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Pallas Contemporary
Projects present
A joint collaboration
project with 126 Galway
Stephanie Syjuco
Unsolicited Fabrications:
Shareware Sculptures
Opening reception: 7pm –
9pm Friday, 1st May 2009
Exhibition continues:
2nd – 30th May
Stephanie Syjuco
Unsolicited Fabrications: Shareware Sculptures
Opening reception: 6pm – 8pm Friday, 1st May 2009
Exhibition continues: 2nd – 30th May
Pallas Contemporary Projects
is proud to present Unsolicited Fabrications: Shareware Sculptures,
a unique installation by Stephanie Syjuco. Her first solo exhibition in Ireland
displays a collection of strange hybrid of forms via many different authors,
a unique opportunity to encounter artworks that were never meant to be physically
realized.
Syjuco’s installation of hand-made sculptures is based on a shared database
of
“artworks” created by users of SketchUp, a 3-D modelling software
made by Google.
Designed as a simple and easy-to-use free version of CAD software, SketchUp
has
garnered a growing following of amateur designers who use it to model virtually
everything from common household items to fantasy architectural designs. These
digital designs can be uploaded to a freely accessible database to share with
other SketchUp users in their own projects, many of which are created by non-artists.
Based on these models, Syjuco produces a physical representation and in essence
become the “unsolicited” fabricator of the sculpture. (While the
original designer
of the work will be attributed, their permission will not be requested to
execute
the work, since the design was in essence considered shareware). Issues of
authorship, collaboration and production brings into question who the real
“artist” is in the equation. Is this work a collaboration, a knock-off,
or
perhaps even a fabricated favor, and does the shared platform for this content
give permission to make it really happen?
Stephanie Syjuco is a visual
artist whose recent work uses the tactics of
bootlegging, reappropriation, and fictional fabrications to address issues
of
cultural biography, labour, and economic globalization. Working primarily
in
sculpture and installation, her objects mistranslate and misappropriate iconic
symbols, creating frictions between high ideals and everyday materials. This
has
included re-creating several 1950s Modernist furniture pieces by French designer
Charlotte Perriand using cast-off material and rubbish in Beijing, China;
starting
a global collaborative project with crochet crafters to counterfeit high-end
consumer goods; photographing models of Stonehenge made from cheap Asian
imported food products; and searching for fragments of the Berlin Wall in
her
immediate surroundings in an attempt to revisit the historical moment of “the
end of History.”
Born in the Philippines,
Syjuco received her MFA from Stanford University and
BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work has been included in
exhibitions at PS1, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The New Museum, SFMOMA,
The Contemporary Museum Honolulu, The San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art,
and the California Biennial. In 2007 she led counterfeiting workshops at art
spaces in Istanbul, Beijing, and Manila, and in December 2008 had a solo
exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, that explored the legacy
of Modernism and the Third World. She has taught at Stanford University, The
California College of the Arts, and Carnegie Mellon University. She lives
and
works in San Francisco.
This exhibition is a joint
collaboration project with 126 Galway. 126 is
Galway's and the west of Ireland’s first artist-led exhibition space.
As a
unique development PCP will be bringing Peter O’Kennedy to exhibit in
126
in 2009.
Listings Information:
Preview: 7pm – 9pm Friday, 1st May 2009
Dates: 2nd – 30th May
Venue: Pallas Contemporary Projects - 111 Grangegorman Road Lower, Dublin
7
Days: Thursday – Saturday, 12 - 6pm
126 is supported by the Arts Council, the Galway City Council and its membership
http://www.stephaniesyjuco.com
http://www.stephaniesyjuco.wordpress.com
www.g126.eu
Pallas Contemporary Projects
111 Grangegorman Road Lower, Dublin 7, Ireland
T: +353 1 635 9766
E: info [at] pallasprojects.org
Opening Hours: Thurs - Sat, 12 - 6 pm