Vieira portfolio 2014

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THE BREEDER 45 Iasonos st, GR 10436, Athens, t/f: +30 210 33 17 527, [email protected] www.thebreedersystem.com

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!! ALLYSON VIEIRA PORTFOLIO

Allyson Vieira, Time and Materials (and Overhead), installation view at The Breeder, Athens, 2014


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Allyson Vieira, Time and Materials (and Overhead),

installation view at The Breeder, Athens, 2014 !

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Allyson Vieira, Time and Materials (and Overhead),

installation view at The Breeder, Athens, 2014

Allyson Vieira, Site (50.1095'N, 8.7029'E, 04/14/2014, 14:43-14:47), 2014, single channel HD video, 23 minutes / Site (37.9714’N, 23.7262’E, 07/30/2014, 8:17-

8:42), 2014, single channel HD video, 25 minutes

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Allyson Vieira, Multi Story I, 2014, Ytong block, tempered mirror glass, paint, 164 x 100 x 200 cm

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Allyson Vieira, Multi Story II, 2014, Ytong block, tempered mirror glass, paint, 164 x 100 x 200 cm

Allyson Vieira, Multi Story III, 2014, Ytong block, tempered mirror glass, paint, 164 x 100 x 200 cm

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Allyson Vieira, Time and Materials (and Overhead), installation view at The Breeder, Athens, 2014 !

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Allyson Vieira Clad (Multi Story) I, 2014 Metal stud, drywall, screws, plaster, Multi Story scraps, studio sweepings, 164 x 41 x 24.5 cm

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Allyson Vieira, Clad (Multi Story) II, 2014 Metal stud, drywall, screws, plaster, Multi Story scraps, Clad (Multi Story) I, scraps, studio sweepings, 164 x 41 x 29 cm

Allyson Vieira Clad (Multi Story) III, 2014 Metal stud, drywall, screws, plaster, Multi Story scraps, Clad (Multi Story) II, scraps, studio, 164 x 41 x 23 cm

Allyson Vieira Clad (Multi Story) IV, 2014 Metal stud, drywall, screws, plaster, Multi Story scraps, Clad (Multi Story) III, scraps, studio sweepings, 164 x 41 x 18 cm

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Allyson Vieira Clad (Multi Story) V, 2014 Metal stud, drywall, screws, plaster, Multi Story scraps, Clad (Multi Story) IV, scraps, studio sweepings, 164 x 41 x 21 cm!

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Allyson Vieira Clad (Multi Story) VI, 2014 Metal stud, drywall, screws, plaster, Multi Story scraps, Clad (Multi Story) V, scraps, studio sweepings, 164 x 41 x 21 cm

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Allyson Vieira Clad (Multi Story) VII, 2014 Metal stud, drywall, screws, plaster, Multi Story scraps, Clad (Multi Story) VI, scraps, studio sweepings, 164 x 41 x 35 cm!

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Allyson Vieira Clad (Multi Story) VIII, 2014 Metal stud, drywall, screws, plaster, Multi Story scraps, Clad (Multi Story) VII, scraps, studio sweepings, 164 x 41 x 26 cm

Allyson Vieira Clad (Multi Story) IX, 2014 Metal stud, drywall, screws, plaster, Multi Story scraps, Clad (Multi Story) VIII, scraps, studio sweepings, 164 x 41 x 32 cm

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Allyson Vieira, Clad (Multi Story) X, 2014 Metal stud, drywall, screws, plaster, Multi Story scraps, Clad (Multi Story) IX, scraps, studio sweepings, 164 x 41 x 32 cm

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!Allyson Vieira Site (37.9714ʼN, 23.7262ʼE, 01/14/2013, 12:15-12:36), 2014, photograms, installation view!

!Allyson Vieira Site (37.9714ʼN, 23.7262ʼE, 01/14/2013, 12:15-12:36)/1, 2014 Photogram 11 x 14 inches 27.9 x 35.6 cm, edition of 3!

!Allyson Vieira Site (37.9714ʼN, 23.7262ʼE, 01/14/2013, 12:15-12:36)/2, 2014 Set of two photograms 11 x 28 inches 27.9 x 71.1 cm edition of 3!

!Allyson Vieira Site (37.9714ʼN, 23.7262ʼE, 01/14/2013, 12:15-12:36)/4, 2014 Set of four photograms 11 x 56 inches 27.9 x 142.2 cm edition of 3!

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Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installation view, Beauty$Mirth,$and$Abundance, 2013, Kunsthalle Basel 2013

Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installation view, Beauty$Mirth,$and$Abundance, 2013,

Swiss Modul brick, concrete, steel, paint, 183 x 200 x 58cm,

Kunsthalle Basel 2013

Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installation view, Beauty$Mirth,$and$Abundance, 2013,

Swiss Modul brick, concrete, steel, paint, 183 x 200 x 58cm,

Kunsthalle Basel 2013

Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installation view, Kunsthalle Basel 2013



Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installlation view, Site$(40.7117’N,$74.0125’W,$05/03/2013,$15:14E15:39), 2013

HD, 16:9, single channel looping video, inverted video projection, 25:37min installation, dimensions variable, Kunsthalle Basel 2013

Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installation view, Kunsthalle Basel 2013 !!

!!Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installation view, Clad$(Beauty,$Mirth,$and$Abundance$III), 2013, Steel, drywall, screws, plaster, Beauty, Mirth, and Abundance scraps, Clad V scraps, studio sweepings, 164 x 40 x 20cm, Kunsthalle Basel 2013 !

!!Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installation view, Clad$(Beauty,$Mirth,$and$Abundance$VIII), 2013, Steel, drywall, screws, plaster, Beauty, Mirth, and Abundance scraps, Clad V scraps, studio sweepings, 164 x 40 x 21cm, Kunsthalle Basel 2013

!!Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installation view, Beauty,$Mirth,$and$Abundance, 2013, Kunsthalle Basel 2013 !!

