Althamer: The Neighbors

The New Museum will presents the first US museum exhibition of the work of Paweł Althamer, featuring the artist’s iconic portraits and a sculpture workshop.

The New Museum of New York will present the first US museum exhibition devoted to the work of Paweł Althamer.

Althamer is predominantly known for figurative sculptures of himself, his family, and various other individuals within his community. Beyond simple portraiture, these sculptures, along with the artist’s other activities, highlight the complex social, political, and psychological networks in which he operates.

“Paweł Althamer: The Neighbors” will include a new presentation of the Draftsmen’s Congress, originally presented at the 7th Berlin Biennial (2012). Over the course of the exhibition, the blank white space of the New Museum’s Fourth Floor gallery will be transformed through the gradual accumulation of drawings and paintings by Museum visitors and a wide array of invited community organizations. Althamer will also activate the exhibition through a sculptural workshop in which the artist and his collaborators will produce new works during the course of the show.

In the past, Althamer has realized a number of projects that seek to subtly alter reality through nearly imperceptible interventions into public space. For his New York exhibition, Althamer has arranged for street musicians to play in front of the New Museum building on the Bowery over the course of the show with the music being broadcast throughout the Third Floor gallery.

“Paweł Althamer: The Neighbors” will also feature Althamer’s iconic sculptures and performative videos realized alone or in cooperation with community groups with whom he has collaborated with over the past two decades. The artist’s most recent body of work, the Venetians, a haunting group of sculptures created for the 55th Venice Biennale, in which Althamer cast the faces of various individuals he encountered on the streets of Venice, will make its US debut. These works will be presented alongside Althamer’s series of videos, So-Called Waves and Other Phenomena of the Mind (2003–04). Produced in collaboration with artist Artur Żmijewski, these works capture Althamer as he ingests various drugs on a journey to explore the depths of his own mind. Across these varied projects, the exhibition will comprise a portrait of the artist as instigator, organizer, teacher, scientist, and visionary.

from February 12 until April 13, 2014
Paweł Althamer: The Neighbors
curated by Massimiliano Gioni and Gary Carrion-Murayari
New Museum
235 Bowery, New York

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Althamer: The Neighbors

The New Museum will presents the first US museum exhibition of the work of Paweł Althamer, featuring the artist’s iconic portraits and a sculpture workshop.

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