SculptureCenter

Matt Keegan’s what was & what is complicates narratives of real estate development through an architectural intervention and shared personal histories. As part of the work, Keegan is joined three times by his father at the site of his temporary public sculpture in Court Square Park to talk about brushes with power, personal experiences of urban development, and feelings of proximity and distance from the continual transformation of living and working space in New York. Topics of conversation will range from Mr. Keegan’s childhood job at a private golf course shuttered by Robert Moses and, much later, his reading of Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, to his previous ownership of a bar-restaurant near the Vernon Boulevard—Jackson Avenue 7 train in Long Island City. Video: Jen Atalla

Matt Keegan’s 'what was & what is' complicates narratives of real estate development through an architectural intervention and shared personal histories. As part of the work, Keegan is joined three times by his father at the site of his temporary public sculpture in Court Square Park to talk about brushes with power, personal experiences of urban development, and feelings of proximity and distance from the continual transformation of living and working space in New York. Topics of conversation will range from Mr. Keegan’s childhood job at a private golf course shuttered by Robert Moses and, much later, his reading of Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, to his previous ownership of a bar-restaurant near the Vernon Boulevard—Jackson Avenue 7 train in Long Island City. Matt Keegan, 'what was & what is,' 2019, documentation of conversation with Ed Keegan, June 13, 2019, Court Square Park, Long Island City, New York. Plexiglas, mirrored glass, aluminum, stainless steel, vinyl, UV print on Dibond. 96 x 109.5 x 192.2 inches (43.8 x 278.1 x 489 cm). Commissioned by SculptureCenter, New York. Courtesy the artist and Altman Siegel, San Francisco. Video: Jen Atalla

Matt Keegan’s 'what was & what is' complicates narratives of real estate development through an architectural intervention and shared personal histories. As part of the work, Keegan is joined three times by his father at the site of his temporary public sculpture in Court Square Park to talk about brushes with power, personal experiences of urban development, and feelings of proximity and distance from the continual transformation of living and working space in New York. Topics of conversation will range from Mr. Keegan’s childhood job at a private golf course shuttered by Robert Moses and, much later, his reading of Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, to his previous ownership of a bar-restaurant near the Vernon Boulevard—Jackson Avenue 7 train in Long Island City. Matt Keegan, 'what was & what is,' 2019, documentation of conversation with Ed Keegan, May 23, 2019, Court Square Park, Long Island City, New York. Plexiglas, mirrored glass, aluminum, stainless steel, vinyl, UV print on Dibond. 96 x 109.5 x 192.2 inches (43.8 x 278.1 x 489 cm). Commissioned by SculptureCenter, New York. Courtesy the artist and Altman Siegel, San Francisco. Video: Jen Atalla

The artists in "74 million million million tons" contribute to and corroborate accounts of significant events (and shifts) in material, social, technological, and/or political realities. Their works do not simply stand in for or index broader concepts and political issues, but move beyond the role of representation to become elements that are integral to the comprehension of contemporary occurrences and ensuing narratives. Connected by their methods of investigation and observation, more so than the specific situations or themes their artworks address, the artists in the exhibition produce evidence. They engage with information and aesthetics—often as they are controlled, obscured, fabricated, or abstracted by confluences of technology, economics, and politics—while operating at the limits of perception and detectability to create a new visual lexicon through which those at the threshold of politics can emerge. These artists use, present, manipulate, and subsequently produce new materials in order to actively participate in the construction of meaning around evolving discourses. The program opened with a lecture by artist and researcher Susan Schuppli and was followed by presentations about their works in the exhibition by artists George Awde, Shadi Habib Allah, and Daniel R. Small. To conclude, curators Ruba Katrib and Lawrence Abu Hamdan led a discussion with the program participants. Susan Schuppli @2:20 George Awde @30:05 Daniel R. Small @40:30 Shadi Habib Allah @58:54 Discussion @1:10:10 Program date: April 29, 2018, 2pm-4pm Program information: http://www.sculpture-center.org/eventsEvent.htm?id=138566 74 million million million tons Shadi Habib Allah, George Awde, Carolina Fusilier, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Hiwa K, Nicholas Mangan, Sean Raspet and Nonfood, Susan Schuppli, Daniel R. Small, Hong-Kai Wang April 30 - July 30, 2018 Curated by Ruba Katrib and Lawrence Abu Hamdan Exhibition information: http://www.sculpture-center.org/exhibitionsExhibition.htm?id=138467

