Katrín Sigurdardóttir's latest installation at the Sculpture Center in Long Island City makes us think about art, architecture, history and imagination. Foundation is a follow-up to the work Sigurdardóttir did for the Icelandic Pavillion at the Venice Biennale in 2013. This work unabashedly addresses the idea of beauty, while also referring to history, memory, construction and the body moving through space.

Sigurdardóttir invites us to walk on her 'foundation' made of 9,000 concrete tiles handcast by the artist and her assistants. The work is paradoxically not a foundation, but more of a floating floor or surface. A major appeal of this work is the contrast created by the juxtaposition of the concrete tiles against the chipboard and wood support structure. The work looks old and new at the same time. I think we are developing a more intense fascination with the infrastructure of things (such as manifested by our desire to gaze through the 'viewing windows' on construction sites), because so much of the makings or inner workings of things is hidden from us. We no longer open up cars, tv sets, radios, or other appliances to check out why something isn't working. We just throw them away and buy new things. I know artists revealing their process as part of the work is not a new concept, but what is new here is the complexity of what we are looking at: art, architecture, design, construction and indoor/outdoor space addressed in one work.

Sigurdardóttir's current and previous work addresses both architecture and landscape in very imaginative ways using a miniaturized scale and constructions that people can walk on, walk through or climb up. An overview of her work can be found on this pdf: Sigurdardottir. An interview with the artist appeared in Art in America last summer. Other interviews with Karin can be found in Interview Magazine and Bomb Magazine. 

In a 2008 work called High Plane V, Sigurdardottir has gallery goers climbing ladders and to experience work that goes past a false ceiling. I am intrigued by her work because it is both very simple such as in being a floor, or a ceiling, but also very complex in terms of construction and imaginative possibilities. This is an artist making us think of spaces that we take for granted; spaces that we ignore as our eyes focus on what is front of us. Siguradradottir makes us look at the floor as an object of extreme beauty, and the ceiling as a place where our imaginations are left to soar. 

Foundation can be seen at the Sculpture Center in Long Island City until July 28. 

 

Come join me for a drawing workshop called Drawing from Text, Memory and Imagination hosted by the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and inspired by the current exhibition 'Through the Looking Glass'. 

 

This will be a fun, interactive and playful drawing workshop with all materials included.

 

A great idea for an evening out with a friend or family members.

 

Snacks provided.

 

Cost: $25

 

To register on-line

Instructor: Tara Nicholson

This two-day workshop that explores needle felting as a contemporary sculptural medium to create small scale sculptures that provide a skill base for independent development of larger scale works. The workshop will provide opportunities to create two projects: (1) a small series of organic/abstract solid felt forms and (2) sculptural work(s) that combine small found object(s) with felted extensions to create hybrid sculptures. Techniques covered in the workshop include: basic needle felting, armature building, shape formation, textural finishing and methods for fine detail surface elaboration. Suitable for complete beginners.

Instructor: Connie Morey

Cost: $250 (all materials included)

For more information and images on sculptural felting: 5 Contemporary Felt Artists

There are still some spaces in the Collage and Assemblage weekend workshop I will be teaching at MISSA (Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts). 

This will be a fun two days where you will focus on arranging and gluing a range of papers and materials to surfaces with the end goal of creating elegant and exciting compositions. Various surface treatment techniques to unify your designs will be demonstrated.

Projects will be accompanied by short visual presentations to give an overview of the historical and contemporary traditions of collage and assemblage (three-dimensional collage). 

Instructor: Wendy Welch

Cost: $225 (includes supplies)