Monthly Archives: September 2015

3 posts

Tuesday September 22nd: Mark Dion

image

Since the early 1990s, Mark Dion has examined the ways in which dominant ideologies and public institutions shape our understanding of history, knowledge, and the natural world. Appropriating archaeological and other scientific methods of collecting, ordering, and exhibiting objects, the artist creates works that address distinctions between objective scientific methods and subjective influences. By locating the roots of environmental politics and public policy in the construction of knowledge about nature, Dion questions the authoritative role of the scientific voice in contemporary society.

Born in Massachusetts in 1961, Dion currently lives in New York City. He received a BFA and an honorary doctorate from the University of Hartford School of Art, Connecticut in 1986 and 2003, respectively. He also studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York from 1982-84, and participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program from 1984-85. He has received numerous awards, including the ninth annual Larry Aldrich Foundation Award (2001) and the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Lucida Art Award (2008).

Watch the Art21 on Mark here. 

More about Mark Dion’s work

Tuesday September 15th: Jon Kessler & Sanford Biggers

Jonphoto

Jon Kessler was born in Yonkers, New York in 1957. After receiving his BFA at SUNY Purchase in 1980 he participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program. Since that time he has maintained his studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

His first exhibition was at Artist’s Space in 1983. Since that time he has exhibited widely in galleries and museums in the United States, Europe and Asia. A retrospective of his work ”Jon Kessler’s Asia” was mounted at the Kestner-Gesselshaft in Hannover, Germany in 1994 and traveled throughout Europe. His exhibition, “The Palace at 4 AM”, began at MoMA PS1 in 2005 and travelled to the Sammlung Falckenberg in Hamburg, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen and ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe. His recent exhibition “The Web” at Swiss Institute and Museum Tinguely explored the connection between bodily movement and technical apparatus, deploying mechanisms, live video and an iPhone app to facilitate this relationship.

His works are in many public collections including The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art and MOCA. He is a Professor in the Visual Arts Division of Columbia University’s School of the Arts where he has taught since 1994. He plays guitar in several art rock bands.

More About Jon Kessler

sanford

Sanford Biggers interdisciplinary artistic practice integrates film/video, installation, sculpture, painting, original music and performance. He intentionally complicate issues such as hip hop, Buddhism, politics, identity, high vs vernacular culture, American history and art history through the use of loaded materials and references and evocative modes of display. His work opens viewers to new perspectives and associations to established symbols and histories while remaining dedicated to formal concerns. Sanford makes objects, images and sound oriented “vignettes” that strive to be as aesthetically engaging as they are conceptual.

More About Sanford Biggers

Tuesday September 8th: Michele Abeles

Michele Abeles, Baby Carriage on Bike or Riot Shield as Carriage, 2015.

Michele Abeles  received a BA from Washington University and an MFA from Yale University. In 2015 she presented a solo project at the Whitney Museum of Art, New York and was included in their inaugural collection exhibition for their new building, America is Hard to See. Other recent solo shows include those at Sadie Coles, London and 47 Canal, New York; her work has featured also in major group exhibitions including Speculations on Anonymous Materials, Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany (2013); Test Pattern, Whitney Museum of Art, New York (2013); 12th Biennale de Lyon, France (2013); Empire State, curated by Norman Rosenthal and Alex Gartenfeld, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (2013); and New Photography (2012), Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. She is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and the Dallas Museum of Art.  Abeles lives and works in New York.