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Bruce Witsiepe
1951–1995
Wm. Bruce Witsiepe (1951-1995)
After a short stint studying philosophy at the University of Delaware, Bruce turned to visual exploration at the Louisville School of Art in Kentucky. As a creator in the music/performance group Circle X he became a seer of broad, haunting ideas and dynamic compositions uniquely fired. Among his myriad expressions and observations was a deeply sensed dichotomy of burden and longing. "Belief" was a term of action for him. It could be considered that recognition of his fragile existence strengthened his natural inclination towards collaboration. He developed a strong drive to put people together with projects of grand stature or small piercing bulbs of endeavor. Simultaneously his own visuals, his individual works began to lean toward the ethereal, cellular/molecular, diaphanous of membrane, while his writing, appearing light on the page increased in its expressionistic, symbolic and gothic weight. Singular or collective, his oeuvre generated a recognizable but unexpected tone.
William Bruce Witsiepe (1951-1995)
Education:
1976-78, 1983 Louisville School of Art, BFA
1978-80, Cooper Union
Projects:
Editions Anti-Utopia Artists Book Project
Circle X, music and action group
Your House is Mine, book and street project.
Solo exhibits:
1995, Garden Satellite Installation ,
Arena Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Group exhibits:
1995, “Drawn on the Museum”, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, CT
1994, Group Show, Curt Marcus Gallery, NYC
1993, “In Transit”, New Museum, NYC
“M’elevasti”, installation and performance, with CircleX,
The New School for Social Research, NYC
1992, Elements of a Tender Lighting, installation and collaborative exhibit,
with Coen, Pinotti, Witsiepe, Room 9, NYC
1992, Your House is Mine, Exit Art, NYC
1991, Raging in Hell, curated by Nancy Spero, Franklin Furnace, NYC
1991, Survival, Evasion and Escape, Witsiepe and John Ranard, installation
Exhibit, Bullet Space, NYC.
1990, Anti-Utopia, books and installation, Kunstler Haus, Hamburg, GER.
1990,,Anti-Utopia IV, installation and performance with CircleX and
Eros-Liotta, WEBO Gallery, NYC
1990, Selections Anti-Utopia, Center for Book Arts, NYC
1989, “An Act of Resistance”, Group Show, Bullet Space, NYC
1989, Anti-Utopia III, installation and book show, Bullet Space
1988, H.E.A.L., group show, ABC No Rio, NYC
Inner Space, book group show, Liberty Gallery, Louisville, KY
Collections:
The Harvard Library, Cambridge, MA
Museum of Modern Art, NYC
Metronome, Barcelona, Spain
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, PA
Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA
Franklin Furnace, NYC
George's Pompidou Centre, Nat'l Museum of Modern Art
Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Miami, FL
Art Metropole, Toronto, CAN.
The Whitney Museum, NYC
N.Y. Public Library, NYC
Bill Arning, NYC
Jean Noel Herlin, NYC
Herzog Bibliothek, Wolfenbuttel, GER.
Bibliography/Publications/Reviews:
Artist Book Beat, Nancy Princenthal
Print Collections News, 1989, 92, 95
"No Place Like Home", Elizabeth Hess, ArtForum, 1991
Anacapa Books, 1991 catalogue
Your House is Mine, book, 1988
Entre Messie et Deluge, editions Anti-Utopia, Coen/Witsiepe
Anti-Utopia, vols. I~IV, 1988-90
An Inclining Experiment, 1&2, 1995
et.al.
Performances with Circle X:
1995, New School for Social Research, “M’elevasti Performance"
1993, Performances Circle X with Eros/Liotta, Grenoble, Fr.
Turino, IT, Bern, SW, Vienna, AUS , Prague, CZ, Budapest,HUN,
Berlin, GR, Paris, Fr.
1993, "The Inclining Project", Killtime, Philadelphia, PA
1992, Circle X, the Knitting Factory
1992, "The Pleasure Gallows", live radio performance, WFMU, N.J.
1992, "The Pleasure Gallows", with Eros/Liotta, The Living Theater, NYC
1992, "Hill and Gully", Louisville, KY
1991, "The Dervish Machine", Killtime, Philidelphia, PA
1990, "The Prayer Wheel", WEBO gallery, NYC
1990, "Compression of the Species", Pyramid, NYC
1988, New Directions Festival, Nyack, NY
1980-1987, "Insertion of The Miracle into The Day",NYC
"Opera Against Indifference",NYC
"Voyage, Atonement and Love",NYC
"Purity, Utopia and Heat",NYC
"The Myth Of Sisyphus",NYC
"The Life of Falconetti", Louisville, KY
" Convict Slave Cult",NYC
Swantzfest, Darmstadt, GR
Au Bains Douche, Paris, Fr
Univercite' de Dijon, Fr
Recordings and discography:
Various Circle X releases with Celluloid, Enigma and Matador Records,
Sordide Sentimental and American Gothic Records, The Ivory Tower Box
Set- under the auspices of Anti-Utopia, et.al.