Recent Artists from Sculpture Space

SculptureSpace Utica’s Utopia

cover: ANN REICHLIN Translucent Home, 2008 Sited on Sculpture Space grounds.

Steel tube, angle iron, reinforcement rod, steel mesh, debris netting, house foundation 23' x 17' x 22'

exhibitions Islip Ar t Museum East Islip, New York February 17 – March 28, 2010 Utica Public Library Utica, New York September 3 – 30, 2010

Workspace programs at Sculpture Space and the Carriage House are in part made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. Sculpture Space and the Carriage House (a program of the Islip Art Museum) are founding members of the New York State Artist Workspace Consortium.

The National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art, provides additional funding for the Sculpture Space program.

This exhibition is made possible with generous support from DeNicola Design, Inc., Cooperstown, New York, and Seifert Graphics, Inc., Oriskany, New York.

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LYNN KOBLE Bellows & Manifolds, detail, 2008/2009 Felt, glass (labware: flasks, funnels, test tubes) Variable dimensions

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artists Diana Al-Hadid Betsy Alwin Sarah Bednarek Megan Biddle Cesar Cornejo Heather Dewey-Hagborg Patrick Grenier Yeon Jin Kim Lynn Koble Ann Reichlin Dorothy Schultz Slinko

curator Sydney L. Waller

videographer Christi Harrington

Executive Director, Sculpture Space

produced by Islip Ar t Museum East Islip, New York 11730

in collaboration with Sculpture Space Utica, New York 13502

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MEGAN BIDDLE Untitled (Brambles), detail, 2009/2010 Toothpicks, rubber Variable dimensions

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Excerpt from Sculpture Space [ the book ] Published by Sculpture Space, Inc., Utica, New York, 2007

The State of the Ar t: Sculpture Enters the 21st Century

by Charlotta Kotik

“Sculpture always has been a demanding medium — both for the artist to produce and ... for the viewer to interact with. It offers its creator possibilities to express diverse ideas with a measure of urgency surpassing any other artistic means. Its three-dimensionality, which is, in its very existence, confrontational, as it infringes on our space and forces us to react not only intellectually but also downright physically, brings this special degree of urgency to the intended message. And whether the artist chooses to deal with purely formal issues, personal or social history, individual or group identity, matters of ecology and nature, human habitat on a large or small scale and the related theme of integrating architecture and sculpture, or new themes introduced by the advancement of technology, there are endless ways to express them in this medium.

“Within the past thirty years there has been an explosion of sculptural manifestations, ideas and materials... [Processes] that lead toward the creation of sculptural entity [may include carving], no more important than permanent or shortterm site-specific installations or the latest digital technologies that are crucial to much of the best contemporary works. In addition, although sculptors still make use of traditional materials... they also use cast rubber, molds, resins and plastics, natural and man-made fabrics, light, sound, electronics and gases. Found objects also appear in a significant number of today’s creations. This would not have happened, however, without much intense, worldwide, experimentation.”

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TOMASZ DOMANSKI Chimney, work in progress, detail, 2009 Permanent installation at Griffiss International Sculpture Garden, Rome, New York Aluminum, stainless steel, light 13' x 4' 3" x 9'

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Foreword

Since 1976, more than 400 artists have created work at Sculpture Space, a nonprofit artists’ workspace program in Upstate New York. Founded in an unimposing boiler works plant in West Utica by three young artists looking for elbowroom and machines to bend steel, Sculpture Space today is well known to artists for its generous support and flexibility. Utica, too, is a draw, with its wealth of facilities and materials, building sites and streetscapes.

Over time, more private studios and equipment, robotics and digital technology, WiFi and Skype have evolved in the studio. We acquired a half dozen small parcels of contiguous properties. The recent purchase — December 2009 — of a nearby house for artists’ living quarters represents a significant milestone for our program, and the latest major improvement for our facilities, campus and neighborhood.

Sculpture Space, as an organization, has also grown, partnering with schools and colleges, museums and galleries, nonprofits and corporations, to better serve its artists and the ever-growing audience for contemporary art. Over the last two years Sculpture Space has collaborated on the development of Griffiss International Sculpture Garden in Rome, NY, currently featuring 17 outdoor sculptures by Sculpture Space artists and thought to be the only project of its kind in the country.

Today, close to 200 artists apply for the 20 annual funded two-month residencies.

Most arrive with projects already planned and set to work to bring them to fruition.

Some create work in response to Utica’s unique environment, while others use the workspace opportunity as a “sweet tonic” to develop their practice.

— S.L.W.

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JESSICA FRELINGHUYSEN Sky-port, 2007 Installation in Union Station, Utica, New York, with Mohawk Valley Community College art students Ripstop nylon, steel, wood variable dimensions

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Artists in “Beautica”

Utica was especially prosperous and preeminent during the Erie Canal’s 19th-century heyday, largely due to manufacturing and a booming railroad industry. The city served — as it does today — as a gateway to the Adirondacks and westward destinations.

As a result, Utica continues to offer the discerning visitor a remarkable collection of distinguished architecture by some of the country’s most celebrated architects and landscape designers. The city enjoys an impressive number of parks and recreational spaces, in part reflective of the park system designed in the 19th century by Frederick Law Olmsted, who later designed New York City’s Central Park. An active historic preservation society and a burgeoning interest in heritage tourism are two forces which augur good stewardship of these buildings and green spaces.

Thousands of immigrant factory workers — Welsh, Irish, German, Polish, Lebanese, Syrian, Italian — labored in manufacturing, including in the booming textile mills of the 19th century. Later, in the 20th, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Bosnian, Russian, and Ukrainian refugees arrived in the city — home of an active refugee center — followed by the Karen people from Myanmar in the 21st. Varied local restaurants and neighborhood churches, mosques and temples reflect the City’s rich cultural diversity.

