What happens when an artist looks at something most of us walk past every day—a railing, an awning, a set of bleachers, a barrier—and sees something entirely different?
Join us for a very special evening with internationally acclaimed artist and sculptor Rita McBride, whose extraordinary career has taken her work to museums, galleries, and public spaces around the world—and who also happens to call Los Alamos, California, home.
For nearly four decades, Rita has explored the fascinating territory where art, architecture, design, infrastructure, and everyday life collide.
Rather than simply creating objects to be viewed from a distance, her work often asks us to reconsider the structures surrounding us: the things that organize where we sit, where we walk, how we gather, how we move through public spaces—and even how we look.
Her practice ranges from intimate sculptural objects to enormous public commissions and immersive installations created in collaboration with architects, engineers, physicists, performers, designers, and other artists.
During this fascinating Speaker Series conversation, we'll explore:
🎨 How Rita's journey as an artist began—and how her practice has evolved over nearly four decades
🏛️ Why architecture, design, and public infrastructure continually find their way into her art
👀 How an artist learns to see extraordinary possibilities in seemingly ordinary objects
🌎 What it's like creating artwork for public spaces around the world
🤝 Why collaboration—with architects, engineers, scientists, performers, and audiences—is such an important part of her practice
💡 How an idea moves from imagination to object, installation, or monumental public work
🪑 The story behind Arena, her enormous modular sculpture inspired by the architecture of gathering
✨ How materials as unexpected as carbon fiber, industrial structures—and even lasers—can become tools for making art
🏡 Life and creativity between the international art world and Los Alamos
❓ Audience Q&A
Rita's work has been presented internationally at major institutions including Dia Art Foundation, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels, and others.
Her monumental public works include Mae West in Munich, Bells and Whistles at The New School in New York City, and Obelisk of Tutankhamun in Cologne.
One of her best-known works, Arena, transforms the familiar form of stadium seating into something altogether different: a monumental sculpture that only truly comes alive when people gather, sit, perform, converse, and occupy it.
And that may be the perfect introduction to Rita's work.
Because much of it asks us to reconsider something we encounter every single day:
Space.
Who creates it?
Who gets to occupy it?
How does it influence the way we behave?
And what happens when an artist disrupts our expectations of what that space—or the objects within it—is supposed to be?
Whether you're passionate about contemporary art, fascinated by architecture and design, interested in the creative process, or simply curious about the remarkable people who call our little town home, this promises to be an extraordinary conversation.
Come meet one of Los Alamos' own—and you may leave seeing the ordinary world around you very differently.
RSVP to sonja@clementinecarterwines.com
RSVPs are appreciated whenever possible, but never required.