New York, NY 10011
USA
Dreaming Public Art
A Symposium Hosted By Madison Square Park Conservancy
And School Of Visual Arts
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Dreaming Public Art
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
7:30 PM to 10:00 PM
SVA Theatre
School of Visual Arts
333 West 23rd Street
New York, NY 10011
Free and open to the public, but a reply is necessary. Please RSVP to [email protected].
Madison Square Park Conservancy and School of Visual Arts announce Dreaming Public Art, a symposium that invites participants to explore public art possibilities
Following keynote conversation with artist Martin Puryear and Prof. Kellie Jones, Michael Brenson will moderate a panel discussion with artists Sharon Hayes,Josiah McElheny and Krzysztof Wodiczko
On Tuesday, May 24, 2016, from 7:30PM to 10:00PM, Madison Square Park Conservancy and School of Visual Arts will host Dreaming Public Art, a free symposium featuring a keynote conversation with artist Martin Puryear and Columbia University art historian Dr. Kellie Jones. Martin Puryear’s Big Bling will be on view in Madison Square Park from May 16, 2016 through January 8, 2017.
Brooke Kamin Rapaport, Director and Martin Friedman Senior Curator, Mad. Sq. Art, will deliver opening remarks. Following the keynote, writer and critic Michael Brenson will moderate a panel discussion with artists Sharon Hayes, Josiah McElheny and Krzysztof Wodiczko. Each artist will be free to approach the idea of a dream project any way he or she wishes. Each can present a work or ideas for a work unconstrained by pragmatic concerns and institutional requirements — a project with no boundaries. Artists can conceive of a project that enables site, scale, content and materials. Brenson will frame a conversation that moves between lifetimes of experience and achievement and the fault line between the possible and impossible. How do artists respond to the challenges or potential perils of possibility? An audience question and answer session will follow the panel discussion.
“I am delighted that Madison Square Park Conservancy continues to be at the forefront of the discourse on public art. Following our very successful first annual symposium last year, Explaining Public Art, which featured alumni artists from Mad. Sq. Art, this program will consider the limitless potential in realizing art in the public realm,” said Keats Myer, Executive Director of Madison Square Park Conservancy.
“We’re proud to be partnering with School of Visual Arts, an innovative institution with an impressive roster of artist alumni, for our second annual symposium, Dreaming Public Art. This year’s symposium features an outstanding, dynamic group of participants—artists and thinkers who regularly propel the dialogue on contemporary art. Their involvement on May 24th is a testament to the significant role of public art in the field, neighborhoods and communities,” said Brooke Kamin Rapaport, Director and Martin Friedman Senior Curator, Mad. Sq. Art.
About Mad. Sq. Art and Madison Square Park Conservancy:
Mad. Sq. Art is the free contemporary art program of Madison Square Park Conservancy. Since 2004, Mad. Sq. Art has commissioned and presented thirty-three premier installations in Madison Square Park by acclaimed artists ranging in practice and media. Mad. Sq. Art has exhibited works by artists including Bill Beirne, Jim Campbell, Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, Mark di Suvero, Rachel Feinstein, Teresita Fernández, Bill Fontana, Ernie Gehr, Orly Genger, Sandra Gibson & Luis Recoder, Antony Gormley, Paula Hayes, Jene Highstein, Tadashi Kawamata, Mel Kendrick, Sol LeWitt, Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Charles Long, Iván Navarro, Jacco Olivier, Roxy Paine, Rachel Feinstein, Giuseppe Penone, Jaume Plensa, Shannon Plumb, Martin Puryear, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Alison Saar, Jessica Stockholder, Leo Villareal, and William Wegman.
Madison Square Park Conservancy is the not-for-profit organization whose mission is to protect, nurture, and enhance Madison Square Park, a dynamic seven-acre public green space, creating an environment that fosters moments of inspiration. The Conservancy is committed to engaging the community through its beautiful gardens, inviting amenities, and world-class programming. Madison Square Park Conservancy is licensed by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation to manage Madison Square Park and is responsible for raising 98% of the funds necessary to operate the Park, including the brilliant horticulture, park maintenance, sanitation, security, and free cultural programs for Park visitors of all ages. Fore more information please visit madisonsquarepark.org.
About School of Visual Arts:
School of Visual Arts has been a leader in the education of artists, designers and creative professionals for more than six decades. With a faculty of distinguished working professionals, a dynamic curriculum and an emphasis on critical thinking, SVA is a catalyst for innovation and social responsibility. Comprised of more than 6,000 students at its Manhattan campus and 35,000 alumni in 100 countries, SVA also represents one of the most influential artistic communities in the world. For information about the College’s 32 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, visit sva.edu.