Artists are frequently drawn to this complex and richly layered environment. Two such artists, Ann Reichlin and Slinko, investigated the ever-fluid neighborhoods and then created site-specific installations in the community which remain on view to this day.

Their art entices and challenges viewers to experience anew the urban environment.

Princeton artist Jessica Freylinghuysen, giddy at the architectural treasures she discovered while at Sculpture Space, called the city “Beautica” and installed temporary interactive art pieces on sidewalks and other public sites, inviting passersby to enjoy them.

German artist Stefan Dornbush, Bauhaus-trained, exulted in the “wild west” of some West Utica houses, where stately columns and plastic wood and seriously challenged decorative motifs are able to coexist peacefully. He was particularly taken with front porches and stoops, vernacular architectural features unfamiliar to him, which inspired one of his quirky residency projects.

British artist Georgina Batty discovered a city-wide wealth of empty sign frames appended to buildings — former mom-and-pop stores — and set about creating new art for the frames. In obtaining permissions, she befriended city residents, whose warmth and generosity she found extraordinary.

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ALLISON WEISE, Utica Speed Seduction: Pick-Up Line (for Mark), 2004

Californian Allison Weise rented commercial roadside signs, readily available in this entrepreneurial industrial city, to post private messages in public locations.

The marquee of Utica’s grand Stanley Theatre was one such site.

Argentinean Lucia Warck-Meister secured hundreds of feet of clear medical tubing, seconds donated by a sympathetic local — and international — corporation, which she suspended from the ceiling, creating a clear yet massive installation through which she screened video footage of a downtown Utica fountain.

Albeit perhaps surprised by this perennial artistic enthusiasm, Utica’s City Hall, as well as its generous citizens, welcome such interest, and graciously attempt to accommodate our artists’ at-times unusual requests, which enliven the community.

Whether ideas precede artists’ workstays, or whether they blossom while at Sculpture Space, the venerable industrial city, with its generous inhabitants, rich resources and intriguing history, leaves an indelible impression on each artist’s oeuvre. And each artist, in turn, permanently enhances Utica’s Utopia. We are grateful to them for sharing their experiences with a wider public.

Sydney L. Waller Utica, New York, February 2010

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Homage to the Artists

The twelve artists showcased in Recent Artists from Sculpture Space, Utica’s Utopia, generously share their art and offer a glimpse into their intensely productive residency experiences at Sculpture Space. Their projects embody the singular importance of their Sculpture Space workstays to their practice and careers.

The highly original and compelling individual projects offer the public a broad range of meditations about the world around us in the first decade of the 21st century and address issues of our times, from building community to eradicating injustice to celebrating the transformative power of art, all while giving us a look into the rich world of contemporary sculpture.

The first two galleries of the exhibition, a portion of which will travel to the Utica Public Library in September, give us detailed snapshots of two very different residencies. Betsy Alwin was drawn to the wild and rural environments surrounding Utica and found a wealth of new material in the diamond mine moonscape worksites in the Mohawk Valley. Her subsequent invention of a solar-powered mining hammer offers a creative, sustainable and winsome solution to the exhausting physical drudgery of the mining that she observed. In contrast to Alwin, former Quebecois Patrick Grenier centered his energies on the urban landscape, arriving with a welldeveloped social-engineering ‘nomadic sculpture’ project in mind, inspired by Thomas Edison’s Black Maria. Grenier set about getting to know the friendly and open Utica community and, by inspiring trust in the random inhabitants he met— the young, the restless and the quirky -- he filmed them all with compassion and respect, 19th-century style, performing activities they enjoyed.

Of the six installations on view in the museum’s largest gallery, three are installed specifically for this space. Megan Biddle’s transformed toothpicks climb the wall above an ornate fireplace like a flock of birds spilling sideways over the edge of the chimney casement, while other mutated common materials blossom into compact malevolent cloud-like forms or bristle in shock-and-awe beauty. Cesar Cornejo‘s ceramic housing parts rise in front of us as we step into the room. The repetition of the elements is further extended in the mirror hovering above — its illusory museum image suggesting a creative future for the shantytown sprawl below that might build community and economic power. In a piece that updates references to the peace movement of the 1960s, Dorothy Schultz flutters kinetic butterfly elements above Vietnam-era military uniforms and other found objects. The butterflies’ delicate movements are caused by memory alloys, or acutators — a material occasionally used by artists for its ‘repeatability.’ Schultz speaks to the tragedy of war using a state-of-the-art technology to tackle a raw theme addressed by writers and artists across the centuries from Aristophanes to Goya to Tim O’Brien.

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Works by the three other artists in this gallery also evolved from their investigations at Sculpture Space. An eerie monumental sculpture constructed by Diana Al-Hadid from wood, metal and colored resins explodes, a technical and visual tour de force — “All changed, changed utterly: a terrible beauty is born” (W.B. Yeats, Easter, 1916) comes to mind. Al-Hadid developed her signature fabrication process at Sculpture Space during an extended residency in 2006. Yeon Jin Kim creates two video narratives by filming hundreds of meticulous and haunting drawings exquisitely installed inside 3-D models, and creating mysterious and disorienting settings. The videos present sequences based on Kim’s at-times disturbing dream imagery. These works explore self and social identity and themes of alienation.

Startling contradictions bubble to the surface. Lynn Koble’s elegant bellows and manifolds series, cerebral and scientific, are created from her manipulation of ordinary glass labware and handsome deep blue felt. She achieves a poignant installation with subtle variations in labware shapes that suggest a range of human emotions.

Photo documentation of works that cannot be transported to the galleries is presented in the main hall and permanent collection gallery (video room). These projects, by Sarah Bednarek, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Ann Reichlin and Slinko (her preferred moniker), were installed throughout the Utica-Rome area between 2006 and the present.

