The only recurring exhibition in New York that spotlights contemporary early-career artists, the 2015 New Museum Triennial will be open to the public on February 25. The Triennial provides a platform for an emerging generation of artists who are shaping the discourse of contemporary art.
Co-curated by New Museum Curator Lauren Cornell and artist Ryan Trecartin, the building-wide exhibition will feature over 51 artists and artist collectives from over 25 countries. For many of the participants, this will be their first time exhibiting in a museum in the United States. Many of the works in the Triennial have been commissioned specifically for the show.
Titled Surround Audience, the exhibition explores the impact and influence of media and the digital world. While artists use issues around social media as a point of departure, it is not the actual platforms that are the subject of focus, but rather the ways their associated effects intersect with life. Three major approaches can be seen within the works; first, various representations of the body in an image-heavy culture in which publicising and editorialising one’s life is the norm , second, how artists grapple with increasingly corporatised and invasive spaces, and third, how artists are using the media and activism to contextualise their work.
Traditional boundaries between artistic practices are completely dissolved, reflective of the newfound elasticity in contemporary art. Paintings evolve out of 3-D models, digital images erupt into sculpture, and sound becomes action. The Triennial attests to how form is continuously converted across word, image, and medium. More information including the full list of artists participating in the Triennial can be found on the museum’s website.
Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili, Wilfred Flower, 2013. Archival inkjet print
Courtesy the artist and Galerie Micky Schubert, Berlin
DIS, Studies for The Island, 2015. Codesigned by Mike Meiré.
Courtesy the artists and Dornbracht
Firenze Lai, Tennis Court, 2013. Oil on canvas
Courtesy the artist and Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou, China
Eva Koťátková, Untitled, from the “Parallel Biography” series, 2011.
Installation view: House of Arts, Brno, Czech Republic.
Courtesy the artist and hunt kastner, Prague. Photo: Jan Mahr
Geumhyung Jeong, Fitness Guide, 2011 (still).
Video, sound, color; 49:13 min.
Courtesy the artist. Photo: © Youngkyo Choi
by Louise Lui
Surround Audience will run from February 25 until 24 May, 2015 at the New Museum
235 Bowery, New York NY 100002