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    Jumana Manna:
    Menace of Origins

    Jumana Manna: Menace of Origins

    Mar 2–May 12, 2014

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    SculptureCenter is pleased to announce the simultaneous presentations of new work by four artists, Rossella Biscotti, David Douard, Radam&eacutes "Juni" Figueroa, and Jumana Manna, each artist to have a solo project in an U.S. institution for the first time.

    Jumana Manna is creating a group of new sculptures in relation to her video work, Blessed Blessed Oblivion (2010). The video work references Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising (1963), and examines macho culture in East Jerusalem. The men in her video are portrayed in the social spaces they have carved out for themselves, in auto shops, barbershops, and gyms, in an examination of this particular performance of gender and the materials that support it. Objects like tires, watches and dumbbells become props in an assertion of masculinity that borders on camp.

    The sculptures that Manna is producing in relation to the video comprise a reexamination of its subject matter through the notion of relics. Using archaeology as a device, Manna explores ruins and architectural forms from a site in the same area that the protagonist from her film lives in. Creating an unlikely pairing of subject matter, Manna questions the construction of power, nationalism, gender, and history through material relationships.

    Jumana Manna (b. 1987, lives and works in Berlin) solo exhibitions include projects at the Kunsthall Oslo (2013) and Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2013). Manna's work was shown in the group exhibition, Points of Departure, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2013). She also participated in the Sharjah Biennale (2013) and the Performa 13 Biennial, New York (2013). Her work has been included in multiple film festivals such as the Norwegian Short film Festival, Grimstad (2013); the London Palestine Film Festival, London (2013); the International Film Festival, Rotterdam (2013); and the Toronto Palestine Film Festival, Toronto (2013). In 2012, Manna received the Qattan Foundation's Young Palestinian Artist Award (first prize).

    The exhibition catalog can viewed online or purchased in our Store.

    Sponsors

    Jumana Manna: Menace of Origins is funded in part by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway and Royal Norwegian Consulate General, New York.