ARTIST BIOS
VISUAL AND PERFORMANCE ART
Cory Arcangel (b. 1978, Buffalo, N.Y.) is a Brooklyn-based artist who makes work in a wide range of media, including music, video, modified video games, performance, and the Internet. The youngest person to be honored with a one-person show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Arcangel often makes use of appropriation as a strategy, in the present case drawing on celebrity perfumes paired with a discordant assortment of books. Through altered sensory association, he explores the nature of cultural production and consumption in a media- and technology-saturated world. Arcangel has exhibited at such international institutions as the Hamburger Bahnhof–Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Zabludowicz Collection, London; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. His recent solo exhibitions include Pro Tools at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Beat the Champ at Barbican Centre, London; and Speakers Going Hammer at Lisson Gallery, London.
Darren Bader (b. 1978, Bridgeport, Conn.) graduated from New York University in 2000 with a BFA in Film/TV and Art History. His work is currently on view in a solo exhibition at MoMA PS1, Long Island City (through 14 May) and has previously been exhibited at Tate Modern, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; MOCA Miami, Florida; 303 Gallery, New York; The Drawing Center, New York; and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York. Other projects include the publication of five artists’ books and a website project for Audio Visual Arts. Bader received a 2012 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award grant.
In a career spanning over four decades, the American performance, conceptual, and installation artist James Lee Byars (b. Detroit, 1932–1997) created a body of work distinguished by its theatricality, ephemerality, and refinement. During his lifetime, Byars exhibited at such major institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; Musée du Louvre, Paris; Tate Gallery, London; and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Frequently included in Documenta, Kassel (1972, 1977, 1982) and the Venice Biennale (1980, 1986, 1999), Byars’s work has been featured internationally in recent exhibitions, including a 2005 solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Alexander Calder (b. Lawnton, Pennsylvania, 1898–1976), whose illustrious career spanned much of the 20th century, is the most acclaimed and influential sculptor of our time. Born in a family of celebrated, though more classically trained artists, Calder utilized his innovative genius to profoundly change the course of modern art. He began by developing a new method of sculpting: by bending and twisting wire, he essentially "drew" three-dimensional figures in space. He is renowned for the invention of the mobile, whose suspended, abstract elements move and balance in changing harmony. Calder also devoted himself to making outdoor sculpture on a grand scale from bolted sheet steel. Today, these stately titans grace public plazas in cities throughout the world.
Nina Canell (b. 1979, Växjö, Sweden) is based in Berlin and has exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Art 40 Basel; Kunstverein Hamburg; Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris; 2008 Venice Biennale; 2008 Liverpool Biennale at Tate Liverpool; Moderna Exhibition 2010, Moderna Museet, Stockholm; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; 2011 SALT Beyoglu, Istanbul; and the 2012 Sydney Biennale. Canell has published several books and LPs. Recent awards include the 2009 Baloise Prize at Art 40 Basel, the 2010 Ars Viva Kunst Prize, and the 2008–2009 Location One Arts Council Ireland Residency Stipend.
Song Dong (b. 1966, Beijing) has been a significant figure in the development of Chinese conceptual art since the early 1990s. Emerging from Beijing’s avant-garde performance art community, Song Dong explores notions of perception, transience, and the ephemeral nature of existence. He has exhibited extensively throughout the world, including at the Hamburger Bahnhof–Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; MoMA PS1, Long Island City; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Hayward Gallery, London; and Centre Pompidou, Paris. Recent solo exhibitions include Waste Not at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and SU:MBISORI at the Jeju Museum of Art, South Korea.
Dan Flavin (b. New York, 1933–1996) was an American Minimalist installation artist world-renowned for his deployment of incandescent and fluorescent lights. While Flavin’s early works included paintings, assemblages, and collages, by 1961, he began to incorporate electric lights into pieces such as the Icons series. In his later career, Flavin created large-scale, site-specific installations in venues such as the Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany; Grand Central Station, New York; the United States Courthouse, Anchorage, Alaska; and the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas. The Dan Flavin Art Institute, part of the Dia Art Foundation, was founded in 1983 in Bridgehampton, New York.
