Aleksandra Mir
A Retrospective of Printed Matter
September 20, 2007 - November 8, 2007
Opening Reception, September 20, 5-7 PM
Printed Matter, Inc. is pleased to invite you to the exhibition ALEKSANDRA MIR: A Retrospective of Printed Matter.
The exhibition presents a survey of the artist's publications, multiples, posters, invitation cards and other printed ephemera selected by the artist.
For the occasion, Printed Matter is publishing Mir's book, LA: A GEOGRAPHY OF MODERN ART with photography by Justin Beal. The publication is based on "Tenth Street: A Geography of Modern Art" by Harold Rosenberg, published in Art News Annual in 1959.
Challenging the boundaries of traditional art, Mir's practice is often removed from the studio and integrated into society at large. From transforming a Dutch beach into a lunar surface and declaring herself the 'first woman on the moon', publishing biographies of 'average' people, staging a nine-to-five cinema (showing disaster films) for the unemployed, and recreating Stonehenge as a football pitch, Mir confronts 'what if?' with grassroots enthusiasm, authoring her own brand of magic within the everyday. In the gallery, using found and plebeian materials, her work engages history, politics and social ideologies to highlight aspects of personal negotiation with an increasingly global existence.
With her background in mass media and communications, media arts and social anthropology, Mir fuses those disciplines seamlessly into her own brand of artmaking. Developing complex collaborative relationships and encouraging public interaction, Mir approaches her practice as visionary experimentation to advocate new ideas of community. Through her thought-provoking humor, Mir offers both critical analysis of, and positive alternatives to, authoritative superstructures.
Independent publishing has been an integral and ongoing part of Aleksandra Mir's practice and this exhibition offers an overview of her books, posters, multiples and ephemera.
Printed Matter is located at 195 Tenth Avenue at 22nd Street, New York City.
Aleksandra Mir (b.1967, Lubin, Poland) is based in Palermo, Sicily, and has dual American and Swedish citizenships. She studied Communication and Media Studies at Schillerska/Gothenburg University (1986-1987) and attained her BFA in Media Arts (1992) from the School of Visual Arts in New York before completing her post graduate work in Cultural Anthropology from the New School for Social Research in New York in 1996. She currently has an exhibition at the Mary Boone Gallery, New York. See more at Aleksandra Mir's web site.
For additional information, please contact AA Bronson, Director, at (212) 925-0325 or at aabronson @ printedmatter.org.
Printed Matter, Inc. is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 1976 by artists and art workers with the mission to foster the appreciation, dissemination, and understanding of artists' books and other artists' publications.
Printed Matter, Inc. has received support, in part, through grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Altria Group, Inc, the Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation, the Canadian Consulate General and the Government of Canada, The Cowles Charitable Trust, the CRH Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Fifth Floor Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, LEF Foundation, Materials for the Arts, The Peter S. Reed Foundation, the Schoenstadt Family Foundation, The Starry Night Fund, The Roy and Niuta Titus Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and private foundations and individuals worldwide.
Printed Matter, Inc.
195 Tenth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
