I am FOR
#iamFOR
I am FOR
X The 50 State Initiative (FF50) is a project launched by For Freedoms, an artist-led organization aiming to bring art to the center of public discourse. From September through December, during the lead-up to the midterm elections, FF50 will conduct a massive nationwide campaign to raise the level of our political discourse and to increase civic participation. In collaboration with over 200 organizations and 250 artists in all 50 states (Puerto Rico and Washington, DC), FF50 will hold exhibitions, conduct town hall meetings, install billboards and produce other participatory events that inject nuance into public conversation and merge critical and political discourse. At FF50 headquarters, the campaign visualizes what is happening across the country. FF50 believes citizenship is participation, all art is political, public policy is a cultural product, and creativity shapes culture. This is the epicenter of FF50, the largest creative collaboration in the history of this country, and the public is invited. Join us. For Freedoms. For us all.
Artist Paula Crown’s exhibition I am FOR invites viewers to consider their responsibility for and implication in systems of oppression. Working with symbols that have been laden with negative, divisive meaning throughout history, Crown re-contextualizes and seeks to invert images we take for granted. Each of Crown’s works confronts the trajectory of our legacy and challenges us to reconsider. In keeping with For Freedom’s spirit of engagement, she activated their working headquarters at Fort Gansevoort with a site-specific, interactive work in which viewers are invited to reflect on what they stand FOR at this moment and to add their voice to the exhibition. Crown is the inaugural artist installed at the space.
ENtitleist A black ball has historically been used by a club or authoritative body to register a negative vote against a person. Like the anonymous social media bullying of today, it represents a faceless rejection. It is a spurning, shaming, and stigmatization of another without accountability or empathy. Members cast their votes using a white or black ball under the veil of secrecy so that any member would be protected against retribution for a negative vote. It is a spineless act. The origins of this practice trace back to ancient Greece where light or dark shells were used to vote. The practice of blackballing has been used and continues in secretive social, university, and military clubs. In a contemporary context, blackballing refers to the unspoken practice of not hiring an employee fired by another company for controversial behavior. In Paula Crown’s new body of work, ENtitleist, a black golf ball shows a scar, implying the injury and the pain of being excluded by others. When we take part in a culture of exclusion, of eviction, of prohibition, we are all scarred. While we have differing views and ways of being, we live on a round planet upon which we coexist and depend on “1” another. A red “1” is a nod to the language of our digital culture. In a binary system of 1s and 0s...we are all 1s.
ENtitleist (1), 2018 routed Atlantic marble 12 x 12 x 12 inches
Hank Willis Thomas and Paula Crown discussing the ENtitleist series.
ENtitleist (suspended), 2018 painted polyurethane foam 33 x 33 x 33 inches
ENtitleist (alabaster), 2017 routed alabaster marble 28 x 28 x 28 inches
NOT In the 18th century, anthropologists and cartographers created hierarchies and vocabularies that continue to haunt us, labeling the world with colonial perceptions of human difference. Classification of human beings by color is a social construct dismantled by scientific truth. The NOT series prompts viewers to compare themselves with the subjective taxonomies of the past, to invalidate prior modes of categorization, and to demand nuance and agency.
Pictured right NOT (mirror), 2018 site-specific vinyl on mirror 60 x 40 inches
Installation view of exhibition, I am FOR.
NOT (black), 2018 acrylic on linen 68 x 48 inches NOT (yellow), 2018 acrylic on linen 68 x 48 inches
NOT (white), 2018 acrylic on linen 68 x 48 inches NOT (red), 2018 acrylic on linen 68 x 48 inches
ALPHABRAVO The language of the NATO phonetic alphabet mingles with the austere monochrome of the ALPHABRAVO series. Crown’s ongoing interest in presence and finding one’s bearings through the attention to bodily senses manifests in the subtle reflections and color shifts of the paintings. The works suggest a liminal space between the seen and unseen, what is represented and what is not.