Both Reichlin and Slinko explored the Utica community, Reichlin for over a decade, Slinko during her two-month residency. Reichlin sifted through layers of historical artifacts, including 19th-century maps, and interviewed senior citizens for oral histories of the neighborhood. She made art intersecting with the various final stages of a deteriorating house, investigating the structure from inside and out, from above ground and below. The house yielded fertile material for three separate projects. Her eloquent and thoughtful site-specific installations address the community’s changing prospects. Also examining Utica’s shifting cityscape, Slinko researched information about the city that is accessible to the entire world on the Internet site Wikipedia.

From this site Slinko selected content-heavy phrases.

She then used her stipend to create monumental museum-style labels that she installed on three vacant buildings. The labels included jarring factoids from the Internet. Their presence physically related the text and presentation to the reality of the structures, inviting foot traffic to observe and reflect.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg made use of a more frequented public space to make her statement, targeting commuters rather than pedestrians or gallery-goers. She rented a billboard and posed a question that all could read and ponder, ‘Who owns you?’

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YEON JIN KIM, All Intellectual Animals Are Dangerous 2, video production stilll, 2009/2010

Bednarek addresses yet another type of public space, an environment neither fully public nor private enough, that speaks of the uniformity of ubiquitous office space. In her installation, she utterly transforms this standardized workspace into a one-of-a kind playful disco event.

Christi Harrington’s informal interviews with Bednarek, Dewey-Hagborg and Grenier provide the casual gallery-goer with a more in-depth encounter with the artists and more background information about their projects. Harrington, an associate professor of sculpture at Mohawk Valley Community College, spent nearly a year interviewing over a dozen artists. For this show she offers some of the important early results.

Sculpture Space has had the privilege to nurture these artists, and so many more, inviting them to make visible their creative introspection and reflection, by giving them a place to think and to make. In their thoroughly original projects, they use an extraordinary range of technical skills and materials. But more, they serve as seers and prophets, visionaries and muses. They question the way we live and how we see the world around us. As makers of culture, they contribute to the very essence of our civilization. — S.L.W.

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DIANA AL-HADID Built From Our Tallest Tales, 2008 Wood, metal, polystyrene, polymer gypsum, fiberglass, plastic, concrete and paint 12' x 8' 4" x 6' 8"

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Diana Al-Hadid S C U L P T U R E S PAC E F E L LO W 2 0 0 6

Inspired by the Tower of Babel, Built from Our Tallest Tales has self-destructed, collapsing under its own weight. According to Al-Hadid, the source of its demise is the work of humans, rather than the result of a natural catastrophe. Interior arches layer to create different levels within, both concealing and revealing a wooden structure that holds the metal armature in place. Colored resin fills the honeycombs, suggesting a mosaic architectural motif reminiscent of the ancient world and of art forms in AlHadid’s country of birth, Syria.

A rapidly emerging artist, Al-Hadid enjoyed a particularly productive residency. To give her more time to complete three large-scale works, Sculpture Space raised funds working with Utica’s Lebanese-American community leaders. With solo shows imminent, Panagea’s Blanket, The Gradual Approach of My Disintegration and Spun from the Limits of My Lonely Waltz were formed with crucial support from Sculpture Space. For Panagea, the wide-open common space allowed her to build a 34’ x 24’ “map” before welding, with help from Colgate University student volunteers. The open overhead doors provided access to fresh air and the outdoors, assets for processes often unsafe in enclosed city spaces. Scaffolding and ladders were essential for working from on high. Most importantly, she began to scorch her work with an oxy-acetylene torch, creating an evocative weathered and burned surface which is now a distinctive part of her aesthetic and narrative.

“My residency was instrumental to the development of my career. It brought me significantly closer to my studio practice and granted me an occasion to develop my work at a time when it was ripe for development. The facilities solved pragmatic fabrication problems that complicated the completion of work in New York City and opened up the opportunity for invaluable creative experiments, which in turn generated new ideas for future projects.”

Born in Aleppo, Syria, Al-Hadid grew up Cleveland, OH. She earned a BA and BFA at Kent State University, OH, and an MFA at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Recent awards include a Pollock-Krasner Grant, a United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant. She has recently exhibited at Saatchi Gallery in London, the 9th Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates and BAM Next Wave Festival in Brooklyn, NY. Upcoming solo shows will be at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and Conservera Contemporary Art Center in Murcia, Spain. Perry Rubenstein Gallery, NY, and Michael Janssen Gallery, Berlin, represent her work.

Al-Hadid lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

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BETSY ALWIN Herkimer Hammer (Landscape Interface), detail, 2009 Metal hand truck, wood, hardware, rock hammer, motor, solar panel Installation/performance

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Betsy Alwin S C U L P T U R E S PAC E F E L LO W 2 0 0 9

Alwin’s work at nearby Herkimer Diamond Mines began as video research. It grew into a multi-faceted project exploring the relationship between treasure-hunting, art-making, human ingenuity and the land. The Herkimer Diamond is not a real diamond, but a crystal boasting an extremely clear 18-faceted shape, specific to the Mohawk Valley. The mines attract both casual tourists and serious collectors.

Alwin became interested in the labor of finding diamonds, the grueling physical work driven by a particular urge. Visitors work all day with crude hammers, mentally and physically engrossed in the hunt for the perfect gem. Pulverizing stones becomes a repetitive activity, a type of meditative obsession. The concert of striking hammers typifies an atmosphere that is simultaneously absurd and poetic, destructive and intimate.

Herkimer Hammer, constructed mostly from found materials, runs continuously on solar power. The struggle of the motor, the rise and drop of the hammer, elicit an empathetic impulse that deconstructs the action. In Dolomite Diamond Alwin “found” the treasure within the stone by carving. Treasure-hunting becomes a metaphor for art-making: to manipulate materials and endeavor to hit upon a poetic idea is not unlike the “purposeless purposefulness” of the treasure hunt.

