RenCB(e Ridgway first collected various pages from the phone book. She then formatted and arranged them to fit the broad space of a single wall.
This is just the most recent creative addition to the international artist’s on-going series of installations that explores the connections of modern American culture with its Dutch roots.
The endless pages of names and numbers were included among other pieces at the opening reception of Going Dutch- Mine! in Gallery 023 in the Shwayder Art Building last week. The exhibit runs through April 8.
Her projects are innovative collections of various media, drawing, photography, video, and performances that focus on recognizing the relation between modern day places and their cultural lineage.
In this installation, Ridgway uses an ordinary phone book as an instrument of communication.
Described as a method of panning and sifting, similar to the methods associated with Denver’s gold rush, she calls only people with Dutch surnames and questions them on their ancestry and traditions.
This research is an elaboration of The Manhattan Project, which she started in 1997 to investigate Dutch roots in New York, or Nieuw Amsterdam- specifically lower Manhattan, Brooklyn (Breuckelen), and the Hudson Valley.
She launched the project at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2001, presenting herself as a schoolteacher while asking visitors about their Dutch heritage.
A New Jersey native with Dutch heritage, Ridgway studied fine art at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Rietveld Academie and then went on to the Netherlands for her graduate study 13 years ago.
She did not realize that Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, would become her permanent home.
“I often wonder why I felt so drawn to the Netherlands,” Ridgway said. “I didn’t plan on staying there for good.”
Ridgway has also exhibited in France, China and Germany. In the United States, she worked in New York and in Holland, Michigan last year for Boogie Woogie Migration, which included a quilt combining the American and Dutch flags.
This is her first time in Colorado, and she has been drawn here particularly due to the Dutch history in nearby Nederland, Colo.
From Denver, she will travel to Chicago for a lecture about the application of mapping different occupations through the use of an emigrating identity.
Her visit to DU was arranged by senior eMAD major Larry Nguyen, director of Gallery 023 which is the student-run art gallery in Shwayder.B
The exhibit and lecture were made possible through the financial support of the School of Art and Art History (SAAH), Marsico Initiative and The Netherlands-America Foundation.
The exhibit is open weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 pm, and weekends 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.
