May 22–July 11, 2015
Patron preview: May 21, 5:30–6:30pm
Opening: May 21, 6:30–8pm
Artist lecture and gallery talk: May 22, 2pm
The Marion and Wayland
H. Cato Jr. Center for the Arts
161 Calhoun Street, 1st floor
Charleston, SC
Hours: Monday–Saturday 11am–4pm,
Thursday 11am–7pm, or by appointment
The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art will present a solo exhibition of new and recent work by Brooklyn-based sculptor Alyson Shotz, whose practice examines the properties and interactions of light, gravity, mass, and space. Opening Thursday May 21, 2015, Alyson Shotz: Force of Nature will showcase a broad range of the artist’s creative output. The exhibition—Shotz’s most ambitious to date—will feature over fifty works including large-scale sculptures, prints, ceramics, a wall drawing, and an animation. Employing nontraditional materials such as glass beads, linen thread, stainless-steel filaments, and welded aluminum to construct large-scale abstract works, Shotz expands upon conventional notions of sculptural space and form. The exhibition is on view at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art from May 22 through July 11, 2015.
Shotz will create several new and site-specific works, including a large wall drawing comprised of white linen thread strung on carefully sited nail heads. Expanding the exhibition beyond the Halsey Institute’s galleries and into the Cato Center for the Arts, Shotz will create a band of vinyl decals, which will be on view long-term, that produce the effect of etched glass on windows. The delicate etchings, composed of forms resembling ovals in rotation, are reminiscent of a Möbius strip exploring the geometric concept of a continuum—a shape without boundaries or end.
Alyson Shotz: Force of Nature, was organized in collaboration with the Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York and curated by Director Tracy L. Adler. A fully illustrated monograph accompanying the exhibition features essays by Adler; Mark Sloan, Director of the Halsey Institute; Veronica Roberts, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas, Austin; and Nat Trotman, Associate Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
About Alyson Shotz
Alyson Shotz received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the University of Washington. Shotz is currently a research fellow at the Arts Institute at Stanford University (2014-2015). Shotz’s work has been exhibited both nationally and abroad at major institutions including the Eli and Edythe Broad Museum (East Lansing, Michigan); Espace Louis Vuitton (Tokyo, Japan); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York); Indianapolis Museum of Art; Nasher Sculpture Center (Dallas, Texas); Phillips Collection (Washington, D.C.); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Visual Arts Center at the University of Texas, Austin; Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, Ohio); and Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Connecticut). In addition to exhibiting across the US, Shotz has show in Canada, China, England, France, India, Japan, Lithuania, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
About the Halsey Institute
The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston provides a multidisciplinary laboratory for the production, presentation, interpretation, and dissemination of ideas by innovative visual artists from around the world. As a non-collecting museum, we create meaningful interactions between adventurous artists and diverse communities within a context that emphasizes the historical, social, and cultural importance of the art of our time.
Parking: Available in the St. Philip and George Street garages
For more information contact the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art by calling T +843 953 4422 or click here.
Contact:
Karen Ann Myers, Associate Director: T +843 953 5659 / [email protected]