Born in Minneapolis, Betsy Alwin earned a BFA in Sculpture at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and an MFA at Illinois State University, Normal. She was awarded a permanent public commission in Tokyo, Japan and participates in public art projects such as Art Under the Bridge, Brooklyn, and Figment on Governor’s Island. She has exhibited in venues such as A.I.R. Gallery, NY, Berkshire Botanical Gardens, Stockbridge, MA (Mass MoCA), and University of Washington Tacoma Gallery. Awarded residencies include the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the Vermont Studio Center. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

“My residency at Sculpture Space was an important time to create work specific to the Utica area. To work outdoors and explore techniques outside of my usual methods was perhaps the greatest benefit. I thank Sculpture Space for the time and space to spend on my work. In addition to the work I completed, many ideas and future projects began there.”

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SARAH BEDNAREK A Fast-paced Environment, 2007 Steel, motor and various mechanical parts, wood, mirror, adhesive, various office furniture, paint 7' x 7' x 6'

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Sarah Bednarek S C U L P T U R E S PAC E F E L LO W 2 0 07

Bednarek arrived at Sculpture Space with a massive installation project in mind and ready to go, if she could solve its technical challenges. It required relatively complicated engineering and precision. She immediately consulted with the Sculpture Space studio manager, Pat Cuffe, for the individual technical support that she needed to create a full-scale office environment that would be installed on a large spinning circular platform, a monumental motorized Lazy Susan.

With strategic support Bednarek was able to minimize a trialand-error approach as she worked through the winter months next to the studio woodstove. Fortunately, she had the time and resources to problem-solve. A Fast-paced Environment presents a typical office cubicle furnished with ubiquitous desk, task chair and potted plant. Bednarek transforms this standardized office space into a fun rotating disco-ball cubicle fabricated from various materials, including 250,000 half-inch mirror tiles. The piece turns quietly, powered by the motor she installed, casting thousands of tiny sparkling lights throughout the studio as it spins. Bednarek suggests that one could see it either as “the cocaine dancehall dream of a drudge office worker,” or alternately, “the amped up self-aggrandizement of the gung-ho stockbroker before the crash.”

Born in Wisconsin, Sarah Bednarek earned her MFA in Sculpture at Virginia Commonwealth University. That year her work was showcased at the Keith Talent Gallery in London and published in the art magazine Miser and Now. Her exhibition record includes solo shows at the Gibbs Museum in Charleston, SC, and the Arlington Arts Center in Virginia. She has curated shows in New York, Virginia and California. She has received awards and scholarships in support of her work, as well as two residencies. “Currently I am struggling with cancer, but have managed to keep working,” she notes. Bednarek lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

“When I was selected by Sculpture Space I was so excited! After a dismal year of dead-end jobs, slumlords, and cold, crappy studios, I was overjoyed to be able to spend some real time working.

As a studio rat, the only thing that makes me truly functional is time to work and think. Though the intensity and otherworldliness of a two-month residency can be compared to an artmaking obsession, I can’t think of a better obsession to have.”

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MEGAN BIDDLE Warlord, 2009 Blown glass, resin, plastic 6.5" x 6" x 7" Untitled (Brambles), 2009/2010 Toothpicks, rubber Variable dimensions

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Megan Biddle S C U L P T U R E S PAC E F E L LO W 2 0 0 9

Biddle, an emerging New York artist, developed all the work on display simultaneously. She experimented with everyday objects made of common materials and applied an exquisitely laborious process of repetition to these basic components, thus creating a new all-encompassing surface with plastic or rubber. She transformed the original materials into unexpected reincarnations.

The work begins with process and material explorations. In Untitled (Brambles), she explores the potential of something common and mundane by gluing toothpicks together. She then coats them with rubber. As they accumulate, they take on a new presence suggesting thorns, the migratory pattern of birds, the way a tree grows or particles disperse.

For Molecular Cloud Nine, Biddle fills spaces between glass marbles with plastic. The marbles morph into a form suggesting a molecular cloud or atom cluster. She will use this accretion as a model for a larger installation that will involve kinetics and multiple suspended globular forms that subtly move in space.

There is the potential for unlimited expansion in both of these works. The repetition could go on until time, space or materials run out. However, with Warlord, Biddle makes an object with a beginning and an end. Using mold-blown glass and resin, she investigates the crystallized moment of an explosion.

Biddle received a BFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her awards include fellowships at the A.I.R. Gallery, NY, and at the Creative Glass Center of America; and residencies at the MacDowell Colony, the Jentel Foundation and, most recently, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her work has been published in New Glass Review and was exhibited at the Old American Can Factory and XØ Projects Inc. in Brooklyn, NY, as well as in the Czech Republic and Iceland. Biddle lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

“Having a private studio at Sculpture Space with simultaneous access to the facilities in the main studio was very inspiring — it enabled me to have the freedom and flexibility to work through projects without having to deal with external barriers. My time spent in Utica was productive in ways that I did not expect and has led me into new approaches in my studio practice.”

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CESAR CORNEJO Museomorphosis III, detail, 2010 Fired clay, mirror, plastic, wood Variable dimensions

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Cesar Cornejo S C U L P T U R E S PAC E F E L LO W 2 0 07

As represented in Museomorphosis III, Cornejo’s communitybased museum will focus on the plethora of unfinished houses in low-income neighborhoods, specifically in Puno, Peru. Puno, a tourist destination famous worldwide for the beauty of Lake Titicaca, is also home to the Puno Museum of Contemporary Art (Puno Moca). In concert with Puno Moca, Cornejo proposes working with 15 to 20 volunteer homeowners from across the city to see that the remaining construction work on their homes is finished, enclosing much-needed rooms. In return, the homeowners agree to participate in his project for a set period of time.