About Michael Brenson:
Michael Brenson is an art critic, art historian and teacher. He received an MA in Creative Writing and a PhD in art history from Johns Hopkins University, and was an art writer for The New York Times from 1982 to 1991. His publications include Visionaries and Outcasts: The NEA, Congress, and the Place of the Visual Artist in America (2001); Acts of Engagement: Writings on Art, Criticism, and Institutions, 1993–2002 (2004); edited (with Mary Jane Jacob) Conversations at the Castle: Changing Audiences and Contemporary Art (1998); edited (with Rhea Anastas) Witness to Her Art: Art and Writings by Adrian Piper, Mona Hatoum, Cady Noland, Jenny Holzer, Kara Walker, Daniela Rossell and Eau de Cologne (2006). He is a Getty scholar, Guggenheim Fellow, Bogliasco Fellow and Clark Fellow, a Visiting Senior Critic in the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design’s Department of Fine Arts, and a member of the sculpture faculty in Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts. He is writing a biography of David Smith that will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
About Sharon Hayes:
Sharon Hayes was born in Baltimore, MD, and lives and works in New York City. She received an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Hayes has had solo exhibitions at Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York (2014); Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin (2013); the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2012); and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2012). Her work been shown at venues including the Venice Biennale (2013); the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2012); and the Guggenheim Museum, New York (2012). Hayes is the recipient of awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014, the Alpert Award in Visual Arts in 2013, an Anonymous Was a Woman Award in 2013, and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellowship in 2007. Hayes is an Associate Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania.
About Kellie Jones:
Dr. Kellie Jones was born in New York, NY. She received a B.A. from Amherst College and a Ph.D. from Yale University. She is Director of Undergraduate Studies and Associate Professor in Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. Dr. Jones has received awards including a Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant in 2013. She was the inaugural recipient of the David C. Driskell Award in African American Art and Art History from the High Museum of Art, Atlanta (2005). Dr. Jones’s writings have appeared in exhibition catalogues and journals including NKA, Artforum, Flash Art, Atlantica, and Third Text. Her book EyeMinded: Living and Writing Contemporary Art (Duke University Press) was named one of the top art books of 2011 by Publishers Weekly. She organized shows for the Johannesburg Biennale (1997) and São Paulo Bienal (1989), which featured the work of Martin Puryear and won the grand prize for best individual exhibition. Her exhibition “Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980,” at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, was named one of the best exhibitions of 2012 by Artforum.
About Josiah McElheny:
Josiah McElheny received a B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design. He has exhibited at venues including the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2013), Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2012), Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2011), Museo de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2009), Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2007), Museum of Modern Art, New York (2007), and Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (2002). McElheny is the recipient of awards including a MacArthur Fellowship (2006). His first major public work was the participatory project The Metal Party, presented by Public Art Fund and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2001. He is represented by Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York, White Cube in London and Corbett vs. Dempsey in Chicago. McElheny’s project Prismatic Park will open in Madison Square Park in summer 2017.
About Martin Puryear:
Martin Puryear was born in Washington, D.C. He earned his B.A. from Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. (1963) and his M.F.A. from Yale University (1971). He served in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone (1964-66) and attended the Swedish Royal Academy of Art (1966-68). Puryear’s 2007 retrospective was organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York and traveled to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. An exhibition of his drawings, Martin Puryear: Multiple Dimensions, was organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and traveled to New York’s Morgan Library & Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He has received awards including the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture (1980), a Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant (1982), a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1989), and the Yaddo Artist Medal (2016). He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1992) and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Yale University (1994). Puryear lives and works in the Hudson Valley region of New York and is represented by Matthew Marks Gallery in New York City. Puryear’s Big Bling will be on view in Madison Square Park from May 16, 2016 to January 8, 2017.
About Brooke Kamin Rapaport:
Brooke Kamin Rapaport is Director and Martin Friedman Senior Curator, Mad. Sq. Art at Madison Square Park Conservancy in New York. She is responsible for Mad. Sq. Art’s commissioned, public sculpture exhibitions by contemporary artists. As a guest curator at The Jewish Museum in New York, she organized Houdini: Art and Magic (2010) and The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson: Constructing a Legend (2007). Ms. Rapaport was the assistant curator (1989 to 1993) and associate curator (1993 to 2002) of contemporary art at the Brooklyn Museum. She is a contributing editor and frequent writer for Sculpture magazine. She serves on the Board of Directors of Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City and the Mead Art Museum of Amherst College. She is Vice President of the Board of the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation in New York. Ms. Rapaport received a B.A. from Amherst College and an M.A. in art history from Rutgers University.
About Krzysztof Wodiczko:
Krzysztof Wodiczko was born in Poland and lives and works in New York, Boston and Warsaw. He obtained an M.F.A in industrial design from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Wodiczko received The Hiroshima Art Price “for his contribution as an international artist to the world peace” and represented Canada (1986) and Poland (2009) at the Venice Biennale. He is a Professor of Design and the Public Domain at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. Wodiczko’s publications include Critical Vehicles (1999), Krzysztof Wodiczko (2011), The Abolition of War (2013), and Transformative Avant-Garde, and Other Writings (2016).
Support:
Major support for Mad. Sq. Art is provided by Toby Devan Lewis, Pentagram Design, Sorgente Group of America, Thornton Tomasetti, Tiffany & Co., The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and Anonymous. Substantial support is provided by George W. Ahl III, Irving Harris Foundation, The Sol LeWitt Fund for Artist Work, Danny and Audrey Meyer, Ronald A. Pizzuti, and The Rudin Family. Ace Hotel New York is the Official Hotel Partner of Madison Square Park Conservancy.
Mad. Sq. Art is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Mad. Sq. Art is supported in part with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Madison Square Park Conservancy is a public/private partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.