!!Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installlation view, Site$(40.7117’N,$74.0125’W,$

05/03/2013,$15:14J15:39), 2013, HD, 16:9, single channel looping video, inverted

video projection, 25:37min installation, dimensions variable, Kunsthalle Basel

2013 !

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Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installation view, The Swiss Institute, New York, 2013

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Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installation view, Beauty,$Mirth,$and$Abundance, 2013, The Swiss Institute, New York, 2013

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Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installation view clads, The Swiss Institute, New York, 2013

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Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installation view, The Swiss Institute, New York, 2013

!!Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installation view, The Swiss Institute, New York, 2013 !!

!!Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, installation view, The Swiss Institute, New York, 2013

Allyson Vieira, The$Plural$Present, clad, The Swiss Institute, New York, 2013

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Allyson Vieira, Build On, Build Against, 2013, installation view, Non Objectif Sud,Tulette, France!

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Allyson Vieira, Build On, Build Against, 2013, installation view,

Non Objectif Sud,Tulette, France!!

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Allyson Vieira, Build On, Build Against, 2013, installation view,

Non Objectif Sud,Tulette, France!!

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BIOGRAPHY SELECTED PRESS & TEXTS

THE BREEDER ALLYSON VIEIRA Born 1979 Lives and works in New York Education 2009 MFA, Milton Avery Graduate School of Arts, Bard College, Annandale on Hudson, NY 2001 BFA, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions 2014 Time and Materials (and Overhead), The Breeder, Athens All Beneath the Moon Decays, with Paul Kajander, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto, Canada, curated by Rui Amaral Meander, Frame, with Laurel Gitlen, Frieze NY 2013 The Plural Present, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, CH The Plural Present, Swiss Institute, New York Build On, Build Against, with Stephen Ellis, Non Objectif Sud, Tulette,FR Cortège, Laurel Gitlen, New York 2011 Aphrodite, Monica De Cardenas, Milan, IT 2010 Ozymandias, Laurel Gitlen, New York 2007 Klaus Von Nichtssagend Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (book release) 2006 Small A Projects, Portland, OR SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2014 Future Generation Art Prize 2014, PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv, Ukraine Rockaway!, Rockaway Beach Surf Club, Rockaway, NY, organized by Klaus Biesenbach Roving Room, Habersham Mills, Demorest, GA 2013 Remainder, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK The Made-up Shrimp Hardly Enlightens Some Double Kisses, Laurel Gitlen, New York

THE BREEDER A Handful of Dust, curated by Laura Fried, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara, CA The Order of Things, curated by Jamillah James, NurtureArt, Brooklyn, NY 2012 Configurations: Valérie Blass, Katinka Bock, Esther Kla#s, Allyson Vieira, MetroTechCenter Commons, Brooklyn, NY Weights and Measures, Eleven Rivington, New York Buy My Bananas, curated by Julia Trotta, Kate Werble Gallery, New York Lilliput, curated by Cecilia Alemani, The High Line, New York Queens International 2012: Three Points Make a Triangle, Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY (catalogue) , curated by Larissa Harris, Jamillah James, and Manuela Moscoso 2011 Discursive Arrangements, or Stubbornly Persistent Illusions, curated by Timothy Hull and Lumi Tan, Klaus von Nichtssagend, New York Gingko — Goethe — Garden, Arcade, London, UK 2010 NADA Sculpture Garden, Canyon Ranch, Miami Beach, FL Painting and Sculpture, Lehmann Maupin, New York (catalogue) Short-Term Deviation, EFA Project Space, New York Knight’s Move, SculptureCenter, New York (catalogue) Point to one end, which is always present, Laurel Gitlen, New York 2009 Evading Customs, curated by Peter J. Russo and Lumi Tan, Brown Gallery, London, UK Short-Term Deviation, EFA Project Space, New York Circular File Channel: Episode 2005, Performa TV commission, New York Bard MFA Thesis Exhibition, UBS Gallery, Annandale on Hudson, NY NOBODIES NEW YORK, 179 Canal, New York 2008 Champion Zero, Rental Gallery, New York 200597214200022008, Laurel Gitlen, New York Cube Passerby 2008, GBE @ Passerby, New York 2007 First Hand Steroids, REmap KM in association with the Athens Biennial AMP, Athens, GR 2004 #18: Take Care, Champion Fine Arts, Brooklyn, NY (curator) (catalogue) The Freedom Salon, curated by Tina Kukielski and Apsara DiQuinzio, Deitch Projects, New York

