It takes L. Frank Baum’s popular novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as its starting point to examine the relationship between art and literature, our idea of home and place, as well as the cultural and social fabric of America itself.

One of the best-known stories in American popular culture, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz marks the second in a series of exhibitions that curator Jens Hoffmann has developed which take a novel, a short story or other written narrative as a point of departure. The first in this series was Around the World in Eighty Days based on Jules Verne’s classic, presented in 2006 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the South London Gallery, both in London.

The aim of the exhibition The Wizard of Oz is to tell the story of the novel by translating the narrative of the book into the narrative of the exhibition including all its complex and multilayered meanings. The participating artists in the exhibition will either present a new piece that has been especially conceived in response to the novel, or an existing work that relates to a theme or topic outlined by the narrative. The artworks on view will encompass sculpture, film, video, drawing and photography and explore the serious and playful, notions of dislocation, home, utopia, fairies, mortality, machines, illusions, good vs. evil, witches, anxieties, family and poverty.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS: French artists Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Loris Gréaud; as well as Robert Bechtle, Jennifer Bornstein, Ulla von Brandenburg, Bruce Conner, Walker Evans, Simryn Gill, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Joseph Grigely, Carsten Höller, Evan Holloway, Glenn Ligon, Steve McQueen, Gareth Moore, Rivane Neuenschwander, Raymond Pettibon, Clare Rojas, Harry Smith, Donald Urquhart, Andy Warhol, Cerith Wyn Evans

Opening reception Tuesday, September 2
Loris Gréaud will attend the opening reception on September 2