Once construction is completed, the new rooms will exhibit contemporary art by national and international artists. Paying visitors may tour the exhibits, discovering local inhabitants and areas of the city. Residents can take educational workshops. After a finite period, the home-based “galleries” will revert into private spaces. As houses are completed, others are added.

FELICITY HOGAN

At Sculpture Space mid-career artist Cesar Cornejo worked with cardboard and found materials suggesting the favellas in Peru and in cities worldwide. Those structures were the basis for Museomorphosis III, a sculptural model that refers to a new kind of utopian museum that he envisions. An iconic image of the Guggenheim Bilbao hovers over the diminutive houses, reflected in a mirror above. His installation explores how an innovative museum could transform socially challenged areas and shantytowns in Latin America and create a relationship between art institutions and community.

“Earlier that year I had begun working on a project to develop a communitybased museum in the mountains of Peru. At Sculpture Space I experimented with sculptural and installation variations. The work produced during the residency helped me to think on this subject from a sculptural perspective. The work I present in this show is an outcome of that work.”

Cesar Cornejo, born in Lima, Peru, earned an MA and PhD (with honors) from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. In the United Kingdom he received grants from The British Council, the Henry Moore Institute and the Arts Council of England. Other residencies and awards include the Creative Capital Foundation Grant for Emerging Fields, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Residency, Vermont Studio Center, New York Foundation for the Arts and the University Art Museum at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. He has exhibited in solo shows at Lightcontemporary gallery in London, Lucia de la Puente and Artco galleries in Lima, among others, and in major group exhibitions in Venezuela, New York and South Korea. Cornejo teaches at the University of South Florida. He is currently represented by Art Front Gallery in Tokyo and Gallery Lucia de la Puente in Lima.

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HEATHER DEWEY-HAGBORG Who owns you? 2008 Billboard installed on a highway exit ramp Dimensions variable, site-specific installation

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Heather Dewey-Hagborg S C U L P T U R E S PAC E F E L LO W 2 0 0 8

Dewey-Hagborg, an emerging electronic media artist, explores definitions of life through art as a form of public inquiry. Using media, she facilitates the emergence of autonomous systems as tools for expression. Examining the relationship between perceived intelligence and environmental abstraction, she creates situational frameworks, freed from the artist’s hand. While in residence she created two major installations, Who Owns You? and Captivated, which challenged viewers to question their technological environment and its unintended consequences.

Who Owns You? was printed on a billboard along a highway exit ramp two blocks from Sculpture Space. The piece is straightforward and conceptual; it simply asks passersby “Who owns you?” in unmistakable Google style, raising questions about information ownership, Internet privacy and new marketing techniques.

Captivated comprises a windowless plywood shed, centered in a room filled with mulch. Inside, a solitary circle of light illuminates a structure of stainless steel and wires, an actual moving creature. A rib cage and heart expand and contract on asynchronous frequencies. Wires vibrate, creating strange sounds. The creature has a single light sensor: one pixel of color is all it knows of the world. The wires which connect it to the outside light also hold it back.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg has a BA in Multimedia Arts from Bennington College and an MA from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. She has exhibited her work at the CEPA Gallery in Buffalo, NY, Third Ward in Brooklyn, NY, and at the California College of the Arts, among others. She has received grants or awards from the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the National Science Foundation as well as Tisch Achievement Scholarships from New York University. She was awarded a residency at the General Store Gallery in Elk Horn, IA. Dewey-Hagborg lives and works in New York. She is an adjunct professor at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York.

“I had been wanting to do a billboard piece for years, but never could pull together the funding to rent one before.

I am very grateful to Sculpture Space for the opportunity to make this vision a reality. In addition to the public billboard display, I also exhibited documentation of the billboard process in an exhibition at the State University of New York Institute of Technology in Marcy, New York.”

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PATRICK GRENIER NOMSKUL: Film Studio, detail, 2008 Local trumpet player Tom Godbey Wood, mylar and acrylic on canvas Variable dimensions

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Patrick Grenier S C U L P T U R E S PAC E F E L LO W 2 0 0 8

In Utica, Grenier fabricated NOMSKUL, or NOMadic SKULpture, based on Thomas Edison’s Kinetograph Theater designed in 1894 by William K. L. Dickson, an engineer who developed the inventor’s movie camera technology. From 1894 to 1915, Dickson filmed musicians, vaudeville actors, Native Americans, among other performers. Like Dickson, Grenier wanted to interview and film a wide range of subjects. He put up flyers about his project in bars and laundromats and placed classified ads in local papers. Over a two-month period, NOMSKUL captured one-minute performances of the St. Patrick’s Day parade, Roller Derby, singers, poets, musicians, and kids eating local confections, among other everyday activities in Utica.

Grenier discovered many passionate individuals, as well as Utica’s rich history of immigrants struggling to start a new life, whose descendants still celebrate their cultural origins. Enthusiastic participation was beyond his expectations and “by far one of the most inspiring experiences of my life.” To work in a city for two months with no interruptions and with introductions to community leaders allowed for “more fruitful connections than had I lived in a town for a whole year.”

He believes that when people in a community share experiences with each other, they feel a kind of a union that fosters a greater sense of public good. Inspired by the people sharing their stories, Grenier continues to engage in community-based projects that stimulate genuine exchanges.

Born in Quebec, Grenier earned a BA and BFA from Pratt Institute and an MA in the Interdisciplinary Program in Humanites and Social Thought from New York University. He has exhibited at the New Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Norton Museum of Art, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, Cornell Museum, Aljira, and TaCo/Tacoma Contemporary. Reviews of his work have appeared in Archistorm, The New York Times, TimeOut New York and Flavorpill. His curatorial project Slow Revolution at Rotunda in Brooklyn presented the work of artists who cherish everyday moments and give emphasis to revolutionary acts. Grenier is Director of Visual Art at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Staten Island.

