David Bermant Foundation the past, present and future
May 7th at 1:00pm PDT // 4:00pm EDT
COLOR, LIGHT, MOTION
EPISODE 11
Ann McCoy
"Otto Peine’s Light Ballet"
COLOR, LIGHT, MOTION is an online series featuring media artists and scholars in dialogue about artworks from the Bermant Collection of media and kinetic arts. Each featured presenter will discuss selected artworks in history and context and in relation to their own work and connections. This series is produced in collaboration with Harvestworks NY and the David Bermant Foundation.
Ann McCoy is a New York-based sculptor, painter, and art critic, and Editor at Large for the Brooklyn Rail. She was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 2019. She taught art history, the in the graduate design section of the Yale School of Drama until May 2020, and the Art History Department at Barnard College from 1980 through 2000.
Ann McCoy’ work is included in the following collections: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Australia, the Roy L. Neuberger Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others. Ann McCoy has received the following awards: the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the Asian Cultural Council, the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Award, the Award in the Visual Arts, the Prix de Rome, the National Endowment for the Art, the Berliner Kunstler Program D.A.A.D..
Ann McCoy worked with Prof. C.A. Meier, Jung’s heir apparent for twenty-five years in Zurich She has studied alchemy since the early seventies in Zurich, and Rome at the Vatican Library.
Newton's Cenotaph: Night Effect
Étienne-Louis Boullée
1784
"LIGHT BALLET"- OTTO PIENE, 1959-2015
"Light Space Modulator" Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946
"Le Ballet Mecanique"- Fernand Léger, Georges Antheil, Dudley Murphy, Man Ray
SPECIAL GUESTS
Cristina Albu-Contemporary Art History, Art and Cognitive Sciences, Installation Art, Participatory Art
Ellen K. Levy-an American multimedia artist and scholar known for exploring art, science and technology interrelationships since the early 1980s.
David Familian-Artistic Director at Beall Center for Art and Technology, UC Irvine.
Foundation director Bess Rochlitzer with Executive director of Butler Institute Dr. Louis Zona visited the Butler museum to see how the collection gifted to the museum was installed. She was very pleased with the new home for these historic works!
The David Bermant Foundation: Color, Light, Motion was established in 1986 with the mission to encourage and advocate experimental visual art which draws its form, content and working materials from late twentieth-century technology. The working materials include physical sources of energy, light, and sound. The resulting artworks question and extend the boundaries of the visual arts. To learn more about The David Bermant Foundation and its collection, visit the foundation website DavidBermantFoundation.org.
The Lasso, Alejandro and Moira Sina, 1997
Thomas Wilfred- "Lumia"
Susan Hopmans feeling the NanoMandala projection on sand by Victoria Vesna at the Bermant foundation gallery.
Clavilux Junior, First Home Clavilux, Thomas Wilfred, 1930
The collection of 98 works valued at several million dollars includes pieces created by many of the pioneers of technologically based art such as Marcel Duchamp (above image), Nam June Paik, Jenny Holzer, Jean Tinguely, Pol Bury, George Rhoads, John Deandria, James Seawright, and dozens more.
ABOUTDAVID BERMANT
David Bermant was one of the most admired collectors of avant-garde art in the United States. His collection of kinetic art includes works which employ both virtual motion as well as actual motion. Art which utilizes video, holography, magnetism, electronics, robotics, chemistry, and various types of light provide a look into the fourth dimension.
The late David Bermant was born in New York City and grew up in Manhattan. In January of 1941, six months after graduating cum laude from Yale University at age 21, he joined the U.S. Army. He ended his army career as a major of artillery in Patton’s Third Army, earning a bronze star with an oak leaf cluster for his actions. In 1947, he married Ruth Jesephson, and later divorced after 46 years. They had four children: Ann, Jeffrey, Wendy, and Andrew. David then married Susan Hopmans and established homes in Santa Barbara and the Santa Ynez valley where he created and maintained facilities to house a large and significant art collection.
David had two great interests: building shopping centers — on the East Coast and in California — and collecting art. Technological art was his favorite because it utilized modern science and technology and was more dynamic than other art that just hung on the wall Bermant felt that such art should be shared in public spaces other than museums and galleries. He established and funded the David W. Bermant Foundation: Color, Light, Motion to ensure the art form most dear to his heart would thrive beyond his lifetime.
Indestructible I, George Rhoads, 1970
Jointly hosted by:
Art|Sci Center is home to the Art|Sci Collective, an international group of researchers and creatives that develops projects, workshops, performances, and exhibitions that address social, ethical and environmental issues related to scientific innovations. If you would like to get involved please subscribe to our newsletter or reach out to artscicenter@gmail.com!
