Upcoming program:
SI Annual Architecture and Design Series, Sixth Edition
Curated by Sable Elyse Smith, with Cudelice Brazelton IV, Abigail DeVille, Nikita Gale, Lauren Halsey, E. Jane, Steffani Jemison, Jennie C. Jones, Freddie June, Christine Sun Kim, Carolyn Lazard, Lydia Ourahmane, Sondra Perry, Patricia Satterwhite, Jessica Vaughn, Carrie Mae Weems
January 21–April 17, 2022
In January 2022, SI will present the sixth edition of its annual Architecture and Design Series, curated by Sable Elyse Smith (b. 1986, Los Angeles; lives and works in New York). The exhibition will examine how the transmission of language occurs within both visible structures and unseen systems. Approaching speech on levels both sonic and societal, Smith’s exhibition raises vital questions around the potentials of the human voice, the transmission of sound, the articulation of language, and how those forces permeate and are shaped by both built environments and invisible networks. The artists included in this show explore the infinite ways these utterances, shouts, voids, songs, whispers, speeches and stories can culminate in a cacophony that leads individuals to, as Jack Halberstam writes, “a wild beyond the structures we inhabit, and that inhabit us.” Two floors of SI will be activated by musical performances, which Smith designates as the exhibition’s score. When not performed live, the recorded score will play from SI’s 2nd floor gallery and trickle down to the floor below. As such, the exhibition itself becomes an architecture in which sounds bleed and stories are told.
Real Madrid: Bloodsuckers
January 21–April 17, 2022
Through interdisciplinary exhibitions that have incorporated blown glass, supersized inflatables and readymade commercial products, Real Madrid (founded 2015, Geneva; lives and works in Berlin and Geneva) examines the ways in which sexuality, illness and intimacy are perceived and narrated with both wistful lyricism and ribald humor. Bloodsuckers builds upon Real Madrid’s sustained engagement with the uneasy processes of navigating disease and stigma by shifting from considerations of interpersonal transmission to something more parasitic. Across interrelated kinetic sculptural interventions, the installation builds upon the harrowing, though commonplace, experience of dealing with bedbugs. Probing dynamics of hospitality and the roles of host and guest, Real Madrid will create an immersive environment that endeavors to contemplate a universal phenomenon plagued by shame and fear, prompting an opportunity for collective commiseration and restorative disclosure.
Walter Pfeiffer
May–August, 2022
For his first institutional solo exhibition in the United States, SI will present a career-spanning survey of Swiss artist Walter Pfeiffer (b. 1946, Beggingen; lives and works in Zurich). Widely renowned as both a seminal figure of 1970s queer photography and a preeminent fashion photographer, elements of Pfeiffer’s interdisciplinary artistic practice can be traced back to Zurich’s Dada movement and the influential graphic design of Josef Müller-Brockmann. Rarely exhibited, Pfeiffer’s drawings and paintings are, like his photographs, colorful, playful and bold. The earliest work in the exhibition, a large-scale folding screen adorned with a giant portrait of a cat, dates from 1966 and was made during Pfeiffer’s days as a department-store window dresser. From these experimental beginnings, the exhibition considers the breadth of Pfeiffer’s multifaceted endeavors in art-making. The survey assumes a holistic approach, including little known photographic series, drawings, paintings and never-before-seen archival material to reassess Pfeiffer’s highly consequential, mirthful and surprising visual lexicon.
Shen Xin
May–August, 2022
This solo exhibition by Shen Xin (b. 1990, Chengdu; lives and works in Miní Sóta Makhóčhe) will feature a newly commissioned installation that centers restorative practices concerning Tibetan language through performativity, land and family histories. Shen Xin’s work as a moving image artist often explores potential relations outside of nationalistic belonging. Their recent research focuses on historical, contemporary and future acknowledgment of multitudes in the self and the other, specifically the interrelationship between culture and ecology.
Karen Lamassonne
September, 2022–January, 2023
In partnership with KW, Berlin and MAMM, Medellin, SI will present the first international survey of Colombian-American artist Karen Lamassonne (b. 1954, New York; lives and works in Atlanta.) Spanning six decades, the exhibition includes paintings, photographs, films, drawings and installations that explore female self portraiture, cinematic representations of the body, and depictions of sexual intimacy that convey joy, freedom and risk.
Gina Fischli
September, 2022–January, 2023
SI will present the first institutional solo exhibition in the US by Swiss artist Gina Fischli (b. 1989, Zurich; lives and works in London and Zurich) featuring newly commissioned work. Fischli’s recent works have explored miniature architectural forms for pets and toys, the flickering dazzle of consumer desire and depictions of non-human subjects.
Now live:
TOUCH
With L’Rain, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Elliott Jerome Brown Jr., Naima Green, Katherine Hubbard, Freddie June, Lacey Lennon, Paul Pfeiffer, Jimmy Robert, Richard Siken, Sable Elyse Smith and Jonah Yano
Online now.
TOUCH is the second issue of Sable Elyse Smith’s year-spanning, multimedia project FEAR TOUCH POLICE. Conceived by Smith in March 2020 as a digital magazine, FEAR TOUCH POLICE draws from the artist’s sustained interrogation of language and how its affective connotations are shaped by both popular culture and intimate lived experience. What does it mean to be touched? In this varied and layered archipelago, Smith charts the unruly consequences of bodies coming together and coming apart. Writing by Katherine Hubbard, Richard Siken and Billy-Ray Belcourt outlines complex expressions of love. In pictures, Elliott Jerome Brown Jr., Lacey Lennon and Naima Green capture traces of tenderness, intimacy and solitude. Two videos are featured in TOUCH: a reprise of Paul Pfeiffer’s Caryatid work first included in the magazine’s inaugural issue, as well as a new adaptation of Jimmy Robert’s 2013 installation Vanishing Point. Songs by Jonah Yano, L’Rain and Freddie June are laden with questions brought on by loss and longing. At the center of the issue is “Quiet as it’s kept,” a major new fictional work by Sable Elyse Smith.
The publication’s first issue, FEAR, launched in October 2020, and its third and final issue, POLICE, will launch this winter.
SI Programming is made possible in part with public funds from Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council; the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the New York State Legislature; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Main sponsors include LUMA Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and Friends of SI. The exhibitions are made possible in part by the Swiss Institute Annual Exhibition Fund with leadership support provided by the LUMA Foundation, Max and Monique Burger, the Garcia Family Foundation, the Kevin Wendle Foundation, the Freedman Family Foundation and Ghislaine Brenninkmeijer. SI gratefully acknowledges Swiss Re as SI ONSITE Partner, Vitra as Design Partner, Crozier Fine Arts as Preferred Shipping Art Logistics Partner, and SWISS as Travel Partner.
Critical operating support has been provided to SI in 2020-21 as part of a collective fundraising effort. We thank the following supporters: The David Teiger Foundation, The Willem De Kooning Foundation, The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, The Destina Foundation, The Stavros Niarchos Foundation, The Cy Twombly Foundation, The Henry Luce Foundation, The Fox Aarons Foundation, The David Rockefeller Fund, The Arison Arts Foundation, The Blavatnik Family Foundation, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, The Robert Lehman Foundation, The Jill and Peter Kraus Foundation, The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation and The Richard Pousette-Dart Foundation.
