Rick Bartow: Things You Know But Cannot Explain
The Autry Museum
May 2018 — January 2019
—LA Weekly
“Thank you for your incredibly thoughtful exhibition designs. You added so many spot-on touches, elements that are both out of the ‘contemporary art’ ordinary, disarming for viewers, and additive to the context of Rick… Several folks said that you had particularly strong impact on the success of this exhibition install.” —Charles Froelick, Rick Bartow’s gallerist
The first major retrospective of Native contemporary artist Rick Bartow (Wiyot, 1946–2016), spanning forty years of work across painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. Across 5,300 square feet, the exhibition featured over 100 works tracing the arc of Bartow's practice — from his emergence in the late 1970s following his service in the Vietnam War, through his synthesis of Native American iconography, Western European artistic traditions, and deeply personal encounters with trauma, identity, and transformation. Five thematic sections guided visitors through Bartow's singular vision: an artist who occupied the space between human and animal, abstraction and realism, tradition and the contemporary.
Design: Only the art and some label copy traveled, so every case, mount, and graphic was designed and built at the Autry. Charred yakisugi cedar, placed at the entry and at each section's threshold, with a different finish per section, grounded the work in Bartow's Pacific Northwest roots and his time in Japan; charring, which is traditionally used to make the wood more resistant to fire, also spoke to his resilience. Every mark was a burn or a cut: titles CNC-carved into the char, text revealed by stripping panels to their pale underside, quotes carved into stanchion rails at hand height. Atmospheric projections of the Oregon coast and personal video interviews brought visitors into contact with the landscapes and life that shaped his practice.
Design: Only the art and some label copy traveled, so every case, mount, and graphic was designed and built at the Autry. Charred yakisugi cedar, placed at the entry and at each section's threshold, with a different finish per section, grounded the work in Bartow's Pacific Northwest roots and his time in Japan; charring, which is traditionally used to make the wood more resistant to fire, also spoke to his resilience. Every mark was a burn or a cut: titles CNC-carved into the char, text revealed by stripping panels to their pale underside, quotes carved into stanchion rails at hand height. Atmospheric projections of the Oregon coast and personal video interviews brought visitors into contact with the landscapes and life that shaped his practice.
| AC: Creative & Art
direction; Spatial, Furniture, & Graphic Design; Co-curation
Team
| Designer: Alan Konishi
| Curation: Amy Scott, Sarah Wilson
| Media + Technology Development and Fabrication: Anton Lieberman
| Studio: Autry Museum
Team
| Designer: Alan Konishi
| Curation: Amy Scott, Sarah Wilson
| Media + Technology Development and Fabrication: Anton Lieberman
| Studio: Autry Museum