ART CITIES:N.York-Radical Plastic
CUE Art Foundation is an visual arts center dedicated to creating essential career and educational opportunities for emerging artists of all ages. CUE’s exhibition program aims to present new and exceptionaly strong work by under-recognized and emerging artists based in U.S.A., the group exhibition “Radical Plastic” is the winning selection from the 2015-16 Open Call for Curatorial Projects.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: CUE Art Foundation Archive
The exhibition “Radical Plastic” features 9 artists who employ formal visual languages to address more human contexts including the problematics of bodies and gender-based constructs. The exhibition title considers the term “plastic arts” which has been used to apply to all visual arts, but has specific connotations with media that are malleable or manipulated in some way. Manipulation and thereby plasticity is not only a physical process of byproduct but also offers conceptual utility. The exhibition is an opportunity to mediate on the idea of in-between-ness, and what it means to be in the middle of something as each artist proves adept at navigating fluid and liminal areas. Among the work on presentation is “Glisten”, a new work commissioned by CUE, is a performance installation by Rachel Debuque, that features a muscular, female athlete in an “exercise room,” who is performing a workout regime. Al the works of the exhibition have been influenced by the feminism most prevalent during the time they were made (second, third and fourth wave). If viewed from the lens of feminism, this exhibition bring together dialog from artists living during second-wave feminism, alongside artists active during third-wave dialog, with younger artists working today with context such as intersectionality, post-binary gender and sexuality constructs, and a fourth wave feminism including capitalist consumption of ‘girl-based’ media culture. Participating artists: Becca Albee, Carolyn Carr, Catherine Czacki, Rachel Debuque, Carson Fisk-Vittori, Mia Goyette, Michelle Grabner, Ria Roberts and Carolyn Sala.
Info: Curator: Rachel Reese, CUE Art Foundation, 137 West 25th Street, New York, Duration: 1/7-20/8/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-17:00, http://cueartfoundation.org