Andrea Galvani (b. 1973, Italy) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Drawing from other disciplines and often assuming scientific methodologies, his conceptual research informs his use of photography. Galvani’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art; Aperture Foundation, New York; Central Utah Art Center, Ephraim; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, the Mart, Trento; Macro Museum, Rome; GAMeC, Bergamo; De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam; Oslo Plads, Copenhagen; and the Unicredit Pavilion, Bucharest. In 2011, he received the Exposure Prize from Artists Wanted and was nominated for the prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.
After receiving an MFA in Art from the California Institute of the Arts, Kira Lynn Harris completed the Studio Program at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, New York, in 1999. A member of the arts collective Nomads and Residents, Harris has since shown her work extensively nationwide, including site-specific projects at MoMA PS1, Long Island City; MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles; and the Studio Museum in Harlem; and exhibitions at the Anacostia Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Miami Art Museum, Florida; Artists Space, New York; and Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston. The recipient of a 2010 Art Matters grant, Harris has been artist-in-residence at institutions such as the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Omi International Arts Center, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Center for Photography at Woodstock, New York.
Born in Tokyo, Mayumi Ishino currently lives in Brooklyn. A 2001 recipient of an MFA in Sculpture from New York Academy of Art, Ishino has exhibited at Exit Art, New York; 3rd International Performance Festival, Yogyakarta, Indonesia; Galeria de la Raza, San Francisco; Artnews Projects, Berlin; and Babel, Trondheim, Norway. From 2010 to 2011, Ishino held the International Artist Residency at Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder, Trondheim, Norway. Awards and grants include the 2001 HRH Prince of Wales Award, Chateau de Balleroy, France; Manhattan Community Arts Fund, New York; and a 2009 Development Grant from Fractured Atlas, New York.
Zilvinas Kempinas (b. 1969, Plunge, Lithuania) received an MFA from Hunter College, New York, in 2002. Now based in New York, he has exhibited his work extensively, including at the 53rd Venice Biennale; Art Basel Miami; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Nam June Paik Art Center, Yong-in City, Republic of Korea; 2010 Liverpool Biennale, England; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MoMA PS1, Long Island City; and the Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow. Kempinas was the 2007 Calder Prize Laureate and the artist-in-residence at the Atelier Calder, Saché, France, from January–June 2008.
Liz Magic Laser (b. 1981, New York City) received an MFA in the Visual Arts Division from Columbia University in 2008 and completed the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in 2009. Her work has been included in exhibitions, screenings, and performances at international institutions including the Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi; MoMA PS1, Long Island City; Pace Gallery, New York; Performa Biennial 11, New York; 2011 Venice Biennale; and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Laser has received grants and awards from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Workspace Program, New York; Times Square Arts, New York; and the Smack Mellon Artist Studio Program, Brooklyn.
Based in London and Sheffield, Haroon Mirza (b. 1977, London) received an MA in Design, Critical Practice, and Theory from Goldsmiths College in 2006 and an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art & Design in 2007. Mirza’s work has been included in numerous international exhibitions, including the 2008 Liverpool Biennial/London; the 11th Istanbul Biennale; Art 41 Basel; the 54th Venice Biennale; Kunstverein Harburger Banhof, Hamburg; Hayward Gallery, London; and Performa 11, New York. A former artist-in-residence at the National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan, and winner of the Northern Art Prize Award in 2010, Mirza received the Silver Lion Award at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011.
Aki Sasamoto (b. 1980, Yokohama, Japan) works in a wide range of media, from performance and sculpture to dance and even small bar talks—whatever it takes to get her ideas across. In her installation/performance works, Aki moves and talks inside the careful arrangements of sculpturally altered objects, activating bizarre emotions behind daily life. She has shown in exhibitions at Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin; Yokohama Triennale; Take Ninagawa Gallery, Japan; Jerome-Zodo Contemporary, Italy; Zach Feuer Gallery, The Kitchen, and the 2010 Whitney Biennial in New York; the Chocolate Factory Theater and MoMA PS1 in Long Island City; and other international venues. Besides her own work, she has collaborated with visual artists, musicians, choreographers, and scholars. Aki is also a co-founder of Culture Push, Inc.
