Subjective Histories of Sculpture II: Sanford Biggers
Mon, Mar 3, 2008, 6:30pm
SculptureCenter, in collaboration with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, presents a series of artist-led lectures: Subjective Histories of Sculpture II. This lecture series furthers SculptureCenter's exploration of how contemporary artists think about sculpture - its history and its legacies. Three artists at various stages of their career have been invited to present their own take on art history. They cite as examples specific works, bodies of work, texts, or even personal anecdotes - taken from inside and outside cultural production, and inside and outside "art." These subjective, incomplete, partial, or otherwise eclectic histories question assumptions and examine ways of viewing the old and the new. They also propose structures that lend themselves to understanding sculpture's evolving strategies through an observation of behaviors, dreams, and mistakes over the course of human civilization. Subjective Histories of Sculpture II is the second edition of SculptureCenter Lectures at The New School, inaugurated in 2006.
Sanford Biggers was born in Los Angeles in 1970. Influenced by a two-year stay in Nagoya, Japan, and by a multitude of cross-cultural references, Biggers' installations incorporate the study of ethnological objects, popular culture and icons, and Dadaist strategies. His work cross-pollinates different disciplines and philosophies, bringing them together in the course of his explorations and studies. Biggers also includes performative elements into his work, creating layers of reading that act as anecdotal vignettes. Sanford Biggers has exhibited internationally since 2000; he has participated in many important exhibitions including Freestyle and Black Belt at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the 2002 Whitney Biennial, Performa 07, and Illuminations at the Tate Modern in London (2007). He currently lives and works in New York.