Not For Tourists is an alternative guide to New York City's contemporary art scene. In each <H>ART-edition, NY-based curator Niels Van Tomme highlights a non-profit cultural organization. Ranging from the well established to the marginal, from the intellectual to the politically engaged, Not For Tourists leads through the artistic heart of the Big Apple. This episode offers an interview with Mary Ceruti, executive director and chief curator at SculptureCenter, a historically rich and vibrant Queens hub for the most innovative sculptural work.
Previously I interviewed Sina Najafi from Cabinet and asked him what my first question should be to you: "If you had to make a paper sculpture every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?"
Mary Ceruti: "I'm a bit challenged in the digital dexterity department, so I think I would have to go with Rachel Harrison's ‘Straws and Spitballs.' Sina, Matt Freedman and I curated a show several years ago called ‘The Paper Sculpture Show,' which was also a book called ‘The Paper Sculpture Book.' We invited a few dozen artists to design paper, and the audience then made the sculptures in the show. Rachel gave us a scan of a sheet of her slides and a design for a straw that you could cut out and roll. Then you could chew up her work and spit it out."
SculptureCenter is New York's only non-profit entirely dedicated to new developments in contemporary sculpture. Started in 1928, are you trying to keep a certain kind of legacy alive?
Ceruti: "Sure, we are. I can say with some confidence that we are the oldest artists run space in New York. We were founded over 80 years ago and artists still serve actively on our board. The founders worked primarily in clay and stone. In fact, the organization's original name was ‘The Clay Club.' That said, we aren't wedded to a particular sculptural tradition. We resist any institutional definition of sculpture in favor of allowing artists to tell us what they think sculpture is at any given moment. So the legacy we're trying to keep alive is one that values artistic experimentation and allows the artists' position to be foregrounded. We do historical shows and thematic exhibitions, but what we really offer is the opportunity to create new work in dialogue with peers. Between the star-curator phenomena, the institutionalization of institutional critique, and the pressure for museums to raise money from individual donors, there aren't many places where artists are welcome as artists, and encouraged to pursue their own lines of inquiry."
You became SculptureCenter's chief curator and executive director in '99. What are some of the most significant sculptural developments that you have witnessed in the last decade?
Ceruti: "I think sculpture has reclaimed the space that installation art overrode in the 90s. Perhaps in reaction to the idea that everything is art and art is everything, artists are making specific objects again. Donald Judd's term is quite useful in today's discourse, even though we seem to be far removed from minimalism. Right now, sculpture is created, and installed, with a finely tuned sensitivity of its relationship to the space it occupies and the other objects in that space, but it doesn't rely on that relationship to produce meaning."
Your space is located in Queens. Are there any advantages, or disadvantages, of being removed from the city's usual centers for contemporary art?
Ceruti: "Being outside the center grants a degree of freedom. Our audience is pretty dedicated and informed, a majority being artists and other art professionals. When people make the trip to our space they are really there to experience art. They haven't wandered in as a break from shopping or having lunch. There are few spaces in Manhattan as dramatic and beautiful as ours, and we could never have afforded them."
The summer is just around the corner, which is traditionally a calmer month for the art world. Are there any remarkable events planned at SculptureCenter? What should one do when stranded in New York City?
Ceruti: "Our current exhibition, ‘Knight's Move,' is a survey of sculpture in New York at this moment. Some excellent young artists have created new work including David Brooks, Erin Shirreff, Alex Hubbard, Carter and Mika Tajima. It's absolutely worth a trip, and of course PS1's ‘Greater New York' is on view a few blocks away.
If you're stranded -say by a volcano?- I would recommend a visit to the Queens Museum. The Queens Museum is a hidden treasure. Located on the site of the 1964 World's Fair, they keep on permanent view the panorama of the city of New York. It is a 9300 square foot model of the city of New York including scale models of almost 900,000 buildings and structures. Their current show, ‘The Curse of Bigness' is inspired by the panorama and their current expansion project."
I will interview Catherine Krudy of Printed Matter next. What should be my first question?
Ceruti: "What is her favorite binding technique?"
Niels VAN TOMME
On view until June 26: ‘Knight's Move'
SculptureCenter, 4419 Purves Street, Long Island City, NY 11101-2907
http://sculpture-center.org/