ISCP Talk
July 25, 2017, 6:30–8pm

Salon: Nicanor Araoz and Marius Ritiu

Nicanor Araoz will speak about his work through poetry and free association, a technique used in psychoanalysis. Araoz’s practice explores the body, disintegration and nature in relation to homicide, torture and pain. In his talk, he will also address how psychedelia influences his work, and his interest in the film Perdues dans New York (1989), the artist Leigh Bowery and the theorist Georges Bataille.

In his practice, Marius Ritiu explores ideas surrounding travel, motion, migration and cosmology, reflecting on the importance and/or triviality of heritage, borders, nationhood. Ritiu will speak about his ongoing series entitled The Global Citizen. For these sculptural works, he collects wood adorned with pre-Christian symbols from the ancient region Maramures in Romania. He cuts and reassembles the wood to form 12 pentagons, and uses a unique Roma processing method to then superimpose Belgian copper plates on top.

This program is supported, in part, by BARRO Arte Contemporáneo, Kunsten en Erfgoed, New York City Council District 34, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

6:30–8pm

Participating Residents

ISCP Talk
July 11, 2017, 6:30–8pm

Salon: Jia-Jen Lin and Jonas Nobel

Jia-Jen Lin will speak about her interests in humanity’s experience of displacement, self-consciousness and loss and how memories change with the passing of time. Using her personal experience as a point of departure, she employs her body and mind as a platform to process materials drawn from her own life. She also will present several past and current works to illustrate her ongoing investigation into hybrid cultures and shifting identities.

Jonas Nobel will speak about his collaboration in Uglycute, a design and architect collective. Uglycute has produced a broad range of projects in different contexts around the world, by focusing on the surroundings of the actual work of art or product, rather than the work itself. Uglycute’s practice also addresses ways of production and sharing knowledge through workshops, several of which Nobel will discuss in his talk.

This program is supported, in part, by IASPIS – The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual Artists, Ministry of Culture, Taiwan, New York City Council District 34, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

6:30–8pm

Participating Residents

Exhibition
June 27–October 6, 2017

Kiluanji Kia Henda: A City Called Mirage

A City Called Mirage is the first solo exhibition by current ISCP resident Kiluanji Kia Henda in the United States. The artist looks at real cities and their 3D models in an immersive four-channel video installation, as well as three interconnected series of photographs.

In A City Called Mirage, Henda considers the birth, life and death of modern cities. The exhibition begins with a photograph of a rusty time-worn sign of the word “Miragem” (Mirage), found by the artist in the Namibe Desert. Acting as a catalyst for new work that contemplates humanity’s drive towards urbanization, the sign spurred Henda to look at Dubai as a questionable archetype of the contemporary city, a byproduct of neoliberal desires. New cities such as Dubai are often built with little consideration of their historic or environmental characteristics, drawing parallels to the urban reconstruction of the artist’s home city Luanda, Angola.

In Paradise Metalic (2014), four synchronized videos together recount the construction of an ideal city, dreamt by the “Man with the Shovel” and built on the barren Maliha Desert in Sharjah. At once land art and performance, a new fictional country is established and subsequently demolished in the sand, hauntingly demarcated by stakes in the ground, concrete walls and iron skeletons of buildings. Based on traditional central African sona sand drawings, A City Called Mirage (2013–17)—a series of 50 photographs, also the title of the ISCP exhibition—documents large-scale sculptures assembled in the desert, based on the silhouettes of an imaginary city, using the geometric forms of sona drawings as a blueprint. Native to Tchokwe culture of Eastern Angola, these ephemeral forms are drawn in the sand to tell stories and transmit oral histories. Dubai as a spectacular city and the ultimate tabula rasa is conjured in Instructions to Create You Own Personal Dubai at Home (2013), with playful instructions for how to build your own iconic skylines at home using everyday domestic materials such as old circuit boards, tinfoil, beer cans and match sticks.

Kiluanji Kia Henda (born 1979, Luanda, Angola) is a Luanda-based artist, working with photography, video and performance. His work has been exhibited at institutions including Tate Liverpool, 2017; SCAD Museum, Savannah, 2016; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2016; National Museum of African Art – Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 2015; Tamayo Museum, Mexico, 2012; and Arnolfini, Bristol, 2012. He has participated in the 2015 Triennial: Surround Audience, New Museum, New York; Dakar Biennale, 2014; Bienal de São Paulo, 2007; Venice Biennale, 2007, and the Luanda Triennale, 2007. He is the winner of 2017 Frieze Artist Award and the 2012 National Prize of Art and Culture, awarded by the Ministry of Culture, Luanda.

This exhibition is curated by Kari Conte, Director of Programs and Exhibitions.

This program is supported, in part, by Dennis Elliott Founder’s Fund, Greenwich Collection Ltd., New York City Council District 34, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, Tauck Ritzau Innovative Philanthropy, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Opening Reception: Jun 27, 2017, 6–8pm
Open Hours: Tuesday–Friday, 12–6pm
Download Press Release (PDF)

Participating Residents