SculptureCenter's Artist in Residence program commissioned Professor Sanford Biggers’ exhibition Cosmic Voodoo Circus, a show of new art, on view at the Sculpture Center from September 10 - November 28, 2011. An opening reception will take place Saturday, September 10th, from 5-7pm and is open to the public.
Sanford Biggers, Shake, 2011. HD color video still. Courtesy of the artist
Cosmic Voodoo Circus exploits the carnival aesthetic to address profound issues of identity, the power of objects, as well as spiritual and cultural transmigration. At the center of Biggers' installation is a new video titled Shake, the second part in an odyssean trilogy about the formation and dissolution of identity, filmed in Brazil. (The first video in the trilogy, Shuffle, will be on view at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, beginning September 23, 2011 as part of Sanford Biggers: Sweet Funk - an Introspective.)
The installation will also feature several new sculptures including an empty trapeze swinging overhead like a pendulum, a suspended sculpture based on a pair of African spirit sculptures constructed from fabrics including seersucker and quilts, and a billboard sized minstrel-like toothy grin, a recurrent image in Biggers' work.
Sanford Biggers works across disciplines and cultures creating sculpture, video, photography, music and photographs. Incorporating icons and rites ranging from Japanese mandalas and slave quilts to hip hop and YouTube music culture, Biggers' work connects the signifiers and patterns that link African spiritualism, Buddhist sacred rituals, and African-American urban culture. Biggers has been included in several notable exhibitions including Prospect 1/ New Orleans Biennial, Illuminations at the Tate Modern, Performa 07, the Whitney Biennial and Freestyle at the Studio Museum in Harlem. He has also had solo exhibitions at Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara; Grand Arts, Kansas City; Triple Candie, New York; Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; and Matrix/University of Berkeley Museum, Berkeley. A solo show will open at Mass MOCA in December 2011. Born in Los Angeles, Biggers currently lives in New York and is an Assistant Professor in the Visual Arts Department at Columbia University.
In conjunction to Cosmic Voodoo Circus SculptureCenter will also be showing work from Visual Arts alumni Iman Issa ('07SOA), Matt Keegan ('04SOA) and Rona Yefman ('09SOA) in Short Stories, a unique exhibition series that that will feature rotating solo exhibitions by six New York-based artists, featuring an onsite reading room, as well as readings and performances. Short Stories navigates the fabricated spaces of representation, and questions the role of art historian and critic as the best readers of an artwork, favoring instead the internal logic and fiction of the artist's practice.
The first opening reception will take place on Saturday September 10th in conjunction with Sanford Biggers: Cosmic Voodoo Circus, and is open to the public.
September 10 - December 4, 2011
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 10, 5-7pm
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 10, 5-7pm
Rona Yefman, Photograph from 'Time Kills' series, 2011. Courtesy ofthe artist and Sommer.
Iman Issa, Interior/ Practice(s) (Missing Detail 8), 2011. Courtesy of the artist and Rodeo.
