CMA Receives Warhol Grant

For Immediate Release:
February 15, 2011

Media Contact:
Nancy Colvin 614.629.0303
nancy.colvin@cmaohio.org

CMA RECEIVES GRANT FROM WARHOL FOUNDATION


(Columbus, OH) – The Columbus Museum of Art has been awarded a two-year grant totaling $60,000 from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. The grant will be used to support CMA’s Currents series.

Currents is CMA’s on-going annual series of original exhibitions of contemporary art. The series encourages new curatorial scholarship focused on the artists and their installations and introduces the work of emerging and mid-career international artists to audiences in central Ohio. Previous Currents artists include Kehinde Wiley, Evan Penny, Peter Zimmerman, Jason Salavon, Oliver Kochta Kalleinen and Tellervo Kalleinen.
This year, CMA presents Currents: Stephanie Syjuco. Syjuco has adopted the tactics of counterfeiting, re-appropriation, and fictional fabrications to address questions of cultural biography, labor, and capitalism. Currents: Stephanie Syjuco furthers her interest in issues of authorship, craft, labor, and the capitalist production process. It is inspired by the Museum's Don and Jean Stuck Coverlet Collection of more than 300 nineteenth-century hand-woven coverlets. The Currents project will combine the story of the coverlets with Syjuco's recent research into the creation and use of plastic, woven, commercial shopping bags that are produced in huge numbers in plaid patterns of various colors, largely in China. Because of their low cost and ready availability, these bags, which are used mostly to transport personal belongings and food, have come to be visual indicators of immigrants in communities around the world. Different countries refer to these bags colloquially as "Turkish Suitcases" (Germany), "Chinese plaid," (US) or "Ghana must go," (West Africa) bags.
For her Currents project, Syjuco will oversee the manufacture of plastic fabric by commercial producers in Beijing, using several designs from the CMA coverlets instead of the familiar plaid patterns. She will then design and create a "product line" from this fabric and make objects available for purchase. The gallery space will be designed as a production space and shop for the "product line" to continue to be made on site throughout the exhibition. A "Production Manager" will be retained for the run of the exhibition to recruit and direct "workers" in the space, who will be provided with work tables and equipment for the manufacture of the "product line." Shelving units will provide display space for the available goods. The final collection of works will become integrated into the exhibition space along with the original coverlets, presented on a viewing wall with museum labels and signage.
The Columbus Museum of Art creates great experiences with great art for everyone. The Columbus Foundation, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, Nationwide Foundation, and the Ohio Arts Council provide ongoing support. CMA and the Museum Store are open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM, and until 8:30 PM every Thursday. The Palette Express is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Museum admission is $10 for adults; $8 for seniors and students 6 and older; and free for members, children 5 and younger. Admission is free every Sunday. For additional information, call 614.221.4848 or visit www.columbusmuseum.org.
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