Sand: Memory, Meaning, and Metaphor
June 29–September 14, 2008
Richard Misrach (American, born 1949)
Untitled #704-03, 2003
Chromogenic print mounted on plexiglass
74 ¾ x 115 ¼ inches
Courtesy of the Artist, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco,
Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles, and Pace/MacGill Gallery, NY
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Sand: Memory, Meaning, and Metaphor considers one of earth’s most fundamental elements and takes a fascinating look into the myriad ways in which artists have explored sand's physical and metaphysical properties.
Encompassing an extraordinary range of art, from 20th-century masters to cutting-edge artists of today, the exhibition traces several thematic threads. In a number of works, sand becomes a metaphor for memory—from Joseph Cornell’s evocative Sand Box (1942) to the elegiac 1993 photographs of footprints on a beach by Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Other works operate as potent political, social, or psychological statements, such as Untitled (From the Silueta Series), 1976, by Ana Mendieta, in which the artist documented the gradual effacement of her body’s outline in the sand, referencing her own cultural displacement.
Jochem Hendricks (German, born 1959)
6,128,374 Grains of Sand, 2003–2005
Sand and blown glass
10 x 6 ¾ x 6 ¾
Courtesy Haunch of Venison, London
© 2008 Jochem Hendricks/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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Many artists have romanced the shoreline—that “combination of sun, sea,
sand and sex,” in the words of eminent Picasso biographer John
Richardson—-that so inspired the great Spanish painter and Sand: Memory, Meaning and Metaphor will include a 1922 Picasso of classical bathers at the beach. A different take is photographer Richard Misrach’s recent On the Beach
series, informed by the artist’s own response to the events of
September 11, in which the human figure, seen from far above, is
dwarfed by the sand and the sea.
Artists have been acutely attuned to sand’s properties to function as both macrocosm and microcosm, as in Jochem Hendricks's 10,258,743 Grains of Sand (2003–2005), the number of grains in a crystalline glass sphere, counted out by the artist and the minimum-wage workers he employs to assist him. And finally, the exhibition will bring together a group of works by artists who have used sand in their medium, channeling this element’s alchemical properties—from Man Ray’s drawing and assemblage on sandpaper, l’Etoile de Verre, to Jackson Pollock’s powerful oil and sand Bird (1941).
In a dazzling array of artwork, from 19th-century folk art to cutting-edge artists of today, the exhibition includes work by:
Anonymous French, 18th century
Anonymous American, 19th century
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903)
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
William Merritt Chase (1849–1916)
Andrew Clemens (1857–1894)
Arthur Dove (1880–1946)
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Gino Severini (1883–1966)
Milton Avery (1885–1965)
Man Ray (1890–1976)
André Masson (1896–1987)
Dorothy Dehner (1901–1994)
Joseph Cornell (1903–1972)
Doris Emrick Lee (1905–1983)
Julien Levy (1906–1981)
David Smith (1906–1965)
Fairfield Porter (1907–1975)
Perle Fine (1908–1988)
Costantino Nivola (1911–1988)
Jackson Pollock (1912–1956)
Alfonso Ossorio (1916–1990)
Maya Deren (1917–1961)
Gonzalo Fonseca (1922–1997)
Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997)
Alex Katz (b. 1927)
Jasper Johns (b. 1930)
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Ed Ruscha (b. 1937)
Vija Celmins (b. 1938)
Richard Ehrlich (b. 1938)
Dennis Oppenheim (b. 1938)
Lynda Benglis (b. 1941)
Alice Aycock (b. 1946)
Billy Sullivan (b. 1946)
Donald Lipski (b. 1947)
Ana Mendieta (1948–1985)
Richard Misrach (b. 1949)
Matt Mullican (b. 1951)
Mike Solomon (b. 1956)
Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957–1996)
Ashley Bickerton (b. 1959)
Jochem Hendricks (b. 1959)
Gabriel Orozco (b. 1962)
Johan Creten (b. 1963)
Mariko Mori (b. 1964)
Ernesto Neto (b. 1964)
Spencer Tunick (b. 1967)
Jim Denevan (b. 1968)
Manfredi Beninati (b. 1970)
Alison Cornyn (b. 1970)
Eric Wesley (b. 1973)
Liset Castillo (b. 1974)
Agathe Snow (b. 1976)
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Organized by Alicia Longwell, Ph.D., the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator, Art and Education, the exhibition is comprised of more than 50 works drawn from public and private collections and includes painting, sculpture, photography, installation and film and will be accompanied by a full-color catalogue with essays by Ms. Longwell, and a contribution from noted poet and art essayist, Max Blagg. In addition, the catalogue will include a “Convergence” on the subject of sand from Lawrence Weschler, longtime New Yorker writer and now director of New York University’s New York Institute for the Humanities.
The presentation of Sand: Memory, Meaning, and Metaphor is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Robert Lehman Foundation, The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, Norman and Liliane Peck, Suffolk County, under the auspices of the Office of Cultural Affairs, Steve Levy, County Executive, Martha B. McLanahan, Jack and Helen Nash, Lisa and Ciaran O’Kelly, Jerome and Ellen Stern, James and Katherine Goodman, Galerie Lelong, James Cohan Gallery, and Nancy and Stanley Singer. Additional support provided by New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
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