Winter Exhibitions
Nairy Baghramian: RETAINER
On view through March 25, 2013
Double Life
Presented through the In Practice Program
Korakrit Arunanondchai, David Berezin, Paul Branca, Lea Cetera, Rachel Foullon, Molly Lowe, Shana Lutker, S. A. C. (Student Art Collective) with Justin Lieberman, Julia Sherman, and Bryan Zanisnik
On view through March 25, 2013
SculptureCenter
44-19 Purves Street
Long Island City, New York
Hours: Thursday–Monday, 11–6pm
T 718 361 1750
info [at] sculpture-center.org
Nairy Baghramian: RETAINER
SculptureCenter is pleased to announce the exhibition RETAINER by Berlin-based artist Nairy Baghramian. This will be her first exhibition in the United States. Baghramian’s work examines political and social systems of power and encompasses questions of context, production, and reception within contemporary art.
With the support of our Artist-in-Residence commissioning program, Baghramian has produced a new work for SculptureCenter’s main exhibition space that is suggestive of a corrective prosthesis for the building. For Baghramian, exhibition spaces are conceptual structures as much as they are habitable buildings. Their historically determined design and layout become both reference for and structure of the work. This new sculpture constructed from chromed struts draped with “sheets” of cast silicon occupies the entire main exhibition space. Partially industrially fabricated and partially handmade, the work provokes questions about the potential for sculpture and art as an aesthetic tool, but also highlights art’s dependency on its own context.
This commission and exhibition are made possible with the generous support of the Milton and Sally Avery Foundation and Lisa Schiff. Special thanks to Galerie Buchholz Cologne / Berlin.
Double Life
Presented through the In Practice Program
SculptureCenter is pleased to present the exhibition Double Life, which brings together a group of artists that share a performance-based approach to sculpture by re-staging completed artworks, readymades, and original self-sampled content. Objects and images are removed from specific institutional frameworks, historical moments, or modes of distribution in order to disrupt their assumed status and meaning. Amidst current conditions that are multicultural and hyper-mediated, the included artists investigate themes such as alienation, memory, and identity construction. Adopting a sense of synchronistic time that is at once immediate and located in moments of reflection, Double Life looks at the contemporary artist examining him or herself, as well as our collective nature as self-performers.
The newly commissioned projects presented in Double Life were created as part of SculptureCenter’s In Practice program. In Practice supports the creation and presentation of new work by emerging artists and reflects diverse approaches to contemporary sculpture. Artists are selected through a call for proposals and are provided with an honorarium, production budget, fabrication and installation assistance, as well as invaluable curatorial and administrative support. This year SculptureCenter received over 800 applications from artists worldwide. Double Life is curated by Kristen Chappa, SculptureCenter Assistant Curator.
The In Practice program made possible with the generous support of the Joan Mitchell Foundation and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.
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.
SculptureCenter’s exhibitions and programs are generously supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; New York State Council on the Arts; Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc; the Milton and Sally Avery Foundation; Bloomberg LP; Bloomberg Philanthropies; the Foundation for Contemporary Arts; Goldman Sachs; A G Foundation; the Ken and Judith Joy Family Foundation; the Kraus Family Foundation; the Lambent Foundation fund of the Tides Foundation; the Joan Mitchell Foundation; the New York Community Trust; the Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; the Pollock-Krasner Foundation; the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the A. Woodner Fund; and contributions from our Board of Trustees and many generous individuals.
For additional information:
Frederick Janka
T 718 361 1750 x117
press [at] sculpture-center.org