Pictured right ALPHABRAVO (night sky), 2017 oil on linen 79 1/2 x 71 5/8 x 1 1/2 inches
ALPHABRAVO (night sky), 2017 oil on linen 79 1/2 x 71 5/8 x 1 1/2 inches
ALPHABRAVO (white sky), 2017 oil on linen with microspheres 51 1/4 x 79 x 1 1/2 inches
Detail ALPHABRAVO (white sky), 2017 oil on linen with microspheres 51 1/4 x 79 x 1 1/2 inches
kinematic.earth The liquid colorscapes of kinematic.earth are dynamic floating environments, a movement of water captured in a photograph. The forms variably evoke the topography of the Earth in photos taken from space, or the view from the surface looking up at the cosmos. Color collects around powdered graphite summoning images of ocean basemaps and aquatic ecosystems. In the context of Crown’s commitment to environmentalism and advocacy against the proliferation of waste and single-use plastics, the intensity of neon casts a vibrant, alarming, and unnatural atmosphere.
kinematic.earth, 2018 inkjet on canvas each panel 72 x 59 x 3 inches
kinematic.earth, 2018 inkjet on canvas each panel 72 x 59 x 3 inches
Humble Hubris: Don’t know what you got (till it’s gone) Paula Crown repurposes a historical and picturesque photograph of a mountain-scape used in a 1962 advertising campaign for Humble Oil. Here, the photograph is translated directly into painting, channeling new evidence that oil executives knew of the link between their industry and the consequences of CO2 in the 1970s. The work references the language of posters and sign-painting to reroute this image from advertisement to activism. This work also signals Crown’s first partnership and collaboration with For Freedoms in 2016.
Humble Hubris: Don’t know what you got (till it’s gone), 2013 acrylic and watercolor on paper, framed 48 x 72 x 2 inches
Humble Hubris: Don’t know what you got (till it’s gone), 2013 acrylic and watercolor on paper, framed 48 x 72 x 2 inches
Humble Hubris: Don’t know what you got (till it’s gone) (bench) In the fall of 2016, For Freedoms launched a campaign placing Crown’s and other artists’ work on public bus benches throughout Chicago to coincide with the pending presidential election. For Freedoms’ intentions were not to sway the public’s interest toward one party or the other, but rather to encourage new forms of critical discourse surrounding the presidential election. Their aim was to turn the political process itself into a work of art. Here, Crown has recreated her original contribution to the project for the FF50 headquarters, extending its relevant message into 2018.
Humble Hubris: Don’t know what you got (till it’s gone)(bench), 2018 acrylic and wood reproduction of Chicago bus bench 38 x 24 x 72 inches
Humble Hubris: Don’t know what you got (till it’s gone)(bench), 2018 acrylic and wood reproduction of Chicago bus bench 38 x 24 x 72 inches
I am FOR I am FOR is a site-specific, interactive artwork that encourages the viewer to make a donation to For Freedoms’ 50 State Initiative and write what they stand FOR on a black ball, casting it into Fort Gansevoort’s glass atrium. Here, Crown inverts the historical use of a black ball to cast a negative vote and instead accumulates ideas of the future that we are FOR. The performative gesture challenges us to take a stand and speak up.
I am FOR, 2018 interactive performance, painted sports equipment, sports racks dimensions variable
Installation view of exhibition, I am FOR.
Paula Crown kicks off I am For at FF50 headquarters.
Participant contributes to I am FOR and For Freedoms.
I am FOR ENtitleist (alabaster), 2017 routed alabaster marble 28 x 28 x 28 inches
ALPHABRAVO (night sky), 2017 oil on linen 79 1/2 x 71 5/8 x 1 1/2 inches
ENtitleist (suspended), 2018 painted polyurethane foam 33 x 33 x 33 inches
ALPHABRAVO (white sky), 2017 oil on linen with microspheres 51 1/4 x 79 x 1 1/2 inches
ENtitleist (1), 2018 routed Atlantic marble 12 x 12 x12 inches
kinematic.earth, 2018 inkjet on canvas each panel 72 x 59 x 3 inches
NOT (mirror), 2018 site-specific vinyl on mirror 60 x 40 inches
Humble Hubris: Don’t know what you got (till it’s gone), 2013 acrylic and watercolor on paper, framed 48 x 72 x 2 inches
NOT (black), 2018 acrylic on linen 68 x 48 inches
Humble Hubris: Don’t know what you got (till it’s gone)(bench), 2018 acrylic and wood reproduction of Chicago bus bench 38 x 24 x 72 inches
NOT (yellow), 2018 acrylic on linen 68 x 48 inches
I am FOR, 2018 interactive performance, painted sports equipment, sports racks dimensions variable
NOT (white), 2018 acrylic on linen 68 x 48 inches NOT (red), 2018 acrylic on linen 68 x 48 inches
www.paulacrown.com @paulacrown_art
I am FOR
J u n e 2 8 – A u g u s t 1 7, 2 0 1 8 Fo r Fre e d o m s H e a d q u a r te rs a t Fo r t G a n s e v o o r t 5 1 G a n s e v o o r t S t , N e w Yo r k , N Y M o n d ay t h ro u g h Fr i d ay 1 1 a m – 6 p m