For this public program in conjunction with the current ISCP exhibition Paperwork: Administrative Practice in Contemporary Art, artist Sandra Erbacher will speak about The Return of History, her newly-commissioned work in the exhibition, as well as her long-term interest in the open office plan’s relation to disciplinary power. Erbacher’s presentation will be followed by a conversation with the exhibition’s curator Kari Conte.

The Return of History foregrounds a group of executive office desks produced in the 1970s and 1980s by the German company Ensslen, which were given names such as Euroform, Euroboss and Euroflex, conveying optimism for the European project of a bygone era. This series of three large-format photographs questions Europe’s hegemonic ideology and interrogates the idea of truth in the context of corporate and government administrations. It also considers how archives are embedded in bureaucratic systems, organized according to bureaucratic principles, and serve institutions.

Sandra Erbacher is a German artist living and working in New Jersey and New York. She earned her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2014) and her BFA from Camberwell College of Art, London (2009). She also holds a BA and MA in Sociology from Goldsmiths College, University of London. Erbacher has exhibited nationally and internationally, at Spring/Break Art Show, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center; Chazen Museum of Art, Madison; Parisian Laundry, Montreal; Space, Portland; Umbrella Gallery, Leeds; and Five Years, London. Her work is included in the Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection and numerous other private collections. Her work in Paperwork: Administrative Practice in Contemporary Art is supported by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.

This program is supported, in part, by Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant; Greenwich Collection Ltd.; Hartfield Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; 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; Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF); and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.