For Immediate Release PUBLIC PROCESS COMMISSION XAVIERA SIMMONS: CONVENE Release Date: A NEW PUBLIC ART PROJECT COMMISSIONED THROUGH SCULPTURECENTER’S CIVIC ARTS April 19, 2018 EDUCATION INITIATIVE Program: Long Island City, NY – SculptureCenter is pleased to announce Convene, a temporary public art project Public Process Commission by Xaviera Simmons. Simmons’s project is the third artwork commissioned through SculptureCenter’s Xaviera Simmons: Convene art education program Public Process. Off-Site Location: Convene is a sculptural installation of aluminum canoes painted with designs that abstractly and Hunter’s Point South Park, Long explicitly evoke national flags symbolic of the diverse historical and contemporary demographic makeup Island City of Astoria and Long Island City. The work will be installed on land along the East River in Hunter’s Point South Park in Long Island City. Dates: May 23 – August 19, 2018 Various factors influence personal assumptions about how communities are composed: where one lives or has lived, whom one lives amongst, proximity to or isolation from populations perceived as different Opening Reception: and marginal, or longing for the way things were “before.” These subjective impressions commingle Wednesday, May 23, 6-8pm with demographic information (and its strict categories) as it is distributed through popular media and news outlets. Contact: Justin Conner Convene addresses population data and its visual representation while engaging the canoe’s symbolic [email protected] narratives of historical shift and reliance on personal vessels to move navigators, people, and goods to 646.593.8713 their desired destinations, often via bodies of water that span or bisect local, national, and international territories. Simmons’s work references the conditions and forms of migration, political and leisure travel, transport, and refuge, as well as the practices of documenting and representing the location and movement of people. Abstracting the visual identities of individual flags, Simmons acknowledges the complex interplay between national, cultural, and ethnic subjects, as well as the reality that allegiances to flags are often imperfect reflections of individual or collective identities. Presenting visual information that is hard to decipher, Convene suggests that statistics found in any set of data need critical engagement in order to be put to use. Xaviera Simmons (born 1974 in New York; lives and works in New York) received a BFA from Bard College (2004) after spending two years on a walking pilgrimage retracing the Transatlantic slave trade with Buddhist monks. She completed the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program in Studio Art (2005) while simultaneously completing a two-year actor-training conservatory with The Maggie Flanigan Studio. Her solo shows include Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (2017); The Kitchen, New York (2016); The Goethe-Institute (2010); and The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013). Simmons has participated in recent group exhibitions at the Renaissance Society, Chicago (2018); Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH (2017); Prospect 5 New Orleans (2017); Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2017); and MCA Chicago, Chicago (2017). Simmons’s work is in major collections including The Museum of Modern Art, Deutsche Bank, The Rubell Family Collection, The Guggenheim Museum, The Weatherspoon Art Museum, The Agnes Gund Art Collection, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The High Museum, Atlanta, and The Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University. The project is curated by SculptureCenter Executive Director and Chief Curator Mary Ceruti. About Public Process Public Process is a three week summer program for high school students that explores public art, urban planning, and architecture. In an intensive lineup of field trips and discussion sessions, students explore the city and engage firsthand with the artists and professionals who shape the cultural and civic life of New York. At the conclusion of the course, the students collectively select a proposal for a temporary public artwork to be commissioned and presented by SculptureCenter. Tuition is completely underwritten so participation is free for all students. Public Process offers fresh perspectives on art and urbanism and an immediate opportunity to impact public space: at the end of the program, students visit artists in their studios to evaluate proposals for a temporary public artwork for Long Island City. Together, they form a panel to select a winning commission to be produced by SculptureCenter the following summer. Past Public Process classes have commissioned Mika Tajima's Meridian (Gold) for the waterfront of Hunter's Point South Park and Words Like Love: Alphaville, First Scenes, a billboard for Jackson Avenue by Alejandro Cesarco. About NYC Parks Art in the Parks NYC Parks’s Art in the Parks program has consistently fostered the creation and installation of temporary public art in parks throughout the five boroughs. Since 1967, collaborations with arts organizations and artists have produced hundreds of public art projects in New York City parks. For more information visit nyc.gov/parks/art. On view concurrently at SculptureCenter 74 million million million tons Curated by Ruba Katrib and Lawrence Abu Hamdan April 30 – July 30, 2018 About SculptureCenter SculptureCenter leads the conversation on contemporary art by supporting artistic innovation and independent thought highlighting sculpture’s specific potential to change the way we engage with the world. Positioning artists’ work in larger cultural, historical, and aesthetic contexts, SculptureCenter discerns and interprets emerging ideas. Founded by artists in 1928, SculptureCenter provides an international forum that connects artists and audiences by presenting exhibitions, commissioning new work, and generating scholarship. Over the past 18 years, SculptureCenter has presented works by nearly 750 emerging and established artists through our annual exhibition program, and today, SculptureCenter is considered one of New York’s most adventurous kunsthalles. Placing importance on investment, inclusiveness, independence, transparency, and rigor, SculptureCenter has developed a strong reputation for championing under- recognized and emerging artists, many of whom have gone on to celebrated and substantial careers such as: 2016 Turner Prize nominee Anthea Hamilton, Sanford Biggers, Nairy Baghramian, Tom Burr, Liz Glynn, Rochelle Goldberg, Camille Henrot, Leslie Hewitt, Rashid Johnson, Ugo Rondinone, Katrín Sigurdardóttir, Alexandre Singh, Monika Sosnowska, Gedi Sibony, Mika Tajima, and recent Hugo Boss Prize winner Anicka Yi. As a non-collecting museum, SculptureCenter’s annual exhibition program includes 1-2 commissioning programs by mid-career artists, 10-15 projects by emerging artists, and 3-6 solo and group exhibitions in addition to an exciting series of special projects by emerging artists through In Practice, an open call program, and Public Process, a public art and education initiative for high school students. SculptureCenter continuously offers a dynamic series of free public programs and events that feature artist talks, performances, film screenings, and concerts, as well as publications. Public Process is underwritten by Charlotte Feng Ford, and is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature with additional support from The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation. SculptureCenter's exhibition, program, and operating support is generously provided by grants from the Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation; the Kraus Family Foundation; the A. Woodner Fund; Jeanne Donovan Fisher; the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation; New York City Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer; and contributions from our Board of Trustees and Director's Circle. Strategic planning support is provided by the LuEsther T. Mertz Fund of The New York Community Trust. Additional funding is provided by the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation and contributions from many generous individuals. SculptureCenter’s programming is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. ### .