THE BREEDER Bibliography 2014 Morgan-Feir, Caoimhe, "All Beneath the Moon Decays," (review) Frieze, October, no. 166, pg. 268. Print. Corsaro, Michaelangelo. "South Likes: Allyson Vieira at The Breeder, Athens," (review) South as a State of Mind, 29 September. Dimitrakopoulou, Stamatia, "Allyson Vieira comes from New York to present her first solo exhibition in Athens," (interview) Vice Greece, 3 September. Zefkili, Despoina, "Art & Culture Interview: Allyson Vieira," (interview) Athinorama, 21-27 August, no. 745, pgs. 11, 56-57. Print. Schechter, Fran, "It's Greek to Them," (review) Now, 21-28 August, vol. 33 no. 51. Print. Hanley, William, "Something Borrowed," Architectural Record, July Schwendener. Martha and Ken Johnson, “Strolling An Island of Creativity: Two Critics Sample the Frieze Art Fair,” The New York Times, 10 May, pC1. Print. Cooper, Ashton, “Who Will Top Tino? 5 Frieze Booths that Aim to Surprise,” (preview) Blouinartinfo.com, 5 May. Germano, Beta, “Feira de talentos,” Casa Vogue Brazil, May, pp 120-121. Print. Fyfe, Joe, “The Classicizing Impulse,” Art in America, May, pp 106-115. Print. “New York.ch,” directed by Misha Györik, Cult TV, LA 1, Radiotelevisione svizzera, 2 February 2014. Television. 2013 Heinrich,Will,“TheMostMemorableGalleryShowsof2013,”(review) GalleristNY.com, 18 December. Gerig, Karen N., “Brüchige Überreste in Gips gegossen,” (review) Tages Woche, 15 September. Print.. Spies, Christian, “Die Ruinen der Gegenwart,” (review) Basler Zeitung, 14 September, p. 24. Print. “Zwischen Alt und Neu: Allyson Vieira und <<The Plural Present>> in der Kunsthalle Basel,” (preview) Basler Zeitung, 13 September, p 30. Print. Schmidt, Kristin, “Staub und Stücke,” St. Galler Tagblatt, 19 August, p. 32. Print. Fisher, Rich. Interview with Lauren Ross. Studio Tulsa. Public Radio Tulsa, KWGS, 22 July. Radio. Watts, James D., “Philbrook exhibit ‘Reminder’ features 7 female artists,” (review) . Tulsa World, 30 June. Arrigoni. Jaques, “Exposition ‘Non objectif Sud’ à Tulette: Bâtir sur, bâtir contre,” (review) Le Mag, 29 June, p 87. Print. Hanley, William, “Allyson Vieira,” (review) Modern Painters, volume XXV, no. 6, June, p 96. Print. Russeth, Andrew, “’The Made Up Shrimp Hardly Enlightens Some Double Kisses’ at Laurel Gitlen,” (review) GalleristNY.com, 23 April. Heinrich, Will, “Allyson Vieira: ‘Cortège’ at Laurel Gitlen,” (review) GalleristNY.com, 5 March.

THE BREEDER Chan, Dawn, “Allyson Vieira: 500 Words,” Artforum.com, 2 February. D’Agostino, Paul, “Here Are Things, And Here Is Their Order,” (review) The L Magazine, 16 January. 2012 Sutton,Benjamin,“FourWomenArtistsReconfigureOurRelationswith Sculpture in New Public Art Fund Show,” (review) Artinfo.com, 20 November. “Lilliput,” The New Yorker, 17 September, p. 14. Print. Yablonsky, Linda, “Artifacts | Gilding the ‘Lilliput,’” (review) The New York Times T Magazine.com, 30 April. Sutton, Benjamin, “See the Diminutive Sculptures from the High Line’s First Group Show, ‘Lilliput,’” (review) Artinfo.com, 25 April. McLean, Madeline, “Engaging a Community with Public Art on The High Line,” DailyServing.com, 25 April. Vogel, Carol, “High Line Art,” (review) The New York Times, 2 March, p. C22. Print. James, Jamillah, Repeating Forms. Educational video. Produced by the Walters Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD. Director: Kari Altmann. TRT: 8 minutes. Video. 2011 Yablonsky, Linda, “All At Once,” Artforum.com, 11 November. Yablonsky, Linda, “Close Encounters: Frieze Wrap 2011,” Artnet.com, 25 October. Howe David Everitt, “Discursive Arrangements” (review), Art Review, October. Heinrich, Will, “Image and Illusion at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery”(review),New York Observer, 2 August. “Critics’ Picks: ‘Discursive Arrangements, or Stubbornly Persistent Illusions,’” Time Out New York, 21 July–3 August. Print. Boukobza, Julie, “Une Scène New-Yorkaise,” Art Press, March 2011, No. 376, pgs. 41-52. Print. Tang, Jo-Ey, “The Potential of Twist Ties Remains Elusive,” Paper. Monument, January 2011. Print. 2010 Tan, Lumi, “Allyson Vieira” (review), Frieze Magazine, September 2010. Print. Beck, Graham, “Knight’s Move,” (review), Frieze Magazine, September 2010. Print. Russo, Peter, “Allyson Vieira at Laurel Gitlen” (review), Idiom, May 7, 2010. “Critics’ Picks: Best in Installation,” Time Out New York, April 15–21, 2010. Print. “Critics’ Picks: Best in Sculpture,” Time Out New York, January 21–27, 2010. Print. 2006 Row, D.K., “Taking Aim with History’s Ammunition,” (review) The Oregonian, April 21, 2006. Print. 2004

THE BREEDER Cotter,Holland,“SamplingBrooklyn,KeeperofEclecticFlames,”(review) The New York Times, January 23, 2004. Print. Publications Ellis, Stephen and Allyson Vieira. Build On/Build Against, Bâtir sur/bâtir contre. Brooklyn NY: NOS Publications, 2014. (catalogue) Harris, Larissa, ed. Queens International 2012: Three Points Make a Triangle. Flushing, NY: Queens Museum of Art, 2012. (catalogue) Meade, Fionn, ed. Knight’s Move. Long Island City, NY: SculptureCenter, 2010. (catalogue) Heitzler, Drew and Flora Wiegmann. ChampionZero. Los Angeles: 2nd Cannons Publications, 2008. Vieira, Allyson and Stacy Wakefield-Forte. Untitled Book (Geometry + Democracy). Livingston Manor, NY: Evil Twin Publications, 2006. Vieira, Allyson, ed. “The Salon of 1859,” by Charles Baudelaire, in #18: Take Care. Brooklyn, NY: Champion Fine Arts, 2004.

