SculptureCenter is proud to present new work by Chris Doyle, Ellen Harvey, James Hegge, Rebecca Herman & Mark Shoffner, Diana Shpungin & Nicole Engelmann. This work is commissioned through SculptureCenter's In Practice program, which supports the creation and presentation of innovative work by emerging artists. The projects are selected individually and reflect the diversity of approaches to contemporary sculpture. These works will be on view September 7 - December 7, 2003 with an opening reception on Sunday September 7th from 2-5 pm.

James Hegge's work is engaged with elemental phenomena and the way in which we come to understand an event or a physical space. Depth Charge is a site-specific installation that the visitor experiences only through sound. A blank wall blocks the entrance to a space in SculptureCenter's lower level. Sound and vibration created by mechanical movement behind the wall describe the depth and shape of the inaccessible space. James Hegge received his MFA from Stanford in 2000. He has exhibited in New York at Paul Rodgers/9W (2001, 2002), Exit Art (2001), Dieu Donne Papermill (2002), and the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Florida (2001). He received a Pollock-Krasner grant in 2002.

Rebecca Herman and Mark Shoffner's The Secret Life of the Beaver depicts a beaver's lodge as architect's studio. Drawings and models within the lodge reveal a beaver architect with radical plans to transform Manhattan. Herman and Shoffner look at patterns of transformation common to nature and the man-made landscape, specifically the ways in which humans and animals adapt to the modern urban environment. Rebecca Herman was born in 1971 in Grinnell, Iowa and received her MFA from Parsons School of Design in 1998. She has exhibited as part of the Artist in the Marketplace exhibition at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (2001) and GAGA Gallery, New York (1999). Mark Shoffner was born in 1971 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and received his MFA from Queens College CUNY in 2000. He has exhibited at Videoland Gallery, New York (1998), NOHO Gallery, New York (2002) and was included in the College Art Association Biannual juried exhibition in 2001.

Diana Shpungin & Nicole Engelmann work as a collaborative team and create performances, videos and installations that focus on the dynamics of friends and enemies. Shoot Out is a video installation that explores the intimacy of friendship through a shoot-out in which blood is replaced with silly string. Diana Shpungin and Nicole Engelmann both received their MFAs from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. They have exhibited in New York at Art in General (2002), Stefan Stux Gallery (2002), Silverstein Gallery (2002) and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami (2001).

Chris Doyle presents Endless Love, a two-channel video installation featuring footage shot from cameras mounted on two remote-controlled helicopters. As in previous works by Doyle, the helicopters play out a psychological narrative: they meet and fall in love and the results are what you might guess when helicopters come into intimate contact. Doyle received a Master in Architecture from Harvard in 1985. He has exhibited in New York at the New Museum (1991), P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center (1993), Socrates Sculpture Park (1999) and Jessica Murray Projects (2002). He has also completed public art projects with Creative Time, the Queens Museum of Art, and the Public Art Fund.

As with previous work that plays with the conventions of traditional media of painting and sculpture, Ellen Harvey's Flat Sculpture questions the nature of contemporary sculpture and its relation to the history of the medium. Harvey will make a trompe l'oeil painting of a classical sculpture (Sleeping Hermaphrodite) directly on Sculpture Center's wall. Recently, Harvey has had solo shows at the Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw (2003), Galerie müllerdechiara, Berlin (2003) and the Whitney Museum at Altria, New York (2003) and has been included in numerous group shows including the Prague Biennial (2003), Shuffling the Deck at the Princeton University Art Museum (2003), Painting as Paradox at Artists Space (2003) and Hier ist Dort at the Secession, Vienna (2002). Harvey completed the Whitney Independent Study Program in 1999.

For additional information, photographs or interviews with any of the artists, please contact Michele Snyder at SculptureCenter at 718 361 1750 x114 or msnyder@sculpture-center.org.