Carol Rama, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Kaari Upson, and Elaine Cameron-Weir
This spring the New Museum is proud to present a series of solo exhibitions by Carol Rama, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Kaari Upson, and Elaine Cameron-Weir.
Carol Rama: Antibodies
April 26–September 10, 2017
Second floor
Carol Rama: Antibodies is the first New York museum survey of the work of Italian artist Carol Rama (b. 1918, Turin, Italy; d. 2015, Turin, Italy) and the largest presentation of her work in the US to date. While Rama has been largely overlooked in contemporary art discourses, her work has proven prescient and influential for many artists working today and has attracted renewed critical interest in recent years. Rama’s exhibition will bring together more than 150 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, highlighting her consistent fascination with the representation of the body. Seen together, these works present a rare opportunity to examine the ways in which Rama’s fantastical anatomies opposed the political ideology of her time and continue to speak to ideas of desire, sacrifice, repression, and liberation. The exhibition traces the development from her early erotic, harrowing depictions of “bodies without organs” through later works that invoke innards, fluids, and limbs—a miniature theater of cruelty in which metaphors of contagion and madness counteract every accepted norm. The exhibition is curated by Helga Christoffersen, Assistant Curator, and Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director, and is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication with contributions from Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer, Lea Vergine, and Danh Vo, as well as a series of quotations from the artist.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Under-Song For A Cipher
May 3–September 3, 2017
Fourth floor
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Under-Song For A Cipher brings together a series of over 20 new paintings realized for the exhibition by British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (b. 1977, London), a 2013 Turner Prize finalist and one of the most renowned painters of her generation. Yiadom-Boakye’s lush oil paintings embrace many of the conventions of historical European portraiture, but expand on that tradition by featuring purely fictional subjects. The figures the artist brings to life are almost always black, an attribute she sees as both political and autobiographical, given her own West African heritage. In part because they inhabit curiously placeless and timeless settings, these elegant characters provoke the imagination of viewers and remain open to a range of narratives, memories, and interpretations. This exhibition is curated by Natalie Bell, Assistant Curator, and Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director, and is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication with contributions from Elena Filipovic, Chris Ofili, and Robert Storr, as well as a new interview with the artist.
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Kaari Upson: Good thing you are not alone
May 3–September 10, 2017
Third floor
This exhibition marks the first New York museum solo presentation of work by Los Angeles–based artist Kaari Upson (b. 1972, San Bernardino, CA). Encompassing drawing, painting, sculpture, and video, Upson’s works track circuitous narratives that weave together elements of fantasy, physical and psychological trauma, and the often-fraught pursuit of an American ideal. For MMDP (My Mother Drinks Pepsi) (2014–ongoing), a series of videos filmed among the aisles of Costco, and sculptures of fossil-like, aluminum-casted Pepsi cans, Upson investigates the interdependent relationship between herself and her mother. For her exhibition at the New Museum, the artist will debut a new series of works that centers around a family living in a tract house in Las Vegas. The series will explore an environment characterized by its architectural mirroring, yet haunted by the psychological tensions inherent in striving toward an imaginary perfect double. This exhibition is curated by Margot Norton, Associate Curator, and is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication, including texts by Jim Shaw and Norton, along with an interview with Upson by fellow artist Paul McCarthy.
Elaine Cameron-Weir: viscera has questions about itself
May 3–September 3, 2017
Lobby Gallery
For her first solo museum exhibition, Elaine Cameron-Weir (b. 1985, Red Deer, Alberta, Canada) presents an installation of new works conceived for the Museum’s Lobby Gallery. Cameron-Weir engages diverse aesthetic styles, merging modern, industrial, and natural designs in sculptures that emphasize the relationship of the body to surfaces and call attention to phenomena that are both manifest and hidden. Cameron-Weir’s new sculptures are informed by her study of historical objects made to protect, punish, or stand in for bodies—medieval armor or torture devices, and early-Renaissance orthopedics—but they also reflect her interests in aspects of evolutionary design, such as corporal symmetry and the possibility of biological systems that harbor intelligence and self-awareness. In this sense, the exhibition’s enigmatic title alludes to potential forms of knowledge or intelligence that are intrinsic to the body but independent of the mind. The exhibition is curated by Natalie Bell, Assistant Curator.
About New Museum
The New Museum is the only museum in New York City exclusively devoted to contemporary art. Founded in 1977, the New Museum is a center for exhibitions, information, and documentation about living artists from around the world. From its beginnings as a one-room office on Hudson Street to the inauguration of its first freestanding building on the Bowery designed by SANAA in 2007, the New Museum continues to be a place of experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas. For more information, please visit: newmuseum.org.