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ALLYSON VIEIRA

"Time and Materials (and Overhead)"

Opening: Wednesday 27 August 2014, 8-10pm

Exhibition dates: 27 August - 27 September 2014

Opening times: Tuesday- Saturday 12-6pm

Address: 45 Iasonos st, 10436, Athens, Greece

The Breeder presents Allyson Vieira’ s first solo exhibition in Greece, "Time and Materials (and Overhead)". Vieira will exhibit a new body of work that includes sculptures and video created during her summer residence in Athens organized by the gallery.

The ancient world permeates Allyson Vieira’s work. Over the past seven years, she has explored archeological sites throughout Greece. Monuments and building foundations in situ reveal consecutive layers of original labor and millenia of constructions, destructions, and restorations: here, present and past human industry coexist.

In her sculptures Vieira employs mundane, contemporary construction materials like bricks, concrete, metal, glass and plaster. It is these materials that the archaelogist of the future will encounter in the ruins of the 21st century’s building booms and busts. Vieira’s work functions as a tangible preview of this future.

The exhibition’s title, "Time and Materials (and Overhead)", is a common type of construction contract which requires payment on exactly these terms: the cost of time (labor-hours) and of materials the two basic necessities for physical creation of any kind. Overhead is the extra costs to the builder, difficult to quantify but present nonetheless. In conflating sculptural production with the economics of construction under these contractual terms, Vieira unites the manual labor of architecture and sculpture within the long timeline of human material creation, while alluding to the economic links between labor and objects large and small, quotidien and symbolic.

Multi Story I, II, and III occupy the front of the ground floor. In each work, two posts of carved, stacked Ytong blocks support and are supported by sheets of tempered, mirrored glass. Each block in the posts is carved in an abstracted figural form bearing architectural weight. The two-way glass above and below the posts reflects the carved blocks into infinity while still allowing a view through the glass to the real architecture of the gallery beyond.

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Beyond the sculptures, Vieira explores site and symbolic architecture across eras with a double video projection that stretches the full height of the back wall. The top video is a fixed shot of the construction of the new European Central Bank tower in Frankfurt. Beneath it is projected an inverted video of the restoration of the Parthenon. One video stretches up while the other extends downward, sharing a common ground line, as if false reflections.

Leaning against the walls of the basement of the gallery are Clad (Multi Story) I-X, part of an ongoing series by the artist. Resembling antique stelae, decorative reliefs or even geological sediments, these works can also be seen as minimalist sculptures akin to John McCracken’s monolithic slabs. Made from a carved amalgam of plaster and the material waste from other sculptures under construction at the time of their making, they also function as a chaotic, chthonic index of Vieira's manufacturing process. Here, they lean on and around the support beams of the architecture of the gallery, like geological figures in repose.

The dimensions of Vieira's Clads and Multi Story I-III are determined by a combination of the artist’s own body size and the standard dimensions and divisions of construction materials. By syncretizing her own proportions with those of the raw materials Vieira creates a metric relationship among the elements of the show, drolly embodying Protagoras’ statement that «man is the measure of all things».

Allyson Vieira (1979, USA) lives and works in New York and is a graduate of The Cooper Union and Bard College in New York. Selected solo exhibitions include "The Plural Present” at Swiss Institute, New York (2013), “The Plural Present” at Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland (2013), “Build On, Build Against”, with Stephen Ellis at Non Objectif Sud, Tulette, France (2013), and «Cortège» at Laurel Gitlen, New York (2013). Selected group exhibitions include "Future Generation Art Prize", Pinchuk Foundation, Kiev, Ukraine (October 2014), “Remainder” Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, curated by Lauren Ross (2013), “Configurations”, MetroTech Center Commons, Brooklyn, NY, curated by Andrea Hickey (2012), “Lilliput” at the Highline, New York, curated by Cecilia Alemani (2012), “Knight’s Move”, at Sculpture Center, Long Island City, NY, curated by Fionn Meade (2010).

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Allyson Vieira, Allyson Vieira, http://archrecord.construction.com/2,2από2το2William2Hanley,2Αύγουστος22014222

Allyson Vieira August 2014 By William Hanley

Pho to cou r tesy Dan ie l Pe rez ; Sw iss Ins t i tu te , New York

Installation view of Allyson Vieira¹s 2013 exhibition, The Plural Present, at the Swiss Institute in New York.

Allyson Vieira builds monuments—but she uses unexpectedly humble material. Take her 2013–14 exhibitionThe Plural Present. There, the New York–based artist filled a gallery with Classical ruins: The City Wall, 2013, delimited the space with a colonnade that framed Beauty, Mirth, and Abundance, 2013, three figures striking a contrapposto that echoes the famed Greek statue of the three graces at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But Vieira’s statues are made from cheap brick, crudely carved and stacked into angular abstractions. Rather than a pediment, they hold up a length of pipe. The city walls are nothing more than 20-foot metal studs—the kind you could pick up at Home Depot—torqued into an elegant shape, though it appears to be suspended in mid-collapse. “I’m into the long time line,” says Vieira, who has an exhibition at The Breeder gallery in Athens opening on August 27 (the gallery also represents Andreas Angelidakis). “I don’t want to make work about today if I can’t also make work about 1,000 years ago,” she adds. Vieira’s interest in the architecture of antiquity comes from a fascination with building, sculpture, material, and time—the churn of the making process, and a cycle of construction and collapse in which one era’s ruins become another’s raw material. Her workaday palette fixes her historical references in the present. “I’m interested in human proportions that go into building,” says Vieira, whose column figures are exactly her height. “I love that the width of a standard sheet of drywall is roughly a person’s arm span.” For a pair of 2013 works in her Weight Bearing series, the artist sawed stacks of gypsum board into jagged figures and then raised a steel I-beam onto the top of each pair. Like the threshold of a ruined temple, her works have an aura of inscrutable ritual significance, one whose meaning seems lost to time even as its shape endures. “The post-and-lintel structure is the easiest way to raise a surface,” she notes. “The forms that get me excited are the ones that have persisted.” 2