Jacolby Satterwhite (b. 1986, Columbia, S.C.) graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Arts in 2008 and completed an MFA at the University of Pennsylvania in 2010. He has participated in exhibitions and performances at MoMA PS1, Long Island City; the Studio Museum in Harlem; and The Kitchen, White Box Gallery, New Museum of Contemporary Art, and Exit Art Gallery, in New York. Harvest Works, New York, named Satterwhite Artist-in-Residence from 2010–2011; other awards and honors include the Electronic Television Center Finishing Funds Grant and the 2011–2012 Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship.
Hannah Sawtell (b. 1971, London), lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions and events include MAYDAY: THE BOOTH, The Island Studio Dispatches at ARTonAIR, New York (2012); Piano Lesson, Vilma Gold, London (2012); ICA Artist Film Club, ICA, London (2011); LUX Touring Programme 2011/12, Whitechapel Gallery, London, Tramway, Glasgow and First Site, Colchester; Exploring The Abstract, Tate St Ives (2011); Serpentine Cinema, The Gate, London (2010). Upcoming exhibitions include a solo show at the ICA, London.
James Turrell (b. 1943, Los Angeles) is an internationally acclaimed installation artist known for his investigations of light, space, and perceptual phenomena. A 1984 MacArthur Fellow, Turrell has been the subject of over 170 solo exhibitions worldwide since 1967, has thirty-nine permanent installations in prominent institutions such as the Tate Modern, London, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and has received twenty-one awards. In 2009, the James Turrell Museum, an institution devoted to the artist’s work, opened in Colomé, Argentina.
MUSIC
Ikue Mori began her musical path as a drummer for the avant-garde No Wave group DNA in New York in 1978, incorporating Japanese taiko drumming techniques to create a unique style. Mori began improvising using drum machines in the late 1980s and has collaborated with musicians such as Zeena Parkins, Marina Rosenfeld, John Zorn, Fred Frith, and Kim Gordon. A pioneer of laptop electronics, Mori has forged a personal and distinct sound that is immediately recognizable as her own.
Katie Shima, Tristan Perich, and Kunal Gupta formed Loud Objects at Columbia University in 2005, blossoming in the New York art scene while expanding their practice to include installations and workshops. Loud Objects has been known to solder live audio circuits on an overhead projector, allowing the audience to watch as they create and alter complex electronic sounds in real time. The transparency of their performance is complemented by the aspect of chance and by a spirit of spontaneity.
C. Spencer Yeh is a sound artist well known for his project Burning Star Core. His work has ranged from virtuosic improvisational violin and vocal performance to museum installations of video work. In the past, Yeh has collaborated with Vito Acconci, Tony Conrad, members of Wolf Eyes, and Thurston Moore, among others. At the acclaimed experimental music festival No Fun Fest, Yeh was a regular performer.
Sightings has become an avant-rock institution in New York over their decade-plus of existence. The traditional format of guitar, bass, and drums seems simple at a glance, but their use of these instruments is completely out of the range of anything familiar. Their seamless integration of free jazz, polyrhythms, and harsh noise has earned them a variety of responses ranging from utter rapture and critical praise (New Yorker and New York Times) to hundreds of middle fingers at a PS1 Warm-Up party in 2007. Tracing a trajectory through music history to Sightings proves difficult, if not impossible.
In addition to being a member of Brooklyn band Parts and Labor, Dan Friel has become a respected name in electronics due to his solo work. His palette of sounds emanate entirely from a suitcase of devices that rests on his lap during live performances. Friel’s compositions incorporate raw sound experimentation and more traditional melodic elements that emerge as unique anthems for our times. His most recent full length was released on Important Records, also home of noise legends Merzbow and Kluster.
For many societies, ancient and modern, pentagrams (five-pointed stars) have symbolized the human body in relation to the universe, and scarabs (or beetles), transformation and rebirth. Playing The Beetles, a musical improvisation conceived by Gryphon Rue, draws from these sources to advocate for attentiveness to one’s surroundings. The piece is meant to demonstrate how spontaneous behavior can energize a space and build temporary communities. It operates through a ritualistic collaboration between beetles and improvisers paired by color coding. Each improviser has composed a personal score based on consideration of his or her particular instrument, attitude toward playing with others, and beetle’s behavior. The compositions take the form of markings designated to each section of a Plexiglas pentagram. The content results from the actions of beetles as they navigate the pentagram—e.g., a beetle on its back might cause a horn player to swell a note or a violinist to play a glissando. Improvisers include Dave Nuss (cello, percussion), Aaron Moore (trumpet, homemade instruments), Odetta Hartman (violin), Daniel Fishkin (daxophone), Gabrielle Herbst (voice), and Gryphon Rue (saw).