“The Sculpture Space residency was a milestone in my practice. I had longed to do a major social-sculpture project for years, but had been delayed by a lack of resources and dedicated time to work with a community. I thrived in Utica and felt a genuine connection with the residents. This extraordinary experience reinforced my belief in art’s power to bring people together and encourage dialogue about local challenges. I am deeply grateful to Sculpture Space and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation for enabling me to realize this project.”

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YEON JIN KIM All Intellectual Animals Are Dangerous 2, 2009/2010 Video production still Cardboard, paper, plastic, graphite, watercolor 20" x 24" x 14"

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Yeon Jin Kim S C U L P T U R E S PAC E F E L LO W 2 0 0 9

Kim’s videos stem from her dreams, remembered after moving to the US from Seoul. In one she crosses a bridge connecting Seoul and New York; in another she visits a house on a border between America and Afghanistan.

Filmed in one long take with a tiny spy camera, her drawings and the richly layered models built from cardboard boxes are arranged in sequences up to 400 feet long. American suburbs, Islamic villages, European architecture and Korean landscapes endlessly reappear.

Kim worked on a 90-foot graphite drawing of a building with windows that reveal varied interiors, characters and events. She filmed the drawing—layered with characters, some moved by hand—to produce a single channel video. Like Hitchcock’s Rear Window, each apartment contains a different world; Kim’s are inhabited by animals, people, an enormous spider, all presided over by a giant enigmatic Alice in Wonderland–like character.

All Intellectual Animals Are Dangerous 2 comprises models with settings and characters governed by dream logic and incorporating references, such as Van Gogh’s room at Arles, wallpaper from Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, characters based on works by Caravaggio or Breughel. The models—sculptures—yield the video narratives presented in this exhibition.

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Yeon Jin Kim received a BFA in Sculpture from Seoul National University, and an MFA in Combined Media from Hunter College, NY. She has recently exhibited in the Hudson River Valley and New England and will have a solo show at Lab Gallery in New York later this year. Her videos have been screened at Anthology Film Archives, NY, and Third International Video Festival, Cairo, Egypt. Residencies include The Saltonstall Foundation, Yaddo and Bric/Bcat; and she has received awards from AHL Foundation and The Tony Smith Fund. Yeon Jin Kim lives and works in New York City.

“The importance of my residency cannot be overstated. It allowed me to work, to make better work and to advance my thinking as to what my work could be. I unexpectedly fell in love with Utica; the architecture, emptiness and tone. Influenced by the city’s personality, I will incorporate Utica imagery in my next project, ‘Spaceship Grocery Store.’ I also hope to return to install a site-specific project in an abandoned building.”

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LYNN KOBLE Bellows & Manifolds, detail, 2008/2009 Felt, glass (labware: flasks, funnels, test tubes) Variable dimensions

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Lynn Koble S C U L P T U R E S PAC E F E L LO W 2 0 0 8

Koble, an emerging multimedia artist, incorporates sculptural form, interactivity and sound in her work. This installation is part of a series totaling 20 elements, which suggest elegance, whimsicality and fragility. Started at Sculpture Space, the pieces relate to her main Sculpture Space project, Capacity, a large-scale sculpture which also incorporates science laboratory glassware.

Her current work reflects her interest in the many forms of constructed and simulated environments — physical, social, psychological, natural — that exist in a technology-saturated world.

She is also curious about how people experience, order and disrupt these environments according to systems, both scientific and personal, tangible and virtual.

At Sculpture Space, Koble explored themes of systems and order, departing from her typical multimedia materials of interactivity and sound. What emerged were sculptures, both large-scale and handheld, incorporating laboratory glassware and water or air as primary components. These works draw connections among the elements of nature, science and mathematics, which have “a long-standing love affair” with formulas, systems and solutions.

Broader references to the natural world are playing an increased role in Koble’s work. They unfold as questions about sustainability (psychological and environmental), encoding and the complex relationship between people and nature in a techno-centric culture.

“Sculpture Space offered a unique and great opportunity for creative time, space and facilities — one that was enriched by the support and generosity of the surrounding community. This special environment opened me to a period of tremendous exploration, productivity and creative play. Such a sweet tonic is rare and invaluable, and Sculpture Space made this possible.”

Lynn Koble received a BFA from Alfred University and an MFA from Rutgers University. She has exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Exit Art in New York City and the Islington Arts Factory in the United Kingdom. Koble has been awarded numerous grants and residencies from, among others, Socrates Sculpture Park, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Djerassi Program, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, Skowhegan and the Houston Museum of Fine Art’s Core Program. She lives and works in New York City.

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ANN REICHLIN Translucent Home, 2008 Sited on Sculpture Space grounds.

Steel tube, angle iron, reinforcement rod, steel mesh, debris netting, house foundation 23' x 17' x 22'

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Ann Reichlin S C U L P T U R E S PAC E F E L LO W 1 9 9 8 POST-RESIDENCY PROJECTS 2001–PRESENT

Ann Reichlin is a mid-career artist who explores the structure and space of houses and rooms as a metaphor for fragility, transience and memory. This subject resonates in Utica, where a shrinking population leaves behind the negative space of abandoned buildings.

SYLVIA DE SWAAN

She created Translucent Home on the foundation of a demolished house, mimicking its size and volume. Reichlin’s third intervention on the same site, the translucent mass of the center interacts with light. Translucent Home at times seems solid, at other times fragmented, sometimes dense, sometimes hollow. The work embodies the idea of transformation and continuance.

Near Translucent Home, students and community volunteers helped Reichlin plant 500 bulbs in a trench to create A House Remembered. Invisible most of the year, in the spring bright yellow daffodils blossom and gently outline the footprint where a small house once stood, acknowledging those who lived there.

