Talk

From iconic museums to contemporary galleries, works of art are often conceived and presented in dialogue with the exhibition spaces where they are shown. While invisible, the history of that context shapes the way we come to see and understand art. Within the dizzying visual backdrop of buildings, people, streets, advertising, and the broader landscape, the public sphere offers a densely layered and complex history. An ever-changing public realm has little regard for the conventions of art history and the white cube, and calls on artworks to communicate beyond the traditional exhibition space.

Under the heading Square Pegs, Round Holes: From the White Cube to the Public Sphere, the fall 2013 Public Art Fund Talks at The New School present artists whose diverse practices have encompassed significant work in gallery and museum contexts, as well as in the public sphere, to share their experiences of working in both the white cube and the public realm.

Collaborating since 1995, Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla incorporate sculpture, photography, performance, sound, and video in their art. Their hybrid works are often conceived as a set of experiments that test whether ideas such as authorship, nationality, borders, and democracy adequately describe today’s increasingly global and consumerist society. Throughout their collaborative practice, their work has also crossed the myriad boundaries between public and private space, exploring the ways in which basic materials and familiar forms can communicate complex and unexpected historical, cultural, and political metaphors and associations.

Jennifer Allora (b. 1974, Philadelphia) and Guillermo Calzadilla (b. 1971, Havana, Cuba) live and work in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Allora received a BA from the University of Richmond, VA (1996) and an MS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2003); Calzadilla received a BFA from Escuela de Artes Plásticas, San Juan, Puerto Rico (1996) and an MFA from Bard College (2001). Allora and Calzadilla presented new work at Documenta in 2012 and represented the United States at the 2011 Venice Biennale. They have exhibited at major museums and biennales including the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2011); National Museum of Art, Oslo (2009); Temporäre Kunstalle Berlin (2009); Serpentine Gallery, London (2007); Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (2007); Kunsthalle Zurich (2007); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2006); Dallas Museum of Art (2006); Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (2006); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2004); and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2004). They are represented by Gladstone Gallery in New York, Lisson Gallery in London, and Kurimanzutto in Mexico City.

Public Art Fund Talks at The New School are organized by the Public Art Fund in collaboration with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School.