White Suns explore the intersection of electronics-based noise and punk rock. The formal freedom of the former and the physicality of the latter are both radically employed in their music. Their soundscapes are a barrage of cannibalized electronics, abused guitars, and effects-laden drums. Kevin Barry, Dana Matthiessen, and Rick Visser have been honing their craft in New York since 2006. The band’s latest album, Sinews, was released on Load Records in April.
FILM
Jennifer Allora (b. 1974, Philadelphia) and Guillermo Calzadilla (b. 1970, Havana) live and work in San Juan, Puerto Rico. As the collaborative duo Allora & Calzadilla, they have produced numerous exhibitions internationally, including Gloria at the U.S. Pavilion, 54th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale. Other recent solo projects include Vieques Videos 2003–2011, Lisson Gallery, London; Allora & Calzadilla: A Man Screaming is Not a Dancing Bear, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro; and Stop, Repair, Prepare, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
The art of Francis Alÿs (b. 1959, Antwerp) is centered around observations of, and engagements with, everyday life. His multifaceted projects include public actions, installations, videos, paintings, and drawings. Alÿs originally trained as an architect and moved to Mexico City in 1986, where he continues to live and work. It was the confrontation with issues of urbanization and social unrest in his new country that inspired his decision to become a visual artist. Alÿs was recently the subject of a major survey, Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception, which was on view from 2010 to 2011 at Tate Modern, London; Wiels Centre d’Art Contemporain, Brussels; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and MoMA PS1, Long Island City. Over the past decade, he has had several solo exhibitions at prominent venues, which include the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2010); The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (2008); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2007); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2006); and Portikus, Frankfurt (2006), among others.
Sebastian Buerkner (b. 1975, Germany) primarily works with flash animation to create multi-channel installations. These often place multiple images in quick secession to create disorientating, stroboscopic effects. The flicker of images, both abstract and at times familiarly figurative, double up narrative strands, taking advantage of the viewer’s sight to decipher and combine contrasting images. Buerkner lives and works in London and has widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions internationally. Recent solo projects were presented at Serpentine Cinema, London; Tramway, Glasgow; Sketch, London; Whitechapel Project Space, London; and The Showroom, London.
American modernist filmmaker Mary Ellen Bute (b. Houston, 1906–1983) studied painting in Texas and Philadelphia before working with stage lighting at the Yale School of Drama. From 1933–53, she made fourteen short films pioneering techniques with light, sound, and the moving image, working directly on film and creating animated sequences with a custom-built oscilloscope. In the 1930s, Bute screened regularly her 35mm films at Radio City Music Hall in New York, and in 1983 the Museum of Modern Art in New York hosted a retrospective screening program of the artist’s work. Recent exhibitions and screenings include an ongoing touring retrospective organized by Centre for Visual Music, in association with Cecile Starr and the Women’s Independent Film Exchange, and Mary Ellen Bute: Films 1933–52, curated by Michelle Cotton in London (2008).
Working in film and photography, Amy Granat (b. 1976, St. Louis, Mo.) explores concepts of time, transparency, opacity, cycles, and the physical manifestation of positive and negative space. Granat’s work expands upon strict Structuralist or Materialist concerns, forgoing formal strategies in favor of a more holistic approach and thereby engaging film and photography to its full potential. Granat lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and has exhibited her films and photos widely with recent exhibitions in Lisbon, Mallorca, and New York. In the fall of 2012, she will be presenting her work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and will have solo shows at Vidal Cuglietta, Brussels, and Galerie Kamm, Berlin.
