Roger Welch

Roger Welch is considered a pioneer of installation art, video art and a founder of the post-conceptual Narrative Art movement. His works are shown in museums and galleries worldwide and found in many distinguished collections including the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the [http://www.museoreinasofia.es Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid] . He has also been influential in the establishment of multi-media as a vital form of contemporary art.

For over 35 years he has created video and film installations, photo works, sculptures and flat panel video pieces. Welch began making video works in 1970 and his installations were among the first to combine sculpture, video, and film in a singular artistic statement.

Works

His work most often focuses on time, memory, and universal personal experiences. During his 1973 exhibit at the John Gibson Gallery, Roger Welch asked 4 elderly people to recall their childhood hometowns and from their recollections created mixed-media "Memory Maps". His 1974 video installation, "The Niagara Falls Project", was, at the time, the most technically advanced video and film art installation ever produced. Based on the experience of a boy who went over Niagara Falls and survived, the work included his video interview with the survivor 14 years later and a spectacular 35mm Panavision Film, continuously repeated, which Welch made from a helicopter flying low over the Niagara River to the brink and abyss of the Falls. In 1982 he exhibited one of his best-known installation pieces"Drive-In: Second Feature" at the Whitney Museum. This film and sculpture installation is now in the permanent collection of the Guggenheim Museum and is being exhibited in 2007 at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art.

In 1972, at the age of 26, he had his first gallery one person exhibition at the Sonnabend Gallery in Paris and, in 1974, had his first solo museum exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum. In 1980 he had a retrospective of his work at Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City and was the first artist from the United States to have a one-person exhibition at the Museo Nacional in Havana, Cuba. His work has also appeared in two "Documenta" exhibitions in Kassel, Germany, considered to be the world's most prestigious survey of contemporary art. In 2001, he had a major one-person exhibition at the Neuberger Museum in Purchase. In 2005 he exhibited work at the Museum of Modern Art in St. Etienne, France and in 2006/2007 at the Reina Sofia Museum in Spain. Throughout the 1980s and 90's he taught as a visiting professor of art at numerous colleges and universities including the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Roger Welch received his BFA from Miami University (Ohio) in 1969 and MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1971. He was awarded National Endowment Grants in 1974 and 1980 and New York State Council on the Arts Grants in 1973 and 1976.

Roger Welch lives and works in New York.

External links

* [http://www.rogerwelch.com Roger Welch Online]