Both site-specific interventions enhance, inform and enrich the cityscape of West Utica.

Ann Reichlin lives in Ithaca, NY and has taught at Hamilton College and Brandeis University. She earned a BFA in Ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Sculpture at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Twice a Fellow in Architecture/Environmental Structures from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Reichlin has been awarded numerous residencies, including Cimelice Castle Exchange in the Czech Republic and the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA. She has participated in group shows, including at the University of Iceland, Rose Art Museum, Sculpture Center and the Qualitectonica Foundation in The Netherlands. Her work has been in Stone Canoe, NYFA Current, Sculpture Space (the book) and Sculpture magazine. She currently serves on the Artist Advisory Committee of the New York Foundation for the Arts. The Museum of Art at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica will feature Reichlin’s work in a one-person exhibition in September 2010.

“Sculpture Space was outstanding, providing time, specialized equipment and, perhaps most important, interaction with other artists whose friendship and honest feedback have helped my work to grow. As an artist in Upstate New York, I greatly appreciate the wonderful community of artists and people interested in the arts that Sculpture Space generates and nurtures.

Sculpture Space, through support of my projects, is an essential part of my experience as an artist.”

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DOROTHY SCHULTZ Lazarus (detail), 2010 Fabric, Flexinol acutator wire, vellum, driving circuits, bias springs, crimps, sand, paint Variable dimensions

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Dorothy Schultz S C U L P T U R E S PAC E F E L LO W 2 0 0 8

Dorothy Schultz, poet and emerging artist, investigates “the sides of our nature that we would rather not acknowledge.” Lazarus, conceived at Sculpture Space, is inspired by The Non-War Memorial, Edward Keinholz’s never fully realized installation. A friend stationed in Iraq further compelled her to create this piece.

Juxtaposing military uniforms with high-tech renditions of nature’s ephemeral creatures, Schultz addresses the fragility of life and the horrors of war. “My work perpetually holds up a skewed mirror of reality, to play the part of the character who eagerly points out the Emperor’s nakedness. I use satire to underscore more serious implications. I am one of those idealistic artists who believes art can actually promote political change.”

Her work relies on a sprinkle of truth embroidered with fantasy that is represented in a manner that reveals a greater consequence. “I willingly play the part of a Don Quixote de la Mancha. I will fight any number of windmills if it will succeed in disrupting the natural order of things to prevent any further social injustice.”

Schultz’s art practice has grown tremendously from her time in Utica, when she first began to research kinetic art and experiment with motorized elements.

Dorothy Schultz earned a BFA at Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, IN, and an MFA from Pennsylvania State University, both in Sculpture. She has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Washington, DC, and at the APW Gallery, Long Island City. Now living in greater metropolitan New York, until recently she lived in Culver City, CA, and worked for The Museum of Jurassic Technology.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew I would have two uninterrupted months to devote myself entirely to my art. It wasn’t until my first week that I realized this was a truly unique place: I could work beside and discuss my art at length with fellow artists, community members, students, and staff. I will always be thankful to Sculpture Space for encouraging my practice and reminding me why I love art-making in the first place.”

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SLINKO You Are Here, 2009 Wood, concrete, glass, plumbing, rags and paper Variable dimensions

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Slinko S C U L P T U R E S PAC E F E L LO W 2 0 0 9

Slinko is an emerging artist whose practice includes sculpture, installation, video, painting and drawing. Her work deals with questions of cultural production as creation of meaning, mode of transformation and a tool for observation.

Her You Are Here public art project involves unused structures throughout Utica. Using buildings as art objects, You Are Here subtly explores ideas of artistic ownership and historical context.

Slinko installed crisp enlarged labels, produced specifically for each building. Presented in museum style, each label lists the artist’s name, date of the work and materials, as well as factual information about Utica downloaded from the Internet. By placing these labels directly on the buildings and within the cityscape, You Are Here eclipses the gap between the city’s everyday reality and artistic production, raising questions about boundaries, scale, ownership and context. The poignant labels are still in place.

“No one has ever put something beautiful in our neighborhood,” one passerby commented about the billboard-sized glacial mountain range Slinko installed near Oneida Square.

Carefully exploring the environs during her workstay, Slinko also developed video projects inspired by Old Main, a magnificent 19th-century colonnaded building, originally the Lunatic Asylum.

She also researched playful interventions to address city street potholes and cracks.

“I explored Utica and its hidden beauty while in residence. This experience, without a doubt, enhanced my artistic practice. Sculpture Space offered a place for research, contemplation and work, and an amazing community. I left with an overwhelming amount of working material and lasting friendships.”

Slinko grew up in Ukraine, where she studied at the Kharkov Institute of Industrial Art. She earned a BFA at the Fashion Institute of Technology and is currently pursuing her MFA in Sculpture and Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has received a number of awards including a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, The Center for Emerging Visual Artists Fellowship and a residency at the Abrons Art Center, Henry Street Settlement. Slinko’s work has been published in Vienna’s +rosebud, and she has participated in exhibitions in New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania and The Netherlands. She lives and works in Richmond, VA.

