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For Immediate Release
Contact:
Lee Ortega, Director of Marketing and Public Relations
Phone: 305.673.7530
Fax: 305.673.7062
E-mail: lortega@bassmuseum.org

MIAMI BEACH, FL - (September 15, 2006) — This exhibition is the first major survey of contemporary art made in Europe’s emerging art capital, post-Wall Berlin. Constructing New Berlin, a multi-generational survey, includes fifteen Berlin-based artists of various nationalities working in painting sculpture, photography, film installation, video-installation, sound, and performance art. The artists include Olafur Eliasson, Janet Cardiff, George Bures Miller, Swetlana Heger, Thomas Demand, Carsten Nicolai, and Frank Thiel. A number of new pieces were made specifically for this project.

Photographer Frank Thiel has documented the construction of New Berlin with monumental C-prints, which are representational, and are also carefully constructed as pictorial abstractions with conceptual references to the political machinations of the city. For the Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, who has lived in Berlin since 1995, perception itself becomes the object of inquiry. His elegant installations mechanically simulate natural events: waterfalls, ice formations, and the sun. His installation 360° Degree Expectations utilizes a lighthouse lamp to create a rolling horizon line that moves like a wave. Eliasson leaves the mechanisms of the work visible to engage viewers in his artifice, making them aware of their perceptual act. This sort of phenomenologically-engaged practice reaches a pinnacle in the work of Thomas Demand. His media-based imagery, derived alternately from banal and sensational events, is created from elaborately constructed paper models that are photographed. The reductively pure scenes combine quattrocento classicism with hyper-real simulations of densely populated public areas such as offices, escalators, and tunnels.

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s work The Berlin Files, that was created for this exhibition, is a non-linear film montage with surround sound combining dense and emotionally taut narrative fragments. Constructing New Berlin also includes works by artists less well known in the United States, such as Carsten Nicolai, who exhibited in Documenta X.

This exhibition is organized by the Phoenix Art Museum.

Bass Museum of Art
2121 Park Avenue (in Collins Park), Miami Beach, Florida 33139 T: 305.673.7530 F: 305.674.5475
www.bassmuseum.org

General Admission (on other days)
$8 adults, $6 seniors/students. Free, members & children under 6. Group discounts available.

Museum Hours and Docent Tours
Tuesday-Saturday 10 am-5 pm, Sunday 11 am-5 pm, closed Mondays and holidays. Docent tours every Saturday (except holidays), 2 pm and by appointment; free with museum admission. To schedule a tour please call 305.673.7530 x1005.

Group Tours
Guided tours are available with a discount on admission for groups of 20 or more. Reservations requests should be made two weeks in advance by calling 305.673.7530 x1005.

Bass Museum Shop
An eclectic selection of art, architecture and photography books; folk art from around the world; one-of-a-kind decorative and gift items; jewelry by local and international artisans; postcards; and educational toys. Open during museum hours.

Bass Museum Café
Available for private parties and special events year round.

Parking
Metered parking lot on site. Additional metered parking is available on perimeter streets.

The Bass Museum of Art receives both public and private general operating funding. Major support comes from the City of Miami Beach, with the support of the Mayor and Commissioners of the City of Miami Beach and Friends of the Bass Museum, Inc. This project is also supported by the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, the Florida Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts; and the City of Miami Beach, Cultural Affairs Program and Cultural Arts Council.