For the first time in ISCP’s 16-year history, an ISCP resident will have the opportunity to present a solo exhibition in ISCP’s gallery. This initiative will annually offer three ISCP artists and one alumni the space, time and challenge to produce new works of art which seriously engage with the context of their presentation — ISCP and New York City. Theory of the City or the Possibilities of an A4 by Petra Feriancova is the inaugural exhibition in this series and the artist’s first exhibition in the United States.

The exhibition features five works that utilize A4 sheets of paper (8^_1/4 x 11^_3/4 inches) as their primary components. The included works reveal the boundaries of an A4 due to its small scale as well as its unlimited possibilities. Feriancova often manipulates text such as in the installation Play, consisting of the 145 individual pages of Shakespeare’s Hamlet mounted to the wall side-by-side so that the viewer can choose where to begin the tragedy. However, in Feriancova’s Hamlet the dialogue between characters is deleted while the stage directions remain. The A4-sized slide projection 2/3 in contrast to Play is based on direct dialogue between positive and negative and specifically between two ancient blind sisters, who shared one eye since their birth. The artist also revisits her father’s archive of National Geographic magazines in an installation and will show a new participatory work realized by her invitation to a group of people to contribute on an A4 sheet their experiences or ideas of New York City.

Petra Feriancova was born in Bratislava, Slovakia in 1977, where she currently lives and works. She studied at L’Accademia delle Belle Arti, Rome, Italy and Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava, Slovakia. Her works have been exhibited extensively including at the Secession Museum, Vienna, Austria, 2010; Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK, 2009; HIT gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia; 2009; and Musee d’Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne, France; 2008. She is the winner of 2010 Oskár Čepan Award.

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

_{This exhibition has been made possible thanks to the support of: Brooklyn Arts Council, The Greenwich Collection, National Endowment for the Arts and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Petra Feriancova’s residency (March 1 – April 15, 2011) is supported by the Young Visual Artists Awards and Foundation for a Civil Society.}