Αllyson Vieira, All Beneath the moon decays, Freeze, by Cadimme Morgan-Feir , September 2013

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SWISS INSTITUTE / CONTEMPORARY ART 18 Wooster Street NEW YORK / NY 10013 TEL 212.925.2035 WWW.SWISSINSTITUTE.NET

SI Art in America Allyson Vieira Joe Fyfe May 2014

Αllyson Vieira, South likes: Αllyson Vieira at The Breeder, Athens, South, by Michelangelo Corsaro, 29 of September 2014

South likes: Allyson Vieira at The Breeder, Athens


South likes: Allyson Vieira at The Breeder, Athens

Time and Materials (and Overhead) The Breeder, Athens, Greece

27 August – 27 September, 2014 Text by Michelangelo Corsaro

Unlike many Athenians, Allyson Vieira doesn’t mind spending a month in Athens during the summer. Having explored archeological sites all around Greece over

the last seven years, this time she indulged in the making of three sculptures, which inquire into the architectonic qualities of antiquities as much as they

elaborate on the material and immaterial features of modernist constructions. Multi

Story I, II and III employ abstract caryatid-like columns, made of Ytong blocks, in between two slabs of tempered mirror glass. A human passion for building, which is timeless and global, appears here in its more progressive expression, as clearly referred to by the concrete and glass. The title as well mentions a common type of construction contract, where payment is required in terms of materials, time (and of course an overhead for the constructor). A parallel between the construction of

the new European Central Bank tower in Frankfurt and Athen’s Acropolis was worth a try, and Vieira didn’t step back from doing it with a double projection that simply juxtaposes these two images, mirrored top to bottom. Descending onto the

underground room of the modernist building of the gallery, the display is completed by a group of works leaning on the walls: the ongoing series Clad

(Multi Story) I-X. These pieces combine the leftovers of Vieira’s sculptures cast in plaster to resemble ancient stelae, which, in a sort of statuesque snap-shot,

visualise the making of the sculptures seen upstairs. Delving into the troubled status of modernism, Allyson Vieira really made the most of her one-month summer-stay in Greece. Adding to her three-sculpture series, the New York

hellenophile landed in Athens with an unpretentious first-time introduction to the Greek art crowd.

http://thebreedersystem.com/exhibition-details/allyson-vieira-solo-show/ !!!!!

! Allyson Vieira, Time and Materials (and Overhead), installation view at The Breeder, Athens, 2014

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Allyson Vieira, Artforum, by Dawn Chan, February 2013

Allyson Vieira 02.18.13

Left: Allyson Vieira, Weight Bearing II, 2012, drywall, screws, steel, 75 x 65 x 22“. Right: Allyson Vieira, Clad 13, 14, 15, 2013, metal stud, drywall, Plaster-Weld, screws, plaster, ink, cardboard, tape, gloves, cups, blades, sweepings, Clad 12 scrap, wax. 65 x 16 x 5”. Photo: Allyson Vieira. Allyson Vieira is a New York–based sculptor. Between installing her work at MetroTech Center in Brooklyn for “Configurations,” which is on view until September 16, and prepping for a solo show in New York at Laurel Gitlen from February 22 to March 24, as well as a joint show with Stephen Ellis this summer at Non Objectif Sud in Tulette, France, and then a solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel in September, Vieira recently took time off to travel to Greece for research. Here she talks about her fascination with the Hellenic architectural and sculptural legacy, and how it informs her practice. THERE ARE TENSIONS between material and form and between labor and form that excite me. I’m not talking about labor in a politicized way, but something more along the lines of labor as skilled, manual work—

maybe cutting off material from a mountainside, the accumulating and forming of materials. Some recent pieces, a series called “Clad,” are made from the detritus of my studio—the stuff that gets chipped off of other pieces, the sweepings off the floor. I mix plaster into a conglomerate with this junk material, pour a thick layer of it on top of a stud and drywall form, and then I work that surface after it cures with chisels, a rasp, a grinder, whatever. They’re made in order, and they’re numbered sequentially. So all that detritus from Clad I goes into a scrap bucket and then gets mixed with the next batch to make Clad II, and so on and so forth. Each piece includes the scraps of the one before it, along with whatever else I was making in the studio. It kind of becomes an irrational index of what was going on in there at the time. One of the newer “Clad” pieces contains concrete chunks I brought back from the garage where we finished the “Weight Bearing” pieces for MetroTech. Those pieces start as accumulations of construction materials into blocks suitable for carving a figural sculpture. The ones at MetroTech are made of mortared cinder blocks; other ones are made of stacks of drywall screwed together to create a solid block. I love it when you go to Lowe’s and see those drywall stacks that go up to the ceiling. It’s like going to Carrara. I kid—sort of. Millions of years from now, what’s the rock that’s made from the layers of materials we accumulated on the surface of the earth going to be like? With the “Weight Bearing” pieces I’m trying for something pretty simple: to create works that simultaneously feel like vertical blocks—which can read as figural, whether there’s a figure carved into it or not—and also have a sense of contrapposto which I hope infuses these pieces with a kind of dynamic tension. And hips. This kind of talk about figuration probably sounds like I’m a reactionary or something. But it’s exciting stuff and people have loved it for thousands of years, so why not? Just because we have the Internet doesn’t mean we can’t be thinking about form sometimes too. I used a Sawzall to carve the drywall “Weight Bearing” sculptures. I like being limited by tools: I could only cut so deep, and only at certain angles. I didn’t know how any of it was going to work out when I started because I hadn’t done it before. And then there are the marks of the tool. If I use too many different tools on one piece, those marks get obscured. That’s one of the things I love about Greece, where I end up going every couple years at this point. It’s like sculpture porn over there. You get to see up underneath pieces and between blocks, to see the weird ways that they’re clamped in and braced, the backsides, the rough parts. Everything you’re not supposed to see. It’s completely different than seeing that stuff in American and western European museums. On site, it’s all cracked open and you can see its gooey insides. It’s dirty and real. When I was just there, I watched masons fluting the

