Open to the public: 

Wednesday, September 27 - Friday, December 8, 2023

Opening reception:

Wednesday, September 27, 6-8pm

Artist Talk:

Jack Henry interviews Anne Carnein and Chris Duncan

Thursday, November 2, 6-8pm

Project: ARTspace is pleased to present Fundamental, new works by artists Anne Carnein, Chris Duncan and Felicia Glidden.

The exhibition will open Wednesday, September 27 with a reception from 6-8pm, and will remain on view through Friday, December 8. The gallery is open Monday to Friday, 11am - 5pm.

Fundamental brings together the work of three artists in a way that represents the power of art as object, revealing commonalities of experience, theme and purpose reflected through three individual practices. Anne Carnein, Felicia Glidden and Chris Duncan met at Salem2Salem, a studio exchange program between Salem Art Works in Salem, New York and Schloss Salem in Salem, Germany. They share a commitment to the object and to the studio process. Each approaches their work in the studio as a process of discovery. They want to transform the raw stuff of the sculpture and painting – fabric, wire, paper, thread, paint, plastic – and bring that inanimate material to life. 

BIOS

Anne Carnein makes sculpture based on organic forms – plants, flowers, fungi. Literally rooted, like plants these sculptures search out the light or push their way down into the earth. Close inspection of Carnein’s meticulously hand-built objects reveals a patchwork of fabric, color, and detailed stitching, creating surfaces and sculpted forms far more complex than they first appear. Her layered imagery alludes to interconnected human and natural relationships. Her searching vision celebrates the physicality of the objects while acknowledging their transience. 

Born in 1982 in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) Carnein now lives and works in Southern Germany. She states "When I‘m asked how long it takes to create one of my plant or mushroom objects, I can‘t give a short answer. So I start to talk... about collecting my material: fabrics, and modeling and forming through stitching by hand....about my typically vague ideas when I start to work, and my interrupted working process....and about looking at my pieces out of the corner of my eye, while they rest unfinished on my working tables...and I finish by saying that I don‘t keep track of time, and on top of that it doesn't matter." Carnein studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe, and in a Masterclass with Stephan Balkenhol. Learn more about Carnein's work at www.annecarnein.de, @annecarneinstudio.

Chris Duncan was born in 1952, and he lives and works in New York and in Maine. His sculpture is made of paper, wood, resin, plaster and steel. It incorporates a lot of color. Though the pieces might have an artificial or industrial look, the making process is very much hand oriented. There’s an ongoing attempt to find the form or way of ordering materials that will animate the sculpture, and a point that strikes the balance between process and product. The work is non-representational but it actively refers to things in the world, recalling visual, physical, and emotional experiences. He describes his process as beginning with improvisation. "Throughout the process of making — I might say discovering — a sculpture I aim for structure and expressiveness, for combinations of line, volume, surface and color that make sense visually and physically. Though abstract, my sculptures reference experience, emotion, and observation. I like a kind of tension between the raw and the cooked, and find it essential to remain open to the unexpected. In the end I want to be surprised. I suppose you could say I have faith in the creative process as an end in itself, but as a sculptor I do want that end to have a concrete manifestation." Duncan received a Bachelor of Arts from Colby College, a Certificate from New York Studio School and studied with Clement Meadmore and Willian Tucker. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and Pollock-Krasner Award recipient. He is Baker Professor if Visual Arts, Union College in New York. Learn more about his work at chrisduncanart.com and @chrisduncanstudio.

Felicia Glidden, born in 1966 in Minneapolis, lives and works currently in Southern Germany. She creates work from the everyday stuff that we toss away – newspaper, film transparencies, plastic bags… this detritus becomes the base on which she builds statements that are both elegant and disturbing. Whether working in video, sculpture or painting, her current work is about memory, archives, loss, post-consumer waste (especially plastic) and greed. Glidden explores inter-connectivity; how our interactions with others affects us in small or big ways. Working with recycled materials she draws, paints, sews and casts impressions from discarded objects. The personal and the political lie literally just beneath the picture plane, and sometimes as you’re settling in to the deep color and the comfortable grid of the composition, they swim to the surface and take a bite out of you. She is drawin to the physicality of objects. "What is it made of? Where does it come from? Where will it go if I throw it away?" Rachel Seligman observes in Four Artists Four Voices (2021), "Glidden is concerned with the contemporary political climate and the state of the environment. Made in response to our throw away culture, her work grapples with the prevalence of political trash talk, the carelessness that she perceives within public discourse, and the thoughtlessness with which we consume and dispose of material culture.” Glidden's current work involves memorializing single-use plastic, and it goes like this: collection, sorting, cutting, sewing, painting, and finally making large hand-pulled prints of the trashquilts. She states, "Impressions from the stitching are my metaphor for our interconnectivity. Finding a box of damaged slide film led me to examine film as a medium. How are the memories in these small objects transmitted and/or contained? Last night I dreamed a neighbor‘s house was covered in trashquilts." Glidden earned an MFA at Univeristy of Maryland and a BFA at University of Minnesota. She was a performing member and choreographer at Blue Water Modern Dance Co in Duluth, MN for 18 years before transitioning to making sculpture and installation work. She exhibits internationally and has attended many residencies including Common Language, Franconia Sculpture Park, Salem Art Works and Salem2Salem. Her work was included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial as part of Occupy Museums Debtfair project. Glidden runs a project space (ProjekTraum FN) from her studio in Friedrichshafen, Germany and teaches Studio Art Foundations at the Jugendkunstschule Bodenseekreis. She is represented by Galerie Bagnato in Constance, Germany. Learn more about Glidden's work at feliciaglidden.com and @frglidden. 

Artist Jack Henry will interview Anne Carnein and Chris Duncan on Thursday, November 2, 6-8pm. Based in Brooklyn, Henry earned his BFA in Sculpture at the Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL and MFA in Sculpture at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. His practice explores the compromised state of the environment by focusing on the spaces of untamed growth remaining in the urban landscape – where mankind’s conquest of wilderness is most evident. He is the recipient of several fellowships and residencies, notably a Mass Moca Residency and a Banff Centre Ecology-Themed Artists Residency Fellowship. Learn more at jackhenryart.com and @jackbhenry.

Founded in 2011, Project: ARTspace is an interdisciplinary project space that programs events and exhibitions where curators and artists of all levels have the chance to meet, engage and promote new projects.

Contact: Leslie Kerby or Michelle Weinberg : projectartspacenyc@gmail.com
photographs by Michael Hnatov photography