Winter 2011 Exhibitions:
Ursula von Rydingsvard: Sculpture 1991-2009
Vide-Poche: Michele Abeles, Samuel Clagnaz, Isabelle Cornaro, Miles Huston, Charles Mayton, and Valerie Snobeck
On view until March 28, 2011
SculptureCenter
44-19 Purves Street
Long Island City, New York
718.361.1750
info [at] sculpture-center.org
www.sculpturecenter.org
SculptureCenter is pleased to premiere Ursula von Rydingsvard: Sculpture 1991–2009. Organized by SculptureCenter and guest curated by Helaine Posner, this traveling exhibition will include a selection of the artist’s most significant sculptures, including wall reliefs and monumental cedar works created from 1991 to 2009. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully-illustrated monograph co-published by Prestel and authored by art historian Patricia Phillips.
Ursula von Rydingsvard is best known for creating large-scale, often monumental sculpture from cedar beams, which she painstakingly cuts, assembles, glues, clamps, and laminates, finally rubbing powdered graphite into the work’s textured, faceted surfaces. Her signature shapes are abstract, with references to things in the real world. Drawing on a range of sources, from the humble to the majestic, von Rydingsvard’s work is recognized for its great psychological force and powerful physical presence.
Von Rydingsvard’s sculpture is included in the permanent collections of over thirty museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and Detroit Institute of Arts.
Ursula von Rydingsvard: Sculpture 1991–2009 will travel to the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (May 28–August 28, 2011), Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (September 23, 2011–March 25, 2012) and the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University in Miami (April 18–August 4, 2012).
Vide-Poche
SculptureCenter is pleased to present the group exhibition Vide-Poche, featuring the works of Michele Abeles, Samuel Clagnaz, Isabelle Cornaro, Miles Huston, Charles Mayton, Valerie Snobeck, and curated by Fionn Meade. Presented through the SculptureCenter’s In Practice program, this exhibition explores what arises from the gesture of emptying out form and content. The French phrase vide-poche literally translates to “empty pocket” but also describes a tray or pouch that can hold the miscellany of daily life, personal affects, and tokens of transaction. Existing as a place where systems of signification collapse, or fragment, a vide-poche can also become a site of re-interpretation, and the assembly of unlikely affinities.
SculptureCenter’s In Practice program supports the creation and presentation of innovative 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, a production budget, fabrication and installation assistance, as well as invaluable curatorial and administrative support. The In Practice program is funded by generous grant from 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.
Exhibition and general operating support for SculptureCenter is provided in part by contributions from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the Kraus Family Foundation; the New York State Council on the Arts; The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; Foundation for Contemporary Arts; The Greenwall Foundation; The Tides Foundation, advised by the Lambent Foundation; Pollock Krasner Foundation; and contributions from our Board of Trustees and many generous individuals.
Ursula Von Rydingsvard: Sculpture 1991 – 2009 is made possible with the support of Agnes Gund, Gabrielle H. Reem, M.D. and Herbert J. Kayden, M.D., Ann Hatch, and Steven Oliver. Support for the publication Ursula von Rydingsvard: Working was generously provided by Mrs. Helen Kimmel, the Viola Fund and Galerie Lelong.
For additional information:
Frederick Janka
Associate Director
SculptureCenter
718.361.1750 x117
press@sculpture-center.org
