Artist Talk: Thursday, June 15, 2017, at 19:00 Opening: Thursday, June 15 at 20:00
The CCA presents Agnieszka Kurant’s first solo exhibition in Israel. Kurant focuses on collective intelligence, shared fictions, as well as invisible and “immaterial” labor. She questions singular authorship with works such as “Production Line,” a series of drawings crowdsourced to thousands of online workers, and “A.A.I.,” sculptures made out of colored sand, gold and crystals by colonies of termites.
Kurant’s examination of invisible labor and the unseen forces of control extend to works such as, “Air Rights,” a levitating meteorite, and “Cutaways,” a short film featuring three characters who were cut out of major films during the editing process and who are re-played by their original Hollywood actors.
By pointing to invisible labor and shared authorship, Kurant also raises questions about value. In the art world in particular, the author’s identity is paramount to establishing an artwork’s value. Kurant undermines this economic trope with“Mutations and Liquid Assets,” which consists of several small sculptures by famous artists melted together. Taking appropriation one step further, this work discusses the shifting status of art objects and their potential for transformation.
Kurant will give an artist talk and discuss her practice and sources of inspiration prior to the opening.
This exhibition was generously supported by the Polish Institute.
Agnieszka Kurant:
Born in 1978 in Lodz, Poland, Kurant currently lives in New York City. In late 2014, Kurant was commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum in New York to create a large-scale light work for the facade of the Frank Lloyd Write building as part of their Storylines: Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim exhibition. Among her exhibitions worldwide, the artist represented Poland at the Venice Biennale 12th International Architecture Exhibition (in collaboration with the architect Aleksandra Wasilkowska) with a pavilion presentation titled Emergency Exit (2010). In 2013-2014, she had her first major exhibition in New York at SculptureCenter titled exformation, which was also shown at Stroom Den Haag in the Netherlands. Her work has been exhibited at museums including Witte de With in Rotterdam (2011), Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2014), Tate Modern in London (2006), The Kitchen (2016), Moderna Museet (2015), MAMCO in Geneva (2006), Museum of Art in Warsaw (2015) and at Performa Biennial in New York (2013), Momentum Biennale , Oslo (2015), Moscow Biennale (2007) and Bucharest Biennale (2008). Kurant studied in Lodz, Warsaw and London, and completed residencies at Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2004), ISCP in New York (2005), Paul Klee Center in Bern (2009), Location One in New York (2012), and Iaspis in Stockholm (2013). In 2009, she was shortlisted for the International Henkel Art Award at the Museum of Modern Art (MUMOK) in Vienna. She is the currently artist in residence at MIT Center for Art Science and Technology.
Curated by: Chen Tamir
Photo credit: Eyal Agivayev