Laurent Grasso (b. 1972, France) has developed a fascination with the visual possibilities related to the science of electromagnetic energy, radio waves, and naturally occurring phenomena. Grasso was awarded the Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2008 and is the subject of a major monograph, Laurent Grasso: The Black-Body Radiation, published by les presses du réel. Recent solo exhibitions have included The Horn Perspective at the Centre Pompidou and Gakona at the Palais de Tokyo, both in Paris in 2009. Grasso was also included in 9th Sharjah Biennial (United Arab Emirates) and Manifesta 8. Grasso’s U.S. public art debut, Infinite Light, was installed in 2008 on the exterior of the Hunter College Lexington Avenue pedestrian walkway in New York. One of Grasso’s major architectural installations includes Nomiya (2009–2011), the temporary project he designed which was situated on the rooftop of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
Yves Klein (b. Nice, 1928–1962) is best known for his monochrome paintings and objects using his patented International Klein Blue, first exhibited in 1956. Since then, his work has been shown in numerous solo exhibitions internationally. His lifelong fascination with immateriality and spirituality led to experimentation with the natural materials of pure pigment, sponge, air, fire, and water.
Duncan Marquiss (b. 1979, Scotland) works with video, drawing, and collage. Often using appropriated material, he draws links between disparate cultural reference points, re-imagining them in new narratives and contexts. Recent exhibitions and screenings include Serpentine Cinema, London; S1 Salon, S1 Artspace, Sheffield; Peter Klichmann Gallery, Zurich; Visible Cinema, Glasgow Film Festival; The Clay Wall, Dicksmith Gallery, London; Strange Weather, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein; and the Metal Bridge, Socha Dallas, Glasgow. Awards and residencies include 2008 LUX Associate Artists Program; Scottish Arts Council Residency, Cove Park; ISIDEM Program, Sicli, Sicily; and the 2006 Film and Video Award, Scottish Arts Council.
The work of Laurent Montaron (b. 1972, Verneuil-sur-Avre) is suffused with the contemporary history of media. From the mechanical techniques of representation of the late nineteenth century to today’s different forms, the media have always given rise to irrational beliefs. Photography changes the perception of space, but with the recording and reproduction of image, sound, and voices, time itself seems to have changed. Through his investigations of the tools that shape our representations, Montaron lays bare the paradoxes that accompany our awareness of modernity. Montaron lives and works in Paris. He has exhibited widely, with recent projects including Lost in LA, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery; Performa 11, New York; A Terrible Beauty is Born, 11th Biennale de Lyon; Dans le Palais de Cristal, Ca’asi, Venice; Roma–The Road to Contemporary Art 4th Edition, Macro Testaccio, Rome; Nouveau Festival du Centre Pompidou 2ème édition, Paris; Galerie Schleicher + Lange, Paris; and Tableau(x) Vivant(s), South London Gallery.
The video installations of Anri Sala (b. 1974, Tirana, Albania) interrogate the association between sound and space, using temporality to reflect and expose personal memories of musical performance in relation to the image. Sala lives and works in Berlin, and recent solo exhibitions have been held at the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Kaikai Kiki Co., Tokyo; National Museum of Art, Osaka; Serpentine Gallery, London; Chantal Crousel, Paris; Kurimanzutto, Mexico; and Musée d’Art Contemporain, Montreal, Quebec.
Roman Signer (b. 1938, Appenzell, Switzerland) has shown in museums and galleries internationally for the last three decades. Solo projects in 2012 include Roman Signer, HAB Galerie, Hangar à Bananes, Nantes; Aktion mit schwarzen Regenschirmen, Häusler Contemporary, Munich; and Strassenbilder und Super-8-Filme, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland. Other recent institutional exhibitions include Roman Signer: Acht Stühle / Eight Chairs, SAPS Sala de Arte Publico Siqueiros, Mexico City; Roman Signer. Skulptur, Galerie Stampa, Basel; Roman Signer «Salut», Gotthard-Basistunnel-Durchstich, Sedrun 2010, Häusler Contemporary, Zurich; Roman Signer. Floating in a Box, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; and Cinema–Roman Signer, Mercer Union–A Centre For Contemporary Visual Art, Toronto (all 2011).
Alexandre Singh (b. 1980, Bordeaux) lives and works in New York City. A graduate of the School of Visual Arts, New York, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, Singh’s work has been included in international exhibitions and performances at MoMA PS1, Long Island City; Museu da Electricidade, Lisbon; Performa 09, New York; Art Basel 42, Switzerland; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Singh received the Arts Council of England Grant in 2007 and the Rema Hort Mann Visual Grant in 2009.