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    Tue Greenfort:
    Garbage Bay

    Tue Greenfort: Garbage Bay

    Sep 10, 2013–Jan 27, 2014

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    SculptureCenter is pleased to announce the first US solo exhibition of Danish artist Tue Greenfort, whose interdisciplinary practice deals with the overlap of public and private realms, natural and cultural history. Commissioned through SculptureCenter's Artist-in-Residence program, Greenfort is producing a new body of work that considers art's role in reaffirming and dismantling assumptions about nature and the environment.

    Through extensive research, discussions with experts, artists and environmentalists, the exhibition and artwork presented examine the site of Jamaica Bay, a marshland that spans the outer boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens in New York City. Greenfort's exhibition and the discussions hosted around it will seek to uncover parallels and contextualize relationships between art, ecology, and politics, using the actualities of the specific site of Jamaica Bay, as well as its broader implications.

    By focusing on the site of Jamaica Bay, the exhibition charts an exploration of wetlands, while examining the specific role of the marshland within the water systems of New York. Although they are significant ecosystems, wetlands such as swamps and marshes have a limited recreational function for humans; in fact they can often be inhospitable, a quality that affects their visibility and popularity. While swamps and marshes serve humans, as well as the multitudes of other species they support, they are often the dumping ground for waste and at environmental risk. Questioning the role of human desire and pleasure seeking in forming ideas of nature, as well as directing larger ecological concern and attention; the exhibition accounts for the conflicting interests that drive understandings of natural environments. Greenfort's exhibition looks at the inherent contradictions following perceptions that some types of 'nature' are more significant than others.

    In addition to an installation created by Greenfort, the exhibition includes materials related to the artist's research on Jamaica Bay, and wetlands in general. These resources will be available to visitors throughout the exhibition duration. On Saturday November 16th from 11am-2pm, SculptureCenter will host a seminar with speakers addressing the subjects raised by the exhibition.

    Tue Greenfort interweaves the ideas of public and private and nature and culture with the language of contemporary art to formulate a critique of current economical and scientific production practices. Fascinated by the dynamics in the natural world, Greenfort's work often revolves around ecology and its history, including the environment, social relations, and human subjectivity.

    Tue Greenfort was born in 1973 in Holbaek, Denmark and lives and works in Berlin where he is represented by Johann König. As a participant in dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel, Greenfort was co-curator of an archive on multi-species co-evolution, The Worldly House. He has had extensive solo presentations at Berlinische Galerie (2012), South London Gallery (2011), Kunstverein Braunschweig (2008) and Secession, Vienna (2007). Greenfort has participated in numerous international exhibitions at institutions including Kunstverein Hannover (2011), Royal Academy of Arts, London (2009), Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2009), the Fondazione Morra Greco, Naples (2008), Skulptur Projekte M'er (2007) and Witte de With, Rotterdam (2006). His publications include Photosynthesis, Sternberg Press, 2006, and Linear Deflection, Walter König, 2009.

    Tue Greenfort is organized by Ruba Katrib, SculptureCenter Curator. The exhibition catalog can viewed online or purchased in our Store.

    Sponsors

    SculptureCenter's major exhibition and operating support is generously provided by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; New York State Council on the Arts; Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc; Bloomberg Philanthropies; the Kraus Family Foundation; the Lambent Foundation fund of the Tides Foundation; the Joan Mitchell Foundation; the New York Community Trust; the Pollock-Krasner Foundation; the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the A. Woodner Fund; and contributions from our Board of Trustees. Additional funding provided by the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; Goldman Sachs; A G Foundation; the Ken and Judith Joy Family Foundation; the Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; and contributions from many generous individuals.
    This project is part of Marfa Dialogues NY and is supported by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation The exhibition is sponsored by the Danish Arts Council Committee for International Visual Arts.