Parthenon’s restored columns with grinders. Their workmanship is astonishing. And the intelligence with which the Greeks have been pursuing the recent bout of restoration—the new marble is carved to perfectly match the old fragments like insane three-dimensional puzzle pieces, but they make it visibly obvious that the restored parts are restored, and everything they do is completely reversible—really feels right. It’s not Disney World; they’re not trying to fool you. It’s a contemporary project that feels as deeply invested in the present as in the past. When you watch them, there’s an uncanny sense of temporal displacement and simultaneity—objects persist through multiple slices of time, actions replay but are not replicated, materials and sites are reutilized and changed. It’s cool to feel like you’re part of a humanist tradition that extends that far back. I’m not saying I’m the inheritor of Phidias or anything, I’m just one of a bunch of schmoes who have decided to do this with their lives. The long view of humans building things from Paleolithic times up to the present is just really interesting. You get to see all of that laid out before you when you’re there.

— As told to Dawn Chan !

Allyson'Vieira,'The'Plural'Present,'Kunsthalle'Basel''

''Allyson'Vieira'–'The'Plural'Present 14 September–10 November 2013

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Kunsthalle Basel is proud to present the first solo

exhibition of Allyson Vieira in Europe. The exhibition

opens on Friday, September 13th, 2013.

“It’s dirty and real”(1) – thus Allyson Vieira

enthusiastically describes what she enjoys about her trips

to classical sites in Greece. For unlike the classical art and

artefacts presented in American or western European

museums, antique statues, reliefs and architectural

elements visited in situ can also be viewed from the back.

This opens up a view of the pegs, clamps and braces

representing old and new repairs. It is this view in

particular that interests the young American woman

artist. What reveals itself, in her eyes, in these fractures

and exposed interiors, is how material becomes form and

how present and past exist simultaneously within the

objects themselves.

In her works, Allyson Vieira takes up themes and styles of

representation that were developed in antiquity and have

been regularly explored over the centuries. She combines

these with the repertoire of sculptural forms and methods

employed by Minimalism and Land Art, which place the

relationship of material, shape and process in a new

context.

In the exhibition The Plural Present at Kunsthalle Basel,

Vieira is showing sculptures made of simple construction

materials such as brick, concrete, metal and plaster. Two

collapsing walls of aluminium bars – The Long Walls –

determine the choreography and our perception of the

gallery space. These establish the direction of movement

along the longitudinal walls and at the same time,

through their regular matrix, establish visual axes right

across the room. Between the walls we encounter the

central figural group, Beauty, Mirth, and Abundance. The

three female figures in contrapposto are modelled out of

bricks and make allusion to the much-copied marble

statue group of the Three Graces today housed in the

Metropolitan Museum in New York. Leaning against the

walls of the gallery are pieces from Vieira’s on-going

Clads series, begun in 2012. They call to mind antique

steles and wall reliefs, geological sediments, or minimalist

sculptures such as John McCracken’s monolithic slabs.

It is the impression of physical labour that defines the

appearance of these works. They are frozen in the

moment of transition from material to form, in which the

signs of their manufacture are clearly visible. The objects

can be read as “fossilized actions”(2), as actions

condensed into material and form that preserve the signs

of physical activity.

The works harbour a tension that results from Vieira’s

attempt to harmonize the standard sizes of her building

materials with her own body size. The dimensions of her

sculptures are thus determined by her personal

measurements, a calculation she also extends to her site-

specific walls of aluminium bars. She thereby establishes

a finely tuned metric relationship between all elements of

the exhibition. Vieira plays with one of antiquity’s most

enduring paradigms, namely the statement by Protagoras

that man is the measure of all things. A momentous

declaration in which the Enlightenment would later see

the birth of humanism.

Today, a different concept of man’s relationship to the

world is taking shape. There has been much discussion in

recent years of the Anthropocene, a term that identifies

the period since the Industrial Revolution as the start of a

new geochronological era.(3) In the Anthropocene,

humankind has become the determining factor in

biological, geological and atmospheric processes.

The production of Vieira’s works is similar to geological

cycles that take up and transform the materials of our

daily life, from architectural structures to practical

utensils. Thus Beauty, Mirth, and Abundance arises in a

combination of the classic sculptural methods of assembly

and disassembly. Everything left over from this process –

odd bits of material, scraps of packaging, paint remnants

and dirt – Vieira integrates completely into her Clads. The

results are new and independent conglomerates, bound

together by plaster, that parade the historicity of their

material and represent an index of their manufacture.

After pouring plaster over the remnants, Vieira carefully

works the surface in order to bring out the values and

structures of the original materials. The artist describes

her work on the Clads as a “dance between chaos and

order”, and thereby refers to the mythological Greco-

Roman polarity between the Apollonian and the

Dionysian, the first associated with order, structure and

symmetry and the second with chaos, disorder and

nature.(4)

In the two smaller galleries adjoining the Oberlichtsaal,

Allyson Vieira is showing two photographs and a film,

which is being projected in a camera obscura. These

works document shaping processes and material

transformations in the real world, which are translated

into the exhibition space in a gesture familiar from Land

Art. Like the Clads, which document the time of their

manufacture, these images convey a chronological

sequence that is duplicated by their media-specific

temporality.

