Another Place: The C12 Exhibition
Curated by MA candidates Sophia Alexandrov, Lindsay Aveilhe and Samantha Best
Organized by Sarah Watson and Annie Wischmeyer
September 18–October 18, 2014
Opening reception: September 17, 6–8pm
205 Hudson Gallery
Hunter College Art Galleries
205 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10013
Hours: Wednesday–Sunday, 1–6pm
Another Place: The C12 Exhibition presents the work of eight Hunter College MFA graduates from the past decade whose art practices redefine space: Jules de Balincourt, Emmy Catedral, Ryan Lauderdale, Rodrigo Lobos Huber, Cybele Lyle, Ryan McNamara, Carolyn Salas, and Denise Schatz. Through painting, sculpture, performance, and installation, these artists create alternative places that function within, but as a counterpoint to, society. Philosopher Michel Foucault calls such locales heterotopias—circumscribed areas that deviate from customary rules and behaviors.
As the first curated exhibition at Hunter College’s 205 Hudson Street building, Another Place also commemorates the MFA program’s recent move to Tribeca from 41st Street in Hell’s Kitchen, where the program had been located since 1989. All of the featured artists had studios in the old space, making this show a bridge between the old and the new and serving as a meditation on the power and transmutability of place.
Painter Jules de Balincourt‘s work renders familiar places unfamiliar and also provides a haven in his Bushwick studio for younger artists to experiment, despite an unforgiving economic climate. Cybele Lyle‘s projections onto architecture create queer spaces whose spatial negotiations are fluid and determined by each individual’s encounter with them. Ryan Lauderdale mines the past for abandoned styles and utopian ideals to sublimate into sculpture—constructions that play on the notion of the archive and reify discarded histories. Ryan McNamara‘s performative lecture condenses disparate immersive experiences into a single space and time. Carolyn Salas‘s post-minimalist sculptures playfully delineate the positive and negative planes, concurrently activating and deactivating space for the viewer. Rodrigo Lobos Huber‘s plaster tablets create microcosms out of disparate materials that, once united and flattened, form unlikely constellations. Emmy Catedral‘s “Amateur Astronomers Society of Voorhees” hosts salons and walking tours that examine instances of human success and failure at measuring and ordering the universe. Denise Schatz gives art a permanent place to exist within the pages of her artist books.
An artist book and publication designed by Denise Schatz will provide opportunities for further engagement with each artist’s practice through essays, images, and interviews focusing on their sensitivity to place, both while at Hunter College and since graduation. The exhibition’s public programming incorporates voices from the larger Hunter College MFA alumni community. A reading room installed within the gallery will display alumni’s artist books including Denise Schatz’s Miniature Gardens collection, alumni’s catalogs, and related publications. Another Place will also feature performances and events by Ryan McNamara and Emmy Catedral with Rotem Linial’s “Cinema Balash.”
Another Place is sponsored by Stephen King of C12 Capital.
