February 17–April 7, 2013
Opening: February 17, 6–8pm
Panel discussions: February 17, 4–6pm, Abrons Arts Center Playhouse
Abrons Arts Center
Henry Street Settlement
466 Grand Street
New York, NY 10002
www.abronsartscenter.org
www.decenterarmory.com
Artists: Cory Arcangel, Tony Cokes, Douglas Coupland, David Kennedy Cutler, N. Dash, Michael Delucia, Jessica Eaton, Franklin Evans, Amy Feldman, Andrea Geyer, David Gilbert, Ethan Greenbaum, Gregor Hildebrandt, Butt Johnson, John Houck, Barbara Kasten, Andrew Kuo, Liz Magic Laser, Douglas Melini, Ulrike Mohr, Brenna Murphy, John Newman, Gabriel Orozco, Rafaël Rozendaal, Seher Shah, Travess Smalley, Sara VanDerBeek
At the 1913 Armory Show, the Association of American Painters and Sculptors showcased the “New Spirit” of modern art. A backlash of scathing criticism showed how baffled the general American public was by the seeds of abstraction in the Cubist artworks, which quickly became a shorthand expression for the structural changes brought about by modernity. They not only redefined artistic practice, but also altered our understanding of the process through which we perceive the world. Curated by Andrianna Campbell and Daniel S. Palmer, DECENTER: An Exhibition on the Centenary of the 1913 Armory Show celebrates the legacy of the Cubist paintings and sculptures in that historic exhibition by featuring a group of 27 emerging and internationally recognized contemporary artists who explore the changes in perception precipitated by our digital age and who closely parallel the Cubist vernacular of fragmentation, nonlinearity, simultaneity, and decenteredness.
Artists as varied as Sara VanDerBeek, Gabriel Orozco, Liz Magic Laser, and Abrons AIRspace residency program alumna Amy Feldman evoke the formal innovations of the historic avant-garde but differ through an embrace or flirtation with digital mediation. Artists today like Andrew Kuo, Tony Cokes, and Cory Arcangel are inspired by the inter-cultural circulation of images, ideas, and data in a worldwide network. While Pablo Picasso and fellow Cubists combined archaic Western forms and appropriated exotica to shatter inherited modes of representation, today ubiquitous computing and the digital image explosion create an intersection of the physical and the virtual, and in doing so, have decentered the locus of artistic praxis. Digital works will be displayed at www.decenterarmory.com beginning February 17.
DECENTER also serves to highlight Henry Street Settlement’s sponsorship of the 50th anniversary exhibition of the Armory Show in 1963, the occasion which announced the building of what is today known as the Abrons Arts Center. Henry Street further developed this historic legacy through the annual Art Show at the Park Avenue Armory, the first of multiple art fairs inspired by the original Armory event.
The exhibition commences on the 100th anniversary of the Armory Show on Sunday, February 17, with a 1913 Armory Show Centennial Event from 4 to 6pm, which will feature panel discussions about the 1913 exhibition, as well as the themes of perception and art in the digital age, followed by an opening reception.
Panel Discussion: The Legacy of the 1913 Armory Show
Charles Haven Duncan (Collection Specialist, Archives of American Art)
Franklin Evans (artist, New York)
Andrea Geyer (artist, New York)
Marilyn Satin Kushner (Curator and Head, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections, New-York Historical Society; Co-curator of The Armory Show at 100)
Mary Murray (Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute)
Panel Discussion: Perception and Art in the Digital Age
Introduced by: Israel Rosenfield (City University of New York)
Ethan Greenbaum, Barbara Kasten, Andrew Kuo, Travess Smalley, Sara VanDerBeek
Moderated by Brian Droitcour
Opening reception sponsored by Hudson Whiskey with generous support from Van Brunt. Beer has been lovingly provided by Brooklyn Brewery.
