Rita McBride

Rita McBride: Arena Seatings, 1999, installation view Kunsthaus Glarus, photo: Gunnar Meier

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Arena Seating, 1999

Since the eighties, the American artist Rita McBride(b. 1960) has been working with the qualities that industrial design, minimalist sculpture, and modernistarchitecture take on in public space. Her primary interest lies in the processes triggered by such designed structures, which more or less unconsciously control us. Her Arena Seatings are mobile structures that take on the form of bleachers and are on display at the Kunsthaus Glarus, where they will function as usable sculptures and form the backdrop for the Triennial‘s interdisciplinary program of events. With this complex of works, McBride has developed a constantly evolving form of collaboration between artist, institution, and audience. The platform operates as a point of intersection between art and the everyday, the Kunsthaus and the Klöntal valley, Glarus and the world while, at the same time, taking into account the performative strategies of the nineties and their developments to date. Over the course of the summer, the Blind Dates—as the artist has titled the events—facilitate an ongoing program between the Kunsthaus and the Klöntal valley.