APPLY ONLINE: https://www.sculpture-center.org/public_process APPLICATION DEADLINE: Sunday, April 21, 2019 PROGRAM DATES: July 8-26, 2019, Monday to Friday, 9am to 2pm Public Process is a free three week summer program for high school students that explores public art, urban planning, and architecture. In an intensive lineup of field trips and discussion sessions, students explore the city and engage firsthand with the artists and professionals who shape the cultural and civic life of New York. In past years, Public Process students have met with curators from Public Art Fund, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, and the Times Square Alliance; representatives from the New York City Departments of Parks & Recreation, Cultural Affairs, and Transportation; and writers from Art in America, in addition to SculptureCenter's staff and members of Long Island City community organizations. View photos of last year’s Public Process program here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/sculpturecenternyc/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10150855050274950 *Public Art Commission* Public Process offers fresh perspectives on art and urbanism and an immediate opportunity to impact public space: at the end of the program, students visit artists in their studios to evaluate proposals for a temporary public artwork for Long Island City. Together, they form a panel to select a winning commission to be produced by SculptureCenter the following summer. Past Public Process classes have commissioned Mika Tajima's "Meridian (Gold)" and Xaviera Simmons' "Convene" for the waterfront of Hunter's Point South Park and "Words Like Love: Alphaville, First Scenes," a billboard for Jackson Avenue by Alejandro Cesarco. *SculptureCenter* Public Process is run by SculptureCenter, a non-profit contemporary art museum in Long Island City. SculptureCenter leads the conversation on contemporary art by supporting artistic innovation and independent thought highlighting sculpture’s specific potential to change the way we engage with the world. *Program Details* Public Process is FREE to all accepted students. SculptureCenter raises funds to cover tuition for all program participants. School credit and community service hours are available to qualified students. All students accepted into the Public Process program will receive an MTA MetroCard to subsidize their travel expenses, along with daily snacks and writing materials. *Questions?* Call SculptureCenter at 718.361.1750. About Public Process www.sculpture-center.org/publicprocess About SculptureCenter www.sculpture-center.org Video directed and edited by Michael Fodera for SculptureCenter

Alejandro Cesarco Words Like Love: Alphaville, First Scenes, 2017 Installation, 14-by-48-foot billboard Jackson Avenue at the intersection of Queens Plaza in Long Island City Words Like Love: Alphaville, First Scenes, is a temporary public art project by Alejandro Cesarco. Cesarco's project is the second artwork commissioned through SculptureCenter's art education program Public Process. Words Like Love: Alphaville, First Scenes is a textual interpretation of the opening scene of filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965), an iconic science fiction/noir film that describes a futuristic dystopian society controlled by a supercomputer. Re-translating the film back into a screenplay, Cesarco's project stresses the descriptive and prescriptive function of scripts: the text in this case is made to both mirror its surroundings and, to some extent, dictate the reality we see before us. Through its prominent placement over a busy intersection in Queens, the billboard points to how texts mediate public space and social life while locating critical and resistant capacities in the acts of reading and interpretation. Alejandro Cesarco (born Montevideo, Uruguay; lives and works in New York) addresses, through different formats and strategies, his recurrent interests in repetition, narrative, and the practices of reading and translating. Recent solo exhibitions include: Play, Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin (2015); Loyalties and Betrayals, Murray Guy, New York (2015); Secondary Revision, Frac île-de-France/ Le Plateau, Paris (2013); A Common Ground, Uruguayan Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennial (2011); One Without The Other, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico (2011); Present Memory, Tate Modern, London (2010). About Public Process: Public Process is an intensive program for high school students that uses New York City's rich public art landscape to explore the history and impact of public art and its community influence. In July 2016, thirteen high school students participated in a three-week course providing interactions and presentations by seasoned professional curators, architects, local historians, and public art organization representatives, and opportunities to visit public art sites. SculptureCenter Executive Director and Chief Curator Mary Ceruti invited three artists to make proposals for a public artwork in Long Island City and present their ideas to the students on studio visits at the end of July. On the last day of the course, the students made presentations and debated the proposals, ultimately selecting Cesarco's project for the commission. Alejandro Cesarco: Words Like Love: Alphaville, First Scenes June 3 - July 2, 2017 Curated by SculptureCenter Executive Director and Chief Curator, Mary Ceruti Exhibition information: http://www.sculpture-center.org/exhibitionsExhibition.htm?id=121018 Video: Kyle Knodell