-
Anna Boghiguian, Untitled, 2016. Pencil, paint, and encaustic on paper, 45 × 82 5/8 in (114.5 × 210 cm). Courtesy the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery
Exhibition
Anna Boghiguian: The Loom of History
2 May 2018 – 19 Aug 2018
Regular hours
- Wednesday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Thursday
- 11:00 – 21:00
- Friday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Saturday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Sunday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Tuesday
- 11:00 – 18:00
Address
- 235 Bowery
- New York
New York - NY 10002
- United States
Travel Information
- From the East Side of Manhattan Take the downtown 6 train to Spring Street. Exit the station and walk one block north on Lafayette Street to Prince Street. Turn right and proceed until Prince Street ends four blocks later at Bowery. From the West Side of Manhattan Take the downtown N or R train to Prince Street. Exit the station and proceed east on Prince Street for six blocks to Bowery. You may also take the downtown D or F train to Broadway/ Lafayette. Walk three blocks east to Bowery and turn right two blocks to Prince Street. From Brooklyn Take the Manhattan-bound F train to 2nd Avenue. Exit at Houston Street and walk one block west to Bowery. Turn left, and proceed two blocks south to Prince Street. From Queens Take the Manhattan-bound F train to 2nd Avenue. Exit at Houston Street and walk one block west to Bowery. Turn left, and proceed two blocks south to Prince Street.
“The Loom of History” marks the first US solo show of Armenian-Egyptian artist Anna Boghiguian, whose raw and expressionistic works combine painting, drawing, writing, collage, and sculpture to contemplate the past and present through intersections of economics, philosophy, literature, and myth.
About
Her New Museum exhibition brings together a selection of recent cutout paper figures, mixed-media works on paper, collaged paintings in beehive frames, large-scale painted sailcloth, and hand-painted texts on the gallery wall. Collectively, the works in “The Loom of History” address subjects that have long animated Boghiguian’s practice, including wars and revolutions, histories of materials and labor, and the ancient roots of modern imperialism. In particular, a number of works in the show address the economics of the cotton trade and its fundamental relationship to slavery in the United States—a violent and abusive history whose legacy has shaped racial inequities that persist today.
Since the 1970s, Boghiguian has traveled continuously, and her work has charted her impressions and observations of various societies, as well as her experiences of non-belonging as a foreigner and outsider. While her recent cutout paper figures and curtainlike paintings on sailcloth reference forms of popular storytelling or folk theater, her tabletlike drawings—a touchstone of her largely portable oeuvre—appear as a fragmented film script or exploded book. Other cutout figures and drawings in “The Loom of History” bear testament to the artist’s poetic and introspective investigations of sensory organs such as the ear, a motif that beckons the viewer to hark back to the past, or face its perennial return.
The exhibition is curated by Natalie Bell, Associate Curator.
