Exhibition

  • Folly 2012: Curtain
    Architectural League of New York
    Collaborator
    Socrates Sculpture Park
    Jul 14, 2012 to Oct 21, 2012
  • GRANTEE
    Socrates Sculpture Park
    GRANT YEAR
    2011

Jerome Haferd and K Brandt Knapp, Curtain, a Folly installation at Socrates Sculpture Park, 2012, Long Island City, NY. Courtesy of Socrates Sculpture Park.

Socrates Sculpture Park, with the Architectural League of New York, launch an architectural design/build studio residency and exhibition series to examine how sculpture and architecture intersect. Taking the architectural folly as its starting point, this program liberates the designer from the parameters of more permanent or inhabitable structures and allows for a dynamic examination of architectural form. Socrates Sculpture Park has supported pioneering public art projects for twenty-four years and is well respected as a laboratory where experimentation and innovation expand, reinvent and redefine the tradition of outdoor sculpture. Like visual artists, architects are seeking physical space, funding, and technical and material resources to construct in ambitious and experimental ways. This program invites designers and architects to produce and exhibit a piece in tandem with the Park's Emerging Artist Fellows, creating a structured dialogue between them, and through shared resources and expertise, facilitating the development of visionary work.

Lars Fisk is the studio and facilities manager at Socrates. He received his BA from the University of Vermont, which included a semester of study at Temple University in Rome, Italy, and his MFA degree from Columbia University's School of the Arts. His work in sculpture has been exhibited in venues including the Fleming Museum, Burlington, VT; the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, NH; P.S. 1, Long Island City, New York; and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA. Artist-in-residence participation has included Franconia Sculpture Park, Sculpture Space, Socrates Sculpture Park, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

Anne Rieselbach has been program director of the Architectural League since 1986. She organizes many of the League's lectures and symposia, and has curated exhibitions of contemporary and historic architecture. For the past twenty-five years she has directed the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers and Emerging Voices series. The League Prize, a nationwide competition, lecture series, exhibition, and for the past thirteen years, catalogue, spotlights work by talented young architects ten years or less out of school. Emerging Voices, chosen through an invited competition, brings outstanding mid career architects to New York to present their work.

Alyson Baker is the former director of Socrates Sculpture Park (2000–11) and is currently director of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. She was director of Pat Hearn Gallery (1987–92), an associate director of Gagosian Gallery (1992–97), curatorial assistant in the Contemporary Art Department at the Carnegie Museum of Art and assistant for the 1999 Carnegie International exhibition (1998–00). She is a cofounder and current president of the Long Island City Cultural Alliance, a nonprofit partnership of Western Queens–based arts organizations. In 2009, Baker founded an annual curated craft and design fair called Makers Market. With over twenty-three years of experience in the arts, Baker has worked on more than  130 exhibitions with over 500 artists. Baker has authored and edited numerous publications on contemporary art, and has lectured on subjects such as cultural models for community development, public art, artist workspaces, nonprofit management, and curatorial practice at institutions across the country.

Gregory Wessner is digital programs and exhibitions director of the Architectural League. A curator and editor, Wessner's recent exhibitions include The City We Imagined/The City We Made: New New York 2001–2010; 13:100, Thirteen New York Architects design for Ordos; and New New York: Fast Forward. Publications include The Architectural League of New York: 125 Years; Travel Reports from the Deborah J. Norden Fund; Worldview: An Online Journal of Architecture and Urbanism from Around the World; and Reimagining Risk. Wessner is currently a panelist for the Architecture, Planning, and Design Panel of the New York State Council on the Arts. Wessner has a BA in Art History from Rutgers University and did doctoral research in architectural history at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He has also served as chief administrator for White Columns and for the National Academy School of Fine Arts.

Socrates Sculpture Park was an abandoned riverside landfill and illegal dumpsite until 1986 when a coalition of artists and community members, under the leadership of sculptor Mark di Suvero, transformed it into an open studio and exhibition space for artists and a neighborhood park for local residents. Today it is an internationally renowned outdoor museum and artist residency program that also serves as a vital New York City park offering a wide variety of free public programs.  Socrates Sculpture Park is the only site in the New York Metropolitan area specifically dedicated to providing artists with opportunities to create and exhibit large-scale sculpture and multi-media installations in a unique outdoor environment that encourages strong interaction between artists, artworks and the public. The Park's existence is based on the belief that reclamation, revitalization and creative expression are essential to the survival, humanity and improvement of our urban environment.

The mission of the Architectural League of New York is to advance the art of architecture. The League carries out its mission by promoting excellence and innovation, and by fostering community and discussion in an independent forum for creative and intellectual work in architecture, urbanism, and related disciplines. We present the work and ideas of the world’s most interesting and influential architects and designers to New York, national and international audiences, through lectures, exhibitions, publications, and the worldwide web. We identify and encourage talented young architects, through competitions, grants, exhibitions, and publications. And we help shape the future of our built environment by stimulating debate and provoking design thinking about the critical issues of our time.