RIDGEFIELD, CT.- The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum will present Paying a Visit to Mary, an exhibition organized by Canadian curator Maxine Kopsa, a resident of the Netherlands, who is the second recipient of the Hall Curatorial Fellowship.

Paying a Visit to Mary refers to a line from Tell Me, a 1979 play about language by French artist Guy de Cointet that questions how reality is perceived and interpreted. The exhibition will open on January 31 and remain on view through June 6, 2010.

Like the play, the exhibition explores language as it relates to personal narrative and contemporary storytelling. Constructed as a “call and response” between different voices represented by a group of carefully selected contemporary artists, Paying a Visit to Mary tells a romantic, conceptual, and highly specific story of our time and our present human condition. The exhibition is seen as a conversation amongst both the artists and the audience with whom their work engages.

Paying a Visit to Mary is comprised of approximately twenty works by both emerging and more established artists, including Marc Camille Chaimowicz (France); Guy de Cointet and Robert Wilhite (France, United States); Paul Elliman (United Kingdom); Melissa Gordon (United States); Gary Hill (United States); Experimental Jetset (Netherlands); Jonas Ohlsson (Netherlands); Willem Oorebeek (Netherlands); Dexter Sinister (United Kingdom, United States); Guido van der Werve (Netherlands) and Emily Wardill (United Kingdom).

The exhibition utilizes a broad range of media—including performance, film, painting, sculpture, and installation. Curator Maxine Kopsa explains, “As a character in a Balzac short story perfectly summed up, ‘Life is simply a complication of interests and feelings’—or, a trusting and somewhat cynical network. Paying a Visit to Mary is an attempt to create a seductive setting of various persuasive ‘interests,’ qualifying our present human condition.”

The Aldrich will celebrate the opening of Paying a Visit to Mary on Sunday, January 31, 2010, from 3 to 5 pm. Following the opening, patrons are invited to join the artist and curator for a live performance of the de Cointet/Wilhite play Iglu and a private reception from 5:30 to 8:30 pm. Reservations are required for the performance.