The photographs Ups and Downs (Olympia) I & II were

taken by the artist on one her trips to Greece and show

grass and ivy-covered ruins in Ancient Olympia. In each

of the photographs, the motifs are inverted and rotated

and are thus symbolically legible forwards into the future

and backwards into the past: as architectural construction

and dismantling, as geological formation and decay.

The film Site (40.7117’N, 74.0125’W, 05/03/2013, 15:14-

15:39) is likewise inverted by its projection in the camera

obscura. It shows construction work on the new One

World Trade Center in New York shortly before its

completion, as seen from the perspective of the passers-

by and tourists who gather every day at Ground Zero. The

inverted image, which only gradually becomes

recognizable, refers both to the past – the destruction of

the Twin Towers – and to the possible future, in which

this new building will in turn become a ruin.

As in Robert Smithson’s photographs of buildings and

parts of the public infrastructure in the surroundings of

his native city of Passaic, here, too, we see a “ruin in

reverse”(5).

Following the attacks, Ground Zero very quickly

transformed into a point of attraction. Like Delphi or the

Acropolis in antiquity, it has become a place of

contemporary pilgrimage, where existential questions rub

up against banal curiosity. With the One World Trade

Center, the site is being occupied in a new way: the

construction of this building in place of the destroyed Twin

Towers represents an attempt to describe the tabula rasa

of Ground Zero politically, symbolically and physically in

new terms. The building takes repossession of the site –

but the question remains whether this architectural

gesture alone can help to overcome the past, compensate

for the trauma and rebuild the sense of community that

was shattered by 9/11.

All the works in the exhibition convey a sense of decay

and destruction, without allowing these to become

explicit. They reveal a co-existence of past, present and

future that is true of all man-made things that are part of

a material culture, and equally of natural things.

Vieira’s aim, in referencing antiquity, is not to key into a

seemingly timeless classicism, in order to situate her

works – in a formal gesture – within a long-established

artistic tradition. In the history of Western culture,

reprising the artistic forms of antiquity has regularly

served as a stylistic means of legitimizing the current

balance of power, as visible for example in the ‘rebirth’ of

antiquity encapsulated by the Renaissance, in

Neoclassicism in the 19th century and in the totalitarian

aesthetic of the 20th century.

Vieira takes a different view: her interest lies in the

historicity of things per se.

For her, objects reveal the “shape of time”(6). Material

becomes form through physical activity. Objects carry the

history of their shape within them and at the same time

represent an updating of form in the present. The

simultaneity of different past developments manifests

itself in the forms of a present moment. The exhibition’s

title, The Plural Present, makes reference to this

understanding of things and their history.(7)

Objects are the material remnants around which our

fiction of a coherent past weaves itself. Whether in

western museums, removed from their former context, or

still part of their original setting in Greece, common to

these artefacts is the fact that most of them had already

been reclaimed by nature, either through natural erosion

or following their destruction by human hand.

The materials and forms that Vieira brings into the

exhibition space cite such real remains and their ongoing

state of disintegration. The construction materials that

she uses largely retain their structure and appearance.

The artist thereby also introduces a reality that resembles

the endeavour by antique sculptors to achieve, with their

development of contrapposto, a sculptural likeness of the

human body that was as living and real as possible.

(1) Allyson Vieira in conversation with Dawn Chan,

Artforum, 02.08.2013.

(2) cf. George Kubler: The Shape of Time. Remarks on

the History of Things, Yale 1962.

(3) cf. Jill Bennett: Living in the Anthropocene,

documenta (13), No 053, Kassel 2001.

(4) cf. Camille Paglia: Sexual Personae: Art and

Decadence From Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, Yale 1990.

(5) Robert Smithson, “A Tour of the Monuments of

Passaic, New Jersey,” in : The Writings of Robert

Smithson: Essays with Illustrations, New York 1979, pp.

53–57.

(6) cf. George Kubler: The Shape of Time. Remarks on

the History of Things, Yale 1962.

(7) Ibid.

Allyson'Vieira, (*1979 in Massachusetts, US) lives and works in New York. In 2001 she completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts studies at The Cooper Union of Advancement of Science and Art in New York. In 2009 she graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts degree from the Milton Avery Graduate School of Arts, Bard College, in Annandale on Hudson, New York.

Solo'exhibitions: Build&On,&Build&Against/Bâtir&sur,&bâtir&contre,

(with Stephen Ellis), Non Objectif Sud, Tulette, France

(2013), Cortège, Laurel Gitlen, New York, NY, US

(2012); Aphrodite, Monica De Cardenas, Milan, Italy

(2011); Ozymandias, Laurel Gitlen, New York, NY, US

(2010); Untitled&Book&*(Geometry&+&Democracy),&Klaus&von&

Nichtssagend&Gallery,&Brooklyn,&NY,&US&(2007);&*Allyson&Vieira, Small

A Projects, Portland, OR, US (2006).

Group'exhibitions'(selection): Remainder, Philbrook Museum

of Art, Tulsa, OK, US (2013); The&MadeRup&Shrimp&Hardly&

Enlightens&Some&Double&Kisses, Laurel Gitlen, New York, NY, US

(2013); A&Handful&of&Dust, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts

