Plug In ICA Launches Two New Solo Exhibitions with Angie Keefer and Fred Sandback
January 21 to March 26, 2017
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is extremely pleased to announce the launch of our winter program with two solo exhibitions by acclaimed American artists Angie Keefer and Fred Sandback. Keefer is known for her complex portrayal of art and economics and Sandback is historically renowned for his perceptual sculpture made from simple means in command of light and space. These presentations mark their first solo exhibitions in Canada. The exhibition launches with an artist talk by Angie Keefer on Thrusday, January 19 at 7pm, an opening reception on Friday, January 20 at 7pm, and a walk-through of Sandback’s exhibition by Amavong Panya on Saturday, January 21 at 3pm.
Angie Keefer: FIRST CLASS, SECOND THOUGHTS, INTERMINABLE SWELL
FIRST CLASS, SECOND THOUGHTS, INTERMINABLE SWELL is an exhibition of new work by Angie Keefer, an artist admired for her deep discursive engagement in the visual arts. Her work moves between design and publishing, writing, performance, installation, and teaching, and is often unsettled in its reflexive linking of symbolic or material form with the fluctuating activity of financial and knowledge markets.
Three new works are presented as a unified exhibition divided among two distinct spaces, separating the viewer’s experiences as witness and performer. FIRST CLASS, SECOND THOUGHTS, INTERMINABLE SWELLoccupies Plug In ICA’s exhibition breezeway on a monitor wall and our street front gallery, which Keefer turns into a production studio and showroom. These complex works capture and project the image of their audience, implicating viewers in a historic trajectory leading towards the contemporary, commercial delineation of first class status.
Angie Keefer is an artist, writer, teacher, and publisher, though the distinctions among these categories are much less definitive in Keefer’s work than comma-separated terms would indicate. Taking an interest in the incidental aspects of art making and its dissemination—from critical & commercial positioning through language, to surrounding labour, and shifting market forces—Keefer exposes and pushes at the seams of that which holds the enterprise together. She has exhibited extensively in the USA as well as Europe and South America. Recent exhibitions include Greater New York, PS1, New York (2015-16); Kunstverein Munich (2015); Whitney Biennial, New York (2014); Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp (2013-14); and Yale Union, Portland (2013). Keefer has also worked with various organizations to stage performances, talks, seminars, and other series, including Artists Space, New York (2015); Liverpool Biennial (2014); Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius (2014, 2011); Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2013); Witte de With, Rotterdam (2013); São Paulo Biennial, Brazil (2012); and The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2012), among others. Her writing has recently appeared in Mousse, Harvard Design Magazine, and Bulletins of The Serving Library.
RELATED PROGRAMS:
Thursday, January 19 | 7:00pm: Artist Talk by Angie Keefer
Thursday, February 16 | 7:00pm: Respondent Series: Talk by Evelyn Forget
Thursday, March 16 | 7:00pm: Respondent Series: Artist Talk by Howie Chen
This exhibition is sponsored in part by Video Pool Media Arts Centre, Winnipeg.
Fred Sandback: A Sampling of Works
It is difficult to describe Fred Sandback’s artworks as they contain an energy that is generated from the simplest of means and most minimal of gestures to the most maximal effects. Sandback leaves the object behind to draw in space. Using ordinary store bought materials in a seemingly minimal and precise manner, he redefines our experience of space. Most commonly, he uses acrylic yarn to draw lines that articulate space, delineating volume in otherwise empty rooms, over ostensibly bare walls from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. He exposes what is already there seemingly giving definition to air.
His exhibition for Plug In is a sampling of this sculptural practice that includes both vertical and horizontal pieces that stretch from floor to ceiling, across walls, and in straight and diagonal lines. The artist’s use of colour adds an emotional vibrancy as line, shape, and energy reveal themselves gradually within the viewer’s perceptual encounter.
Fred Sandback (1943-2003) exhibited internationally from 1968 when his first solo shows were held at Galerie Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf, and Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Munich, while the artist was still a graduate student pursuing his MFA at the Yale School of Art and Architecture. The Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz, organized an extensive survey in 2005, which traveled to the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, and the Neue Galerie am Joanneum, Graz, in 2006. In 2011, his work was featured in a solo exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and the same year the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, dedicated its entire building to a solo exhibition. In 2014, the Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland hosted a major retrospective of his drawings that subsequently traveled to the Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop and Museum Wiesbaden, Germany. The Pulitzer Art Foundation, St. Louis, mounted an exhibition from May to September 2015. There are numerous publications on his work, the most recent in 2016 documenting Fred Sandback: Light, Space, Facts at The Glenstone Foundation, Potomac, Md. Aspects: Fred Sandback’s Sculptures by Edward A. Vazquez will be published by the University of Chicago Press in 2017. Sandback’s sculpture is represented in numerous museum collections internationally and is on permanent view at Dia:Beacon, New York. His estate is represented by David Zwirner, New York/London and a complete exhibition history and bibliography is available online at www.fredsandbackarchive.org.
RELATED PROGRAMS:
Saturday, January 21 | 3:00pm: Exhibition Tour by Amavong Panya
Sunday, February 26 | 11:00am: Cat’s Cradle – a children’s workshop lead by Hannah Doucet
Date to be determined | Respondent Series: Talk by Edward A. Vazquez
This exhibition and related programs are generously sponsored by Michael Nesbitt.
Full length exhibition texts are available on plugin.org
Plug In ICA gratefully acknowledges the continued support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We would also like to acknowledge the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their contribution to our artistic programs. As always we extend our appreciation to our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/supportor by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For general information please contact: info@plugin.org. For media inquiries please contact Sarah Nesbitt: sarah@plugin.org