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Exhibition Checklist

Gallery 1

Gallery 2

Gallery 3

BETSY ALWIN Sculpture Space Fellow 2009

PATRICK GRENIER Sculpture Space Fellow 2008

DIANA AL-HADID Sculpture Space Fellow 2006

Herkimer Hammer (Landscape Interface), 2009 Metal hand truck, wood, hardware, rock hammer, motor, solar panel Installation/performance

NOMSKUL: Film Studio, 2008–2009 Wood, mylar and acrylic on canvas 20' x 24' x 12' Variable dimensions

Built From Our Tallest Tales, 2008 Wood, metal, polystyrene, polymer gypsum, fiberglass, plastic, concrete and paint 12' x 8' 4" x 6' 8"

Dolomite Diamond, 2009 Carved dolomite 10" x 10" x 10" Untitled (Treasure Map Topography) I, 2010 Colored pencil, paper 18" x 24" Trove Rover, 2010 Mixed media 2' 6" x 1' 8" x 1' 6" Daniel’s Diamond, 2009 Archival ink-jet print 18" x 24" Daniel, 2009 Archival ink-jet print 18" x 24" Dolomite Diamond, 2009 Detail of polishing /performance at mine Archival ink-jet print 18" x 24" Daniel’s Diamond, 2009 Archival ink-jet print 8" x 10" Dolomite Diamond, 2009 Archival ink-jet print 8" x 10" Daniel’s Pocket: A Philosophy of Treasure Hunting, 2009 Video of Daniel Webster, professional Herkimer Diamond miner 20 minutes Herkimer Hammer (Landscape Interface), 2009 Video 5 minutes

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NOMSKUL, 2008–2009 Single-channel video 26 minutes NOMSKUL: Camera #1, 2008 Gouache and pencil on paper 16" x 20" NOMSKUL: Camera #2, 2008 Gouache and pencil on paper 16" x 20" NOMSKUL: Camera #3, 2008 Gouache and pencil on paper 16" x 20" NOMSKUL: Camera #4, 2008 Gouache and pencil on paper 16" x 20" NOMSKUL: Camera #5, 2008 Gouache and pencil on paper 16" x 20" NOMSKUL: Camera #6, 2008 Gouache and pencil on paper 16" x 20" NOMSKUL: Camera #7, 2008 Gouache and pencil on paper 16" x 20"

MEGAN BIDDLE Sculpture Space Fellow 2009 Warlord, 2009 Blown glass, resin, plastic 6.5" x 6" x 7" Molecular Cloud Nine, 2009 (study for kinetic installation) Marbles, plastic, steel Variable dimensions Untitled (Brambles), 2009/2010 Toothpicks, rubber Variable dimensions

CESAR CORNEJO Sculpture Space Fellow 2007 Museomorphosis III, 2010 Fired clay, mirror, plastic, wood Variable dimensions

YEON JIN KIM Sculpture Space Fellow 2009 All Intellectual Animals Are Dangerous 1, 2009 Single channel video Dreams 2: Train, 2008 Single channel video

LYNN KOBLE Sculpture Space Fellow 2008

SLINKO Sculpture Space Fellow 2009

Video Documentation

Bellows & Manifolds, 2008/09 Felt, glass (labware: flasks, funnels, test tubes) Variable dimensions

You Are Here, 2009 Wood, concrete, glass, plumbing, rags and paper Variable dimensions

Video interviews produced by CHRISTI HARRINGTON Associate Professor of Art Mohawk Valley Community College Utica, New York

DOROTHY SCHULTZ Sculpture Space Fellow 2007 Lazarus, 2010 Fabric, Flexinol acutator wire, vellum, driving circuits, bias springs, crimps, sand, paint Variable dimensions

Photo Documentation Main Hall ANN REICHLIN Sculpture Space Fellow 1998 Post-residency projects, 2001–present Sited on Sculpture Space grounds Translucent Home, 2008 Sited on the remaining stone foundation at 914 Whitesboro Street, the address of a demolished house in Utica, NY Steel tube, angle iron, reinforcement rod, steel mesh, debris netting, house foundation 23' x 17' x 22' A House Remembered, 2006–2008 Community planting on site at 912 Whitesboro Street, the address of a demolished house in Utica, New York 500 daffodils 20' x 15'

You Are Here, 2009 Wood, concrete, glass, plumbing, rags and paper Variable dimensions You Are Here, 2009 Wood, concrete, glass, plumbing, rags and paper Variable dimensions

Photo Documentation Video Room SARAH BEDNAREK Sculpture Space Fellow 2007 A Fast-paced Environment, 2007 Steel, motor and various mechanical parts, wood, mirror, adhesive, various office furniture, paint 7' x 7' x 6'

HEATHER DEWEY-HAGBORG Sculpture Space Fellow 2008 Who owns you? 2008 Billboard installed on a highway exit ramp Dimensions variable, site-specific installation Captivated, 2008 Lumber, dirt, stainless steel, acrylic, nitinol, electronics Dimensions variable, site-specific installation

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PATRICK GRENIER NOMSKUL: Film Studio, detail, 2008 Mohawk Valley Community College Drama students, Kelly Conklin and Danielle Piazza Wood, mylar and acrylic on canvas Variable dimensions

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Acknowledgements

It has been an honor to organize this show. I thank Mary Lou Cohalan and the Islip Art Museum for their unstinting support. We commend Mary Lou for her vision of an annual exhibition that spotlights the State’s different remarkable workstay programs — all comprising the unique New York State Artist Workspace Consortium (nysawc.org).

I am most grateful to the characteristically generous Utican leaders, including John and Kathy Zogby of Zogby International, and to my Board of Directors for their support. I would like to thank a wonderful team who contributed tirelessly to the effort: Holly Flitcroft, for attention to project detail in every way; Christi Harrington, for invaluable videography and transportation facilitation; Peter S. Irving for incomparable help with logistics, Angela Marken and Marcie Schwartzman for strategic support; Lin Smith Vincent, for incisive and brilliant editing; Jack and Karen Seifert of Seifert Graphics, for state-of-the-art fabrication of the exhibition panels; and Doreen DeNicola of DeNicola Design, whose expertise in her field makes all things possible.

Most especially, I thank the 12 artists for their generous and enthusiastic participation, and the privilege to share their stories and art with a wider audience.

— S.L.W.

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BETSY ALWIN Daniel, 2009 Archival ink-jet print 18" x 24"

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GALE FARLEY, 2007

SculptureSpace 12 Gates Street, Utica, New York 13502 www.sculpturespace.org 315.724.8381