Winter 2015 exhibitions
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
January 25–March 30, 2015
In Practice: Under Foundations
January 25–April 13, 2015
SculptureCenter
44-19 Purves Street
Long Island City, New York 11101
Hours: Thursday–Monday 11am–6pm
T +1 718 361 1750
info [at] sculpture-center.org
SculptureCenter is proud to announce two new exhibitions: Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, the Thai artist’s first retrospective in the United States; and In Practice: Under Foundations, an annual open-call exhibition for emerging artists with a focus on the production of new work.
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook is one of the most prominent artists working in Southeast Asia. The exhibition, curated by Ruba Katrib, SculptureCenter Curator, showcases over 20 artworks spanning over a decade of the artist’s career, and includes video, sculpture, photography, and some of her better-known works, as well as those that have rarely been viewed, especially in the United States. Rasdjarmrearnsook has also produced new sculptures for the exhibition.
Working with psychologically rich materials, Rasdjarmrearnsook considers a wide range of subjects that have existed in marginal spaces, including women, the deceased, the insane, and animals. She creates complex narratives that confront societal structures of power and pedagogy. Concerned with systems of language and communication, Rasdjarmrearnsook makes earnest attempts to converse with subjects who don’t speak in languages that are comprehended by or even acknowledged by mainstream society.
The exhibition presents video works, including both The Class and Conversation series, where Rasdjarmrearnsook conducts discussions with corpses. Also included is Village and Elsewhere: Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofernes, Jeff Koons’ Untitled, and Thai Villagers (2011), a video in which a Buddhist monk leads a comical conversation about these two Western paintings in a temple. A more recent group of works featured focuses on the status of dogs in Thai culture and beyond. The exhibition premieres a new series of sculptures, each a portrait of the stray dogs that Rasdjarmrearnsook cares for in her home and at Chiang Mai University, where she teaches.
For the past 25 years, Rasdjarmrearnsook’s videos and installations have been regularly shown throughout the world. She represented Thailand at the Venice Biennale in 2005, and has been featured in many international exhibitions including Documenta, the Sydney Biennale, the Gwangju Biennale, the Istanbul Biennial, the Johannesburg Biennial and the Carnegie International. Rasdjarmrearnsook is also a respected professor in Thailand’s leading art program in Chiang Mai University, where she has recently spearheaded one of the first media and theory departments in the country.
Public program:
SC conversations: Ecofeminism and the work of Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
Tuesday, March 17, 7pm
Attending to the perspectives of animals, women, the mentally ill, villagers, and even the dead, Rasdjarmrearnsook allows a range of subjects—those that are often muted in “othered” social positions—to be heard in her video works. Rasdjarmrearnsook uses pedagogy and poetry to engage in an ecofeminist critique that reorders culturally delineated states of being, ignoring established hierarchies between animals, women, the poor, the sick, and the dead. This conversation brings together feminist philosopher Lori Gruen and Arnika Fuhrman, a scholar focused on the aesthetic and political modernities of Southeast Asia, to discuss the complex issues of gender, animal rights, the politics of death, and the context of Thai culture. The discussion is moderated by Ruba Katrib.
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook is presented with the generous support of the Asian Cultural Council and many individual contributions. SculptureCenter’s 2014/15 exhibition program is underwritten by UOVO Fine Art Storage. A full-color publication with texts by Katrib and Fuhrman accompanies the exhibition.
In Practice: Under Foundations
Featuring newly commissioned works by Rosa Aiello, Mary Walling Blackburn, Nanna Debois Buhl, Catherine Czacki, Ben Hagari, Sol Hashemi, Madeline Hollander and Alexandra Lerman, Janelle Iglesias, Ryan Johnson, and Xu Wang. Curated by SculptureCenter 2014–15 Curatorial Fellow Jess Wilcox.
Situated in SculptureCenter’s lower level, the works in Under Foundations share an interest in what lies beneath the surface—the repressed, the discarded, the roots, or the source. Many of these works speak to unconscious desires, while others seek to trace, discover, and examine the past. The exhibition evokes a storage space of forsaken objects, full of stories and revelations. Together, these works incorporate a variety of disciplines—psychoanalysis, behavioral science, economics, and affect theory—and the impulse, act, and process of making are integral parts of a search for the elusive origins of the creative endeavor. They look to psychological states, everyday movements and behaviors, art historical touchstones, and deep-seated desires as points of departure.
Performance program:
Madeline Hollander’s performances, part of Illegal Motion by Madeline Hollander and Alexandra Lerman, will take place on the following dates and times:
February 22, 3 and 5pm
March 29, 3 and 5pm
April 12, 3 and 5pm
April 13, 3 and 5pm
In Practice: Under Foundations is presented with the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and The Pollock-Krasner Foundation. SculptureCenter’s 2014/15 exhibition program is underwritten by UOVO Fine Art Storage.
About SculptureCenter
Founded by artists in 1928, SculptureCenter is a not-for-profit arts institution in Long Island City, New York dedicated to experimental and innovative developments in contemporary sculpture. SculptureCenter commissions new works and presents exhibitions by emerging and established, national and international artists. Our programs identify new talent, explore the conceptual, aesthetic and material concerns of contemporary sculpture, and encourage independent vision.
Media contact:
Ben Whine, SculptureCenter
press [at] sculpture-center.org / T +1 718 361 1750 x117
