Viewing Room: Michael Stevenson

SculptureCenter and the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC) are pleased to co-present the upcoming episode of Viewing Room featuring The Fountain of Prosperity, an art installation created in 2006 by New Zealand-born visual artist Michael Stevenson. “Drawing from Modern Archeology,” the accompanying public program for this episode of Viewing Room, takes place at SculptureCenter on July 21 from 6 to 8pm.

Viewing Room is a charted journey through some recent acquisitions of the contemporary art collection of the CPPC. It consists of a series of events in New York City in which a single artwork from the collection is put on display with an accompanying public program. Audiences are invited to experience seminal yet rarely seen artworks—in most cases, never before exhibited in the city—and to participate in programs designed to help articulate the working processes and contexts in which these works were created. For Viewing Room, the CPPC partners with several organizations, and is pleased to have SculptureCenter as a collaborator for this third edition of the program.

The Fountain of Prosperity was created by Stevenson after extensive research into the Monetary National Income Analogue Computing Machine, a.k.a. MONIAC. Invented in 1949 by the New Zealander Bill Phillips, the MONIAC was a hydro-mechanical computer. Approximately fifteen of these machines were allegedly fabricated and, in 1952, the Central Bank of Guatemala purchased one of them. The Fountain of Prosperity draws from his investigations into that acquisition, as well as the MONIAC’s invention and marketing.

“Drawing from Modern Archeology” includes presentations by three people, each speaking about Stevenson’s The Fountain of Prosperity through a specific lens: curator Lauren Cornell on artistic research; critic Jason Farago on the economy; and anthropologist Michael Taussig on storytelling. During this event, copies of Michael Stevenson’s related publication c/o The Central Bank of Guatemala will be distributed, beverages will be served, and, hopefully, conversations will ensue.

Viewing Room is organized by Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, curator of contemporary art at the CPPC, with artist Alejandro Cesarco. On the occasion of this episode of Viewing Room, they worked closely with Mary Ceruti and Ruba Katrib, SculptureCenter’s Executive Director and Chief Curator and Curator, respectively. Lalita Salander assisted in the process.

Upcoming episodes of Viewing Room will include the presentation of The Catherwood Project, 1985–93, by Leandro Katz (Argentina); and Secrets from the Amazons / Tomo River, 2011, by Gilda Mantilla and Raimond Chaves (Peru and Colombia). Earlier episodes featured Looting, 2010, by Regina José Galindo (Guatemala), co-presented with The Kitchen, with a lecture performed by Mark Beasley and Arto Lindsay; as well as A Voyage or ‘With the MS Remscheid on the Amazon’ or the Account of a Voyage Under the Stars of the Refrigerator, 1968–72, by Lothar Baumgarten (Germany), with an artist’s talk moderated by Thomas Bartscherer.

With offices in New York and Caracas, the mission of the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros is to enhance appreciation of the diversity, sophistication, and range of art from Latin America; advance scholarship of Latin American art; and promote excellence in visual-arts education. Its art collection is organized in five different sections: ethnographic (Orinoco), colonial, traveler-artists, modern, and contemporary.

Founded by artists in 1928, SculptureCenter is a not-for-profit arts institution dedicated to experimental and innovative developments in contemporary sculpture. SculptureCenter commissions new work and presents exhibits by emerging and established, national and international artists. SculptureCenter has provided thousands of artists the opportunity to create and exhibit new work and introduced New York audiences to hundreds of emerging artists as well as established artists from all over the world.

To keep abreast of the program dates and developments of Viewing Room, please sign up to the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros listserv or digital networks: www.coleccioncisneros.org