YOU STAND ON THE GROUND FLOOR
Curated by Harriet Salmon and Jesse PenridgeJune 15th - August 31st, 2018
601Artspace
88 Eldridge Street
View installation shots of the exhibition
Read artcritical review here
Read about Surimono II, an event featuring Sophy Naess, here
Sarah Braman
Maurizio Cattelan
Olafur Eliasson
Luigi Ghirri
Barbara Kasten
Christian Marclay
Adrian Meraz
Abelardo Morell
Heather Rowe
Jean-Pierre Roy
Hiraki Sawa
Superstudio
Jeff Wall
Louise & Jane Wilson
Curator's Statement:
YOU STAND ON THE GROUND FLOOR explores the desire to manifest ideals in the physical world, to construct our dreams so others can share in them. In striving for such a lofty goal, these constructions reflect none of the complications, nuances or restrictions of the physical world—they are intrinsically impossible architectures. This exhibition brings together the works of 15 artists and collectives who explore how imagined structures can bridge the ground between ideology and reality.
These spaces can be highly personal and ephemeral, radically democratic and universal. A psychological portrait of an interior world, a staged photographic set, a city of the future, a perfectly designed model, a memory of afternoon light through a window: all become constructions born from the attempt to make the visions in our head external.
Many of the ideological constructs are utopian in nature, the artists building not just their interior world but a better world for everyone. (The pursuit of idealism is often a generous act—as is art making.) But once these impossible architectures come into the physical world, the viewer has a tendency to adapt and repurpose them. The interior fantasies can be viewed as narcissistic or totalitarian as people project their own desires, expectations and experiences onto them. Through this convergence of meanings, dystopian elements begin to peek through the cracks.
Image: Superstudio, Niagara o l'architettura riflessa (Niagara or the Reflected Architecture) (detail), 1970, offset lithograph, 27” x 34 ¼”.
88 Eldridge St. New York, NY 10002
Tel: 212-243-2735
Open Thurs-Sun 1-6pm
© 601Artspace, 2018