Debra Singer, Executive Director and Chief Curator, The Kitchen, New York, NY, moderates a dialogue with New Works 07.1 International Artists-in-Residence at Artpace on March 8, followed by a reception celebrating the completion of their new projects. Preview 6pm; Dialogue 6:30-7:30pm; Reception 7:30-8:30pm. On view through May 13.

Robert Pruitt’s installations, drawings, sculptures, and video use found objects, such as Norman Rockwell prints, crack vials, and hair extensions, to question stereotypes of African-Americans and their traditions. Highlighting, and perhaps bridging, the gap between disparate worlds, Pruitt draws inspiration and material from black vernacular culture while employing conceptual strategies and art historical conventions. Through these juxtapositions, Pruitt challenges distinctions between high and low while redirecting conventional wisdom.

Glenn Kaino’s kinetic sculptures humorously transform familiar pop cultural icons into objects that explore dichotomies of East and West, the sacred and the profane, ancient versus contemporary culture. Whether converting the Zen of a Japanese garden into a crumbling tower of industrialism or creating the mirage of a chalice from a spinning Aeron chair, Kaino’s ironic gestures expose the fragility of the relationships he crafts. Informed by personal, global, and art history, Kaino uses the laws of physics as a method for disrupting the balance of the social sphere.
Katja Strunz’s sculptures, installations, and works on paper investigate the irreconcilable distance between past and present. Angular, gothic wall constructions resurrect utopian geometry through scraps of timber and steel, while found photographs are reworked with black marker and poetic phrases to evoke the permanence of lost time. By appropriating discarded images, objects, and artistic movements, Strunz bares the reoccurring cycles of history as materially inescapable and psychologically enduring.

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