Summer at The Aldrich

The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art is gearing up for its second round of recreating the museum's environment.

For years, the institution used a graduated system of changing a few exhibits at a time, every few months, so that regular visitors would see a mix of new and older. In January, the staff began changing all the exhibits at once, breaking down walls, putting in installations and teaching staff about all the new exhibits.

Ridgefielders will be introduced to seven new exhibits on June 27, but the Aldrich is already well into its three-week changeover period.

The notable aspect about the museum environment during this changeover is the buzz of energy, communications director Pamela Ruggio said.

"It's a very artist driven place. There is a different set of challenges with each show and each piece—how to mount things, how to display them in the way that will make the most sense to viewers," she said.

Among of the most interesting of the new exhibits are the interactive works by Fritz Haeg.

Haeg will be organizing several projects under the name "Something for Everyone." He will integrate the natural landscape around the Aldrich into activity-based projects. One is "Edible Estate," an installation of herb, vegetable, grain and fruit plants along the front sidewalk of the Museum. The plants will be cared for and consumed by the museum's staff as part of the installation.

"Edible Estate" came to fruition after consultation with several garden clubs, the town's Historic District Commission and local organic farmers to determine the best species for that particular patch. Haeg has done similar projects on other perfectly manicured patches and calls them "an attack on the front lawn." The project is meant to foster pride and community.

"Haeg, an architect by trade, has created a series of projects designed to foster an awareness of contemporary culture and influence new behavior within the community while encouraging an appreciation of the world around us, curator Monica Ramirez-Montagut said. "The garden component of the exhibition specifically challenges our definitions of art and agriculture and helps to broaden our understanding of both."

The other exhibits include:

Rackstraw Downes: Under the Westside Highway

The unusual landscape painter's addition to the show is called "Under the Westside Highway at 145th Street: The North River Water Pollution Control Plant" and is in keeping with Downes' ethos of charting the place where natural landscapes meet those that are man-made.

In this particular installation, attendees will view the single completed work along with all the preliminary drawings, sketches and journal entries that helped to inspire and inform it.

KAWS: New Work

KAWS is at the forefront of the new movement of youth-oriented, mass-appeal pop art. In his first solo exhibit, visitors will see paintings and drawings as well as the products, limited-edition toys and consumer products for which he is more well-known.

He draws from street art, anime, consumer culture and childhood iconography in ways that are both accessible and completely inexplicable. Best-known for his re-interpretations of characters such as Marge Simpson and SpongeBob SquarePants, as well as $500 toys, he is widening the definitions of high art.

"The KAWS exhibition expands the definition of art an a different way, offering a retrospective look at his well-known street art, apparel, product, and graphic designs, and debuting a selection of never-before-seen paintings, sculptures, and drawings which blur the conventional boundaries between art, design, and culture," Ramirez-Montagut said.

Beryl Korot: Text/Weave/Line—Video, 1977-2010

Korot's video exhibit reflects on themes of how communication tools mirror the way we present and receive information. Korot co-founded and co-edited the groundbreaking 1970s alternative communications magazine Radical Software. She continues to make relevant work that provides commentary on today's world of communication.

The museum will present her newer work alongside some vintage footage from the '70s.

Gary Lichtenstein: 35 Years of Screenprinting

Lichtenstein, a master printer/painter and fine art publisher from Connecticut, will be lauded with a survey exhibition of his 35 years in the art/screenprinting world. The exhibition will review his own prints as well as those he produced for artists as varied as Tom Christopher, Robert Cottingham, Alex Katz, Joann Greenbaum, Robert Indiana, Ken Price, Gary Panter, Robert Fried and Gerard Hemsworth.

Lichtenstein's name became most familiar to artists and rock fans alike when he began creating posters for the iconic Fillmore theater in San Francisco in the 1970s.
The exhibit will also take viewers behind the scenes at the artist's studio with some of the equipment he uses in his craft, revealing the nature of the screenprinting process.

Gina Ruggeri: Immaterial Landscape

Ruggeri's Mylar paintings of unusual, conceptual landscapes will appear to be melting or eroding onto the museum's walls, making the gallery a part of her installation.

The lifesize images surround the viewer on all sides, taking the viewer inside of them and testing the boundary between reality and illusion.

Ruggeri's work makes no distinction between reality and fantasy and she aims to remind the viewer that "not everything is what it seems."

John Shearer: America (Continued)

Famed photojournalist John Shearer's first solo museum exhibition confronts themes of first-person immigration and of immigrants from the 1960s through the present time in communities as close to the museum as Fairfield and Westchester counties.

Shearer may be best known as one of the first African-American photographers to work for a major publication. He was named staff photographer at Look magazine in the '60s at the age of 17.

The shows end January 2. Memberships will be available at the door for the members preview on the June 25.