Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

To Debut Three Solo Exhibits

RIDGEFIELD — The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum will debut three solo exhibitions with an opening at the museum on Sunday, December 14, from 3 to 5 pm. All three shows will be on view through February 14.

In the museum’s two-story project space, Korean artist Kwang-Young Chun has created his largest freestanding paper sculpture to date — just over 14 feet and approximately 650 pounds — expressly for his exhibition, “The Soul — Journey to America.”

Radius is the successful professional artist development program presented by the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum and the Ridgefield Guild of Artists; it has jump-started the careers of many area artists. Now, “Full Circle: Ten Years of Radius” is a special anniversary exhibition that will celebrate the first decade of Radius.

This is the first Radius presentation to be hung in the Aldrich’s galleries and surveys a diverse selection of recent works — including paintings, works on paper, sculpture, video and collage — produced by alumni from “Radius: Emerging Artists from Connecticut and Southeastern New York” exhibitions of the last decade.

The Aldrich Screening Room will host a new exhibition by Harry Shearer. “The Silent Echo Chamber” is a multiscreen video installation by the award-winning American comedic actor, writer, musician and radio host best known for his regular Saturday Night Live appearances and for providing many voices for the popular television series The Simpsons. This exhibition will mark the second installation of Video A, a recurring exhibitions program developed to present short contemporary video projects on an ongoing basis, and will be presented on ten plasma monitors.

Kwang-Young makes intricate sculpture out of the recycled pages of old Korean books and medicine wrappers printed on mulberry paper. He wraps the handmade paper — inscribed with Korean characters — around thousands of Styrofoam tetrahedrons and other geometric forms that serve as the basic units of his compositions. The new sculpture will be installed in the center of the gallery, offering visitors a 360-degree view of the piece, as well as a spectacular bird’s-eye vantage from the Project Space balcony.

 All of the 81 outstanding artists whose work was shown in “Radius” were invited to submit samples of their latest work for review to Regine Basha, curator. From these submissions, Basha selected 14 artists to participate in the exhibition. The artists whose work has been selected for the anniversary exhibition are Kelly Bigelow Becerra (Bridgeport.), Jaclyn Conley (Brooklyn, N.Y.), Paul Favello (West Haven), Robert Federico (Mahopac, N.Y.), Beth Gilfilen (Jersey City, N.J.), Jim Hett (Darien), Bryan Jones (New Haven), Nathan Lewis (New Haven), Christopher Mir (Hamden), Mari Ogihara (Mamaroneck, N.Y.), Alyse Rosner (Westport), Joseph Smolinski (New Haven), Thuan Vu (Hamden), and Benjamin Weiner (Long Island City, N.Y.).

Shearer’s 50 years in radio, television and the arts is captured in this project with well-known personalities from politics and the media in the silent moments before “going live.” Individuals portrayed include James Carville, Barack Obama, Larry King, Dr Phil, John McCain and Chris Matthews, each caught in the uneasy prelude to becoming the familiar animated “talking head.”

The Aldrich is at 258 Main Street (Route 35). For more information, call 203-438-4519 or visit AldrichArt.org.