NYAB Event - Paweł Althamer “Queen Mother of Reality”

Paweł Althamer “Queen Mother of Reality”

Socrates Sculpture Park

This event has ended.

Performa and Socrates Sculpture Park present that the sculpture created by renowned Polish artist Paweł Althamer for the Performa 13 biennial will be given new life in the park this spring. Titled Queen Mother of Reality, the 50-foot long by 18-foot high sculpture of a reclining woman made from reclaimed materials will be installed by the artist for an unveiling at Socrates on Sunday, May 11, 2014 during New York’s Frieze Art Fair, and will remain on view through August 3, 2014.

Originally built as part of Althamer’s Performa Commission in 2013, Queen Mother of Reality at Socrates Sculpture Park will act as a platform for creative dialogue and interactive programming, reflecting the park’s commitment to engaging audiences through public art. This spring the sculpture will be reassembled by Althamer and a team of artists and community members, building off the success of the sculpture’s first presentation at Biba of Williamsburg in East River State Park, Brooklyn. In November 2013, Althamer engaged several collaborators in creating the sculpture, including artists Noah Fischer, Roman Stańczak, Rafal Zwirek, and Jim Constanza (aka the Aaron Burr Society), and the artist’s sons Bruno Althamer and Szymon Althamer, as well as members of the local Williamsburg community.

Dedicated to Queen Mother Dr. Delois Blakely, who has been the Community Mayor of Harlem since she was sworn in by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in 1995, Queen Mother of Reality serves as a call to highlight New York City’s too numerous displaced and homeless, one of Dr. Blakely’s urgent causes. As this elegant and monumental ‘reclining figure’ moves to its new home in Long Island City, the sculpture will be situated once again on the East River waterfront in the midst of an active community. The park is surrounded by three of the nation’s largest public housing complexes (Astoria, Ravenswood, and Queensbridge Houses), and the local community has been a park stakeholder since its creation in 1986.

In line with Althamer’s dedication to social collaboration which underlines all of his work, Queen Mother of Reality will be the focus of a series of workshops and programs organized by Socrates Sculpture Park, including a Mother’s Day celebration in conjunction with the opening on May 11th. A full calendar will be announced in the spring and posted on www.socratessculpturepark.org.

Queen Mother of Reality is a Performa Commission and was originally presented as part of the Polish Pavilion Without Walls for Performa 13. The commission was generously supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts and Toby Devan Lewis, with additional support from Foksal Gallery Foundation (Warsaw), neugerriemschneider (Berlin), Fundacja Sztuka i Współczesność, CCA Ujazdowski Castle, and Polish Ministry of Cultural and National Heritage, Tilton Gallery. The Exhibition Program at Socrates Sculpture Park is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, Charina Endowment Fund, Lambent Foundation, Mark di Suvero, the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation, Agnes Gund, Ivana Mestrovic, and the Thomas W. Smith Foundation.

PERFORMA
Founded in 2004 by art historian and curator RoseLee Goldberg, Performa is the leading organization dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in the history of twentieth-century art and to encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century. In 2005, Performa launched New Yorkʼs first performance biennial, Performa 05, followed by Performa 07 (2007), Performa 09 (2009), and Performa 11 (2011). In 2013, Performa presented its fifth biennial, Performa 13 (November 1–24).