that she has murdered her own son.

Organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University, Elliott Hundley: The
Bacchae will be accompanied by an ambitious book with new essays by Wexner Chief Curator
Christopher Bedford, poet Anne Carson, and noted art historian Richard Meyer addressing subjects
including Hundley's development over the last decade, his engagement with filmic traditions,
Greek tragedy as his most consistent inspiration, and the intricacies of his working process. The
catalogue will be lavishly illustrated with studio images, sketches, photographs, and process shots
unpublished to date.

Elliott Hundley received his MFA in 2005 from UCLA and currently lives in Los Angeles. He graduated
from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in printmaking in 1997 and also attended the
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2002. His drawings and collages have been shown
in group exhibitions in New York at Daniel Reich Gallery and Andrea Rosen Gallery, and in Los
Angeles at Cherry and Martin, Regen Projects, and Peres Projects. His work is found in several
important collections, including those of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.