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    Ursula von Rydingsvard:
    Sculpture 1991-2009

    Ursula von Rydingsvard: Sculpture 1991-2009

    Jan 23–Mar 28, 2011

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    SculptureCenter is pleased to premiere Ursula von Rydingsvard: Sculpture 1991 - 2009. Organized by SculptureCenter, this traveling exhibition includes a selection of the artist's most significant sculptures, including wall reliefs and monumental cedar works created from 1991 to 2009. The SculptureCenter presentation also features several works not traveling including a new cast resin piece installed in SculptureCenter's outdoor exhibition court. The exhibition will be on view until March 28, 2011.

    Von Rydingsvard is best known for creating large-scale, often monumental sculpture from cedar beams, which she painstakingly cuts, assembles, glues, clamps, and laminates, finally rubbing powdered graphite into the work's textured, faceted surfaces. Her signature shapes are abstract, with references to things in the real world. Drawing on a range of sources, from the humble to the majestic, von Rydingsvard's work is recognized for its great psychological force and powerful physical presence. Von Rydingsvard's most enduring form is the bowl, which may appear as a shallow or towering form, and may alternately evoke nourishment, domesticity, the body, a simple enclosure, or a mountain, among other references. The exhibition includes the five undulating bowls that make up Krasawica II (1998-2001), Ukrainian for beautiful young woman, whose overall shape conveys a fluid sense of movement and vitality despite its substantial, weighty volume; as well as the large, low basin, ringed with bulbous, stuffed-intestinal forms, whose primal, physical gravity recalls the Ocean Floor (1996). The exhibition is organized by SculptureCenter and guest-curated by Helaine Posner.

    After the New York presentation, the exhibition will travel to the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (May 28 - August 28,2011); Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (September 23, 2011 - March 25, 2012) and the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University in Miami (April 18 - August 4, 2012).

    Ursula von Rydingsvard's first solo exhibition was presented in New York in 1975 and she has been exhibiting her work in museums and galleries internationally ever since. Her sculpture is included in the permanent collections of over thirty museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and Detroit Institute of Arts. Major permanent commissions of her work are view at the Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington; the Bloomberg Building, New York; and the Queens Family Courthouse, New York. Mad. Sq. Art: Ursula von Rydingsvard was presented at Madison Square Park in 2006.

    Sponsors

    SculptureCenter's exhibition program is generously supported by grants from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the Kraus Family Foundation; the New York State Council on the Arts, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; the Foundation for Contemporary Arts; The Greenwall Foundation; The Tides Foundation, advised by the Lambent Foundation, Pollock Krasner Foundation, and contributions from our Board of Trustees and many generous individuals.

    Ursula Von Rydingsvard: Sculpture 1991 - 2009 is made possible with the support of Agnes Gund, Gabrielle H. Reem, M.D. and Herbert J. Kayden, M.D., Ann Hatch, and Steven Oliver.

    Support for the publication was generously provided by Mrs. Helen Kimmel, the Viola Fund and Galerie Lelong.