DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum announces The 2012 deCordova Biennial

LINCOLN, MA.- DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum announces The 2012 deCordova Biennial and exhibition-related programs and performances this winter. The exhibition, on view January 22 through April 22, 2012, follows The 2010 deCordova Biennial, the first of deCordova’s revamped regional showcase, for which Curator Dina Deitsch won critical acclaim for her fresh curatorial approach. DeCordova formerly presented the twenty-year deCordova Annual exhibition program designed to feature art from across New England.

The 2012 deCordova Biennial is the largest and most ambitious to date. Co-organized by Curator Dina Deitsch and Guest Curator Abigail Ross Goodman, former co-director of the Judi Rotenberg Gallery, the exhibition features 23 artists and collaboratives and will occupy almost the entirety of the museum and beyond—reaching into the Sculpture Park, the city of Boston, and nearby communities through a series of public, off-site projects.

The 2012 deCordova Biennial remains non-thematic but aims to reflect the dynamism, variety, and quality of art-making in the New England region. Featured artists grapple with contemporary issues, touching on a range of emergent and established practices: third wave craft, updated abstraction, art in the social sphere, a resurgence of trompel’oeil in object-making, and new takes on photography.

Over the past year, Deitsch and Goodman visited almost one hundred studios and reviewed the portfolios of many more artists in an attempt to present the wide scope of art-making in New England. They set out to explore the diverse practices of the region’s artists, with a particular interest in those that venture beyond the gallery, both conceptually and physically.

The final selection of 23 artists and collaboratives reflects and engages with, what curators Deitsch and Goodman note as, “the current mood of anxiety, discomfort, and, overall change we are experiencing throughout American culture. These artists each exemplify art’s capacity to communicate and address contemporary life through a range of techniques and forms from traditional abstract painting to more emergent social and participatory practices. In all, this group of artists reexamines the task of art making through thoughtful, introspection, and by questioning their own roles within society.”

Goodman and Deitsch were aided in their process by an esteemed group of curators from the region who served as an Advisory Board: Ian Berry, Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs and Curator, The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY; Richard Klein, Exhibitions Director, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; and Denise Markonish, Curator,
Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA.

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