Foundation for Contemporary Arts

Steve Roden

Lives in Pasadena, CA

Born 1964, Los Angeles, CA

Visual and Sound Artist

I work with painting, drawing, sculpture, film/video, text, sound and performance - generally exploring ideas related to translation, abstraction, systems, notation and scores.

My working process generally includes the translation of various forms of specific notation (words, musical scores, maps, etc.) into scores, which influence the process of making/composing a painting, drawing, sculpture or sound composition. The scores, rigid in terms of their structure, are also full of holes-allowing for intuitive actions, mistakes and potential left turns. Other than its relationship to an inspirational source, I seldom know how an artwork will speak until it is finished.

My practice is still rooted in the principals I learned in the fourth grade when an art teacher, Mr. Johnstone, told me to fix the sky in the background of a watercolor project. I told him I liked it as it was and wanted to leave it. He told me if I fixed it to his liking he would give me an A, and if not he would give me a C. I kept the sky the way I wanted and took the C. To this day, I still believe that a C with meaning is much more valuable than an A through compromise. The watercolor is hanging in my studio.

1989 M.F.A., Art Center College of Design

1986 B.F.A., Otis College of Art and Design

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2010 Steve Roden: in between, a 20 year survey, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena CA

2010 Steve Roden: when words become forms, Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA

2008 Lines and Spaces, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Los Angeles, CA

2006 Steve Roden: day ring, night ring, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA

2004 Steve Roden: Stills (for Guru Dutt), Tang Museum at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY

2002 Steve Roden: Light Forms, Singuhr-Horgalerie, Berlin, Germany

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2010 ARTe SONoro, La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain

2009 Heart in Heart, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece

2007 Mercosur Biennial, Porto Alegre, Brazil

2007 Sleppet, various sites, Bergen, Norway

2007 Soundwaves, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA

SELECTED PERFORMANCES

2009 Sound at the Schindler House (in collaboration with Climax Golden Twins), MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles, CA

2008 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, LACE, Los Angeles, CA

2007 Restless Brilliance, The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA

2006 Tribute to the Work of Nam June Paik, LACMA, Los Angeles, CA

2005 Sounding Architecture, Serpentine Gallery, London, England