The Dissolve

In SITE Santa Fe’s Eighth International Biennial, held in 2010, curated by Sarah Lewis and Daniel Belasco, emerging and established artists working in many media displayed works that mined techniques of early animation and moving-image technologies to create a hybrid practice of homespun plus high-tech. This exquisitely designed volume arising from the event is titled The Dissolve, a title that points both at this new sensibility emerging from the old and at the two-way nature of the dissolve in moving images as both ephemeral and generative. The Dissolve presents art by Robert Breer, Paul Chan, Martha Colburn, Thomas Demand, Ezra Johnson, Bill T. Jones, William Kentridge, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Raymond Pettibon, Rob Pruitt, Robin Rhode and others. Scholars Nancy Mowll Mathews, Sarah Lewis and Daniel Belasco contribute essays on the concept of the hybridization of new media combined with painting, drawing and collage. Also included are a timeline of animation practices and an artists’ panel discussion.