How To Do Things With Words
CCS Bard Galleries
Jess Wilcox
How to do things with Words presents work by Sharon Hayes, Jenny Holzer, Glenn Ligon, Adam Pendleton, Lawrence Weiner, and Carey Young that is concerned with the ways that language shapes contemporary life. These artists employ conventional modes of communication in unconventional ways, underscoring the rhetorical and performative techniques that render words effective.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Sharon Hayes was born in Baltimore, MD in 1970. She received a BA from Bowdoin College, an MFA from University of California, Los Angeles, and participated the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. She lives and works in New York, NY. Her installation, video, and performances have been presented at The New Museum for Contemporary Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; and La Panaderia, Mexico D.F., and international exhibitions such as Documenta 12, The Yokohama Triennial (2008), and The Third Guangzhou Triennial.
Jenny Holzer was born in Gallipolis, Ohio in 1950. She attended University of Chicago and Duke University, received a BFA from Ohio University, and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, and participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. She lives and works in Hoosick, NY. Since the 1980’s, Holzer’s visual/textual practice has been exhibited internationally. In 1990, she represented the United States at Venice Biennial. Most recently, her installations have been featured in the solo exhibition, PROTECT, PROTECT, at the MCA Chicago, Chicago, IL.
Glenn Ligon was born in the Bronx, New York in 1960 and attended Rhode Island School of Design and Wesleyan University and participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. He lives and works in New York, NY. His paintings, sculpture and installations have been included in exhibitions such as Documenta XI, The 24th Sao Paulo Biennial, 10th Biennale of Sydney and Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary Art, Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2005 a major traveling survey of his work titled, Some Changes, opened at the Power Plant in Toronto.
Adam Pendleton was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1980 and attended the Artspace Independent Study Program in Pietrasanta, Italy. He works and lives in New York, New York. His work has been widely featured in exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe, including Manifesta 7 in Torento Italy; Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll at MCA Chicago, Chicago, IL;After 1968 at the High Museum, Atlanta, GA; Performa 07, New York; and most recently the solo exhibition, Black Dada, at Haunch of Venison, Berlin.
Lawrence Weiner was born in the Bronx in 1942. He works and lives in New York, NY. Weiner has produced large-scale public commissions in cities including Vancouver, Vienna, Eindhoven, and New York. The museums in which Weiner has had solo exhibitions include Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin; Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City; and Stedelijk van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven. In 2007, AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE the Whitney Museum of American Art mounted the first major retrospective of Weiner’s work in the United States.
Carey Young was born in Lusaka, Zambia in 1970 and attended University of Brighton and received an MA in Photography from Royal College of Art, London. She works and lives in London, UK. Her work has been presented in exhibitions including the Moscow Biennial, Moscow; The Third Tirana Biennale, Tirana; and SCAPE 2006 Biennial of Art in Public Space, Christchurch, New Zealand, as well featured at Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis; IBID Projects, London; and IASPIS, Stockholm.
How to do things with Words is curated by Jess Wilcox as part of the requirements for the master of arts degree in curatorial studies.
Student curated exhibitions at CCS Bard are made possible with support from the Rebecca and Martin Eisenberg Student Exhibition Fund; Mitzi and Warren Eisenberg; and the Patrons, Supporters, and Friends of the Center for Curatorial Studies. Special thanks to the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.