Forum, Santa Barbara, CA, US (2013); The&Order&of&Things,

NurtureArt, Brooklyn, NY, US (2013); Configurations:&Valérie&

Blass,&Katinka&Bock,&Esther&Kläs,&Allyson&Vieira, Public Art Fund at

MetroTechCenter Commons, Brooklyn, NY, US

(2012); Weights&and&Measures, Eleven Rivington, New York,

NY, US (2012); Buy&My&Bananas, Kate Werble Gallery, New

York, NY, US (2012); Lilliput, The High Line, New York,

NY, US (2012); Queens&International&2012:&Three&Points&Make&A&

Triangle, Queens Museum of Art, Flushing, NY, US

(catalogue) (2012);Discursive&Arrangements,&or&Stubbornly&

Persistent&Illusions, Klaus von Nichtssagend, New York, NY,

US (2011); Gingko&–&Goethe&–&Garden, Arcade, London, UK

(2011); Painting&and&Sculpture, Lehmann Maupin, New York,

NY, US (2010); Knight’s&Move, SculptureCenter, Long Island

City, NY, US (catalogue) (2010); Point&to&one&end,&which&is&

always&present, Laurel Gitlen, New York, NY, US

(2010); Evading&Customs, Brown Gallery, London, UK

(catalogue) (2009); ShortRTerm&Deviation, EFA Project

Space, New York, NY, US (2009); Circular&File&Channel:&

Episode&2005, Performa TV commission, New York, NY, US

(2009); Bard&MFA&Thesis&Exhibition, UBS Gallery, Annandale

on Hudson, NY, US (2009); NOBODIES&NEW&YORK, 179 Canal

Street, New York, NY, US (2009); Champion&Zero, Rental

Gallery, New York, NY, US (2008); 200597214200022008,

Laurel Gitlen, New York, NY, US (2008); Cube&Passerby&2008,

GBE @ Passerby, New York, NY, US (2008);First&Hand&

Steroids, AMP, Remap KM (2007); #18:&Take&Care, Champion

Fine Arts, Brooklyn, NY, US (curator, catalogue)

(2004); The&Freedom&Salon, Deitch Projects, New York, NY

US (2004). '

Allyson Vieira, Lauren Gilten, Gallerist, by Will Heinrich, May 2013 !

!!

‘Allyson Vieira: Cortège’ at Laurel Gitlen BY WILL HEINRICH 3/05/13 4:11PM

!Installation view. (Courtesy Laurel Gitlen)

To make Weight Bearing II, the first of her four post-and-lintel arches

currently dominating Laurel Gitlen’s beautiful new space on Norfolk

Street, Allyson Vieira began with two stacks of 16-inch drywall squares,

a ready-made material in a standard dimension. Four three-inch screws driven through each square transform the stacks into columns 128 levels

high, or about as tall as the artist. A nude model holding a weight above

her head, elegant figure studies painted with squid ink, reddish chalk

guidelines marked at angles across the columns’ mostly white sides and

violent notches cut from the corners—exposing dusty mountainscapes,

pastry-like layers and motionless dependent screws like fossils in sediment—make the columns into geometric caryatids, ready to

collaborate in bearing a single steel I-beam placed atop both their heads.

The struggle between primally universal form and particular organic

realization, between ziggurat going up and excavation going down,

between history as an overbearing monolith and time as an accumulation

of present moments, is clear, but it’s hard to tell which side is which. It’s unsettling to see the unique complexity of the human form reduced to a

load-bearing pillar, but isn’t that appearance of human form really just a

mutilation of the Sheetrock’s own square perfection? The steel beam,

with its precise and standardized shape, is surely a more momentous

human accomplishment than anything an artist or architect may choose to

do with it. In the gallery’s chapel-like back room, encapsulating the mystery like a

cult image, is Hygra Physis, a meticulously winged phallus and a small

octopus, both cast in bronze, either fighting or preparing to

mate. (Through March 24, 2013) !

Allyson Vieira, Frieze, by Lumi Tan, September 2010

Issue 133 September 2010

Allyson Vieira LAUREL GITLEN, NEW YORK, USA

Although New York’s Lower East Side has a certain run-down quality, Allyson Vieira’s installation If I was a . . . but then again, no (1–18) (all

works 2010), brought a rare sense of moving from an utterly of-the-moment neighbourhood into the type of ancient ruin absent from American history. Eighteen pillars cut from a single six-tonne block, and sized to act as stand-ins for the artist’s body, were tightly packed into the front space of Laurel Gitlen, forcing viewers to traverse gingerly between them, mindful of the works’ physical presence and weight. This intimate and individualized viewing experience allowed for a close-up view of the often luscious layers of material in each pillar: jagged edges of plaster, concrete and drywall, marked by the teeth of an oversize saw and power tools, stained with drips and studded, these objects are familiar in their domestic elements but no less imposing. Despite their ambiguous configuration and lack of narrative, these pillars are imbued with an almost ready-made history, with raw plaster easily evoking worn marble. The exhibition’s title, ‘Ozymandias’, is the ancient Greek name for Ramesses II, the Egyptian pharaoh, but also shares a title with Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1818 sonnet, which was inspired by the British Museum’s acquisition of a colossal statue of the pharaoh two years before. Whilst the work’s materiality alludes to minimalist monoliths, its cross-referencing of empires, cultures and ancient eras suggests a keen historicism subtle enough to avoid appearing like a neoclassicist homage. Offsetting the formidable presence of the main installation, three smaller works in the second gallery granted some breathing room. Two tactile bas-reliefs, again in Vieira’s signature untreated plaster, are laboriously moulded by imprints of her hand. The forms of both long, sinewy fingers and hard-hitting fists add a more nuanced, yet no less physical, transformation of the blank-slate material. Together, the titles – Old (Not Without Variation) II and New (Not Completely Novel) II – nod to re-makes, as well as the contemporary impossibility of reading these sculptures independently of ancient connotations. As a fitting punctuation to the show, a baby octopus was tucked into a corner on top of a modest pedestal of drywall scraps. Plaster weights placed on its tank motioned to its potential for escape, but its shy nature belied its loaded title, Destroyer of Empire (2010). With this diminutive creature, Vieira gave her audience a deft allegory for the ways by which mythologies are made, from the conceivable violence of an animal to a past continually retold. Lumi Tan

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