Summer 2015 exhibitions
Magali Reus: Spring for a Ground
May 3–July 5, 2015
Michael E. Smith: -
Erika Verzutti: Swan with Stage
May 3–August 3, 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 pleased to announce the opening of three solo exhibitions. Each artist is presenting new work in their first solo museum shows in New York City.
Magali Reus: Spring for a Ground
Magali Reus (born 1981 in The Hague, The Netherlands, lives in London) presents a body of work co-commissioned by SculptureCenter, the Hepworth Wakefield in Yorkshire, UK, Westfälischer Kunstverein in Münster, Germany, and the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin. Colliding the macro logic of daily architecture with the more microscopic or metaphorical projections of a body inhabiting space, Reus’s exhibition turns focus to the physical and psychic space of the street curb. Although rendered abstractly, Reus’s curbs contain fragments of objects and textures: they appropriate the logic of urban terrain but remain unnerving in their persistent repetition of partially rendered, and uncannily placed domestic forms. Linked with the metaphorical idea of an epidermis, they are surface barriers between external and internal worlds. A series of smaller sculptural “lock” works expose a perversity of mechanical detail. Like archaeological markers, these works become enigmatic containers for a type of numerical shorthand that evades translation. A date or a time enlists structural responsibility, but as with the curbs, they create a perplexing collapse of boundaries, blurring the graphic and the emotional.
Magali Reus: Spring for a Ground is presented with the generous support of the Mondriaan Fund.
Michael E. Smith: -
Michael E. Smith (born 1977 in Detroit, lives in Hopkinton, NH) presents works created specifically for SculptureCenter’s lower-level galleries. These sculptures and videos further Smith’s investigation into the complex existence of things. Many of the objects in Smith’s sculptures are decelerated and slackened until they reach a trancelike state. Sometimes frozen, and sometimes literally or figuratively spurned into action, though actual movement or in association to other objects or images, the primary function of the everyday things we encounter in his work is interrupted and reconfigured. These periodic suspensions of movement and time only serve as reminders of the inherent rhythms of things and bodies. To articulate this further, Smith has created a video work that highlights the physiological qualities of machines. It isolates and intensifies a range of internal mechanisms. The works on view respond to the subterranean architecture of the lower level exhibition galleries, abstractly examining notions of history and functionality. Smith’s installation shifts the given conditions and atmospheres at SculptureCenter, presenting a space that reassess relationships maintained within our inner and outer worlds.
Michael E. Smith: - is presented as part of SculptureCenter’s Artist-in-Residence program and is supported in part by the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation.
Erika Verzutti: Swan with Stage
Erika Verzutti (born 1971 in São Paulo, lives in São Paulo) presents a new body of sculptures and images in her first solo exhibition in New York City. Working between synthetic and organic materials, Verzutti creates hybrid objects and situations that interrogate relationships between forms and bodies. The centerpiece of the exhibition, a 12-foot-tall abstract swan sculpture, functions as monument, character, and stage. Enclosed by a group of black and white photographs, the sculpture is not only a prop, but also a co-star in some kind of a play that has taken place. The images feature an actor and the swan snapped in various moments of drama and comedy, never culminating in a complete narrative.
Verzutti has also remade several of her bronze works, incorporating the color blue in each revision. Blue is an arbitrary color choice, although the decision to include it is deliberate. Sharing blue in common, the color creates its own variation, operating differently on each sculpture, becoming more distinct through its comparison.
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 2014/15 exhibition program is underwritten by UOVO Fine Art Storage.
Media contact:
Ben Whine, Associate Director, SculptureCenter
press [at] sculpture-center.org / T +1 718 361 1750 x117
