Home Made Tasers. Utilizing handmade costumes and sets, her work draws on a wide range of influences from film and television, to literature, art history, and philosophy. As in her previous projects, the installation is conceived specifically for the site, which is activated by performances and direct interactions with audiences for the duration of the exhibition. The show inaugurates the new pop-up program focused on new productions by emerging artists from around the world.
New York, NY...This fall, the New Museum will
launch a new pop-up program in its adjacent
street-level storefront space at 231 BOWERY
called ‘Studio 231.’ This series, overseen by
Massimiliano Gioni, Associate Director and
Director of Exhibitions, will focus on ambitious
new productions by emerging artists from around
the world in a space that suggests the creative
environment and improvisational potential of the
studio. The Museum will inaugurate the series
on October 26, 2011, with a new installation and
performances by Spartacus Chetwynd.
This will be the first American museum exhibition by the London-based artist. Over the past ten
years, Chetwynd and her traveling band of amateur actors have realized a number of exhibitions and
performances throughout Europe. Utilizing handmade costumes and sets, her work draws on a wide
range of influences from film and television, to literature, art history, and philosophy. As in her previous
projects, the installation at 231 BOWERY will be conceived specifically for the site, which will be
activated by performances and direct interactions with audiences for the duration of the exhibition.
“Spartacus Chetwynd: Home Made Tasers” will be on view from October 26, 2011–January 1, 2012,
and is organized by Gary Carrion-Murayari, New Museum Associate Curator.
Spartacus Chetwynd draws from a variety of historical theatrical forms, from Brechtian drama to puppet
shows, often within the same performance. The result is an experience that is accessible, humorous,
and disorienting. Chetwynd, who initially studied anthropology, uses the idea of bricolage as a physical
practice as well as the organizing principle to bring together the disparate images and characters within
her work. The carnivalesque world she creates is one in which figures like Emperor Nero, Mae West,
Karl Marx, and Jabba the Hut can comfortably, if not peacefully, co-exist. The informality of Chetwynd’s
performance and the effortless mix of high and low sources turn her performances into remarkably
democratic spaces for exploring ideas about history, class, and contemporary culture.
About ‘Studio 231’
‘Studio 231’ is a platform for international emerging artists to realize ambitious new works conceived
especially for a street level space. The projects at ‘Studio 231’ also seek to foster a new relationship
between the artists and the public by allowing artists to create work outside the confines of the main
museum building and in closer proximity to the energy of the street and to the creative space of the artist’s
studio.
About Spartacus Chetwynd
Spartacus Chetwynd was born in London in 1973,
where she currently lives and works. Chetwynd studied
Social Anthropology at University College London,
received a BA from the Slade School of Fine Art in
2000, and earned an MA in painting in 2004, from the
Royal College of Art. She has performed and exhibited
and Sadie Coles HQ, London
widely across the United Kingdom and Europe. Her solo
exhibitions include The Golden Resistance, Tate & Egg
Live, Tate Britain, London (2003); Delirious, Serpentine
Gallery Pavilion, London (2006); Help! I’m Trapped
in a Muzuzah Factory, Le Consortium, Dijon (2008);
Spartacus Chetwynd, migros museum für gegenwartskunst, Zurich, Switzerland; and Odd Man Out, Sadie
Coles HQ, London (2011). Her group exhibitions include Altermodern, Tate Triennial, London (2009); and In
the Days of the Comet, British Art Show, London (2010). She was nominated and shortlisted for the Beck’s
Futures Prize (2005) as well as the MaxMara Art Prize (2011).
Support
“Spartacus Chetwynd: Home Made Tasers” is made possible, in part, by the Toby Devan Lewis Emerging
Artists Exhibitions Fund.
Generous support for ‘Studio 231’ is provided by the Board of Trustees of the New Museum.
About the New Museum
The New Museum is the only museum in New York City exclusively devoted to contemporary art.
Founded in 1977, the New Museum was conceived as a center for exhibitions, information, and
documentation about living artists from around the world. From its beginnings as a one-room office on
Hudson Street to the inauguration of its first freestanding, dedicated building on the Bowery designed by
SANAA in 2007, the New Museum continues to be a place of ongoing experimentation and a hub of new art
and new ideas.
In September 2008, the Museum announced its acquisition of the adjacent building at 231 Bowery as part of
a long-range plan for institutional growth. Historically, the 231 Bowery loft spaces have been home to such
artists as James Rosenquist, Robert Indiana, and Will Insley. In May 2011, during its Festival of Ideas for the
New City, the Museum presented its first program at the site with “Cronocaos,” a temporary exhibition about
the increasingly urgent topic of preservation in architecture and urbanism, by OMA/Rem Koolhaas.
Image: Image: Spartacus Chetwynd, A Tax Haven Run By Women, 2010. Frieze Art Fair, London. Photo: Marie Luisa. Copyright the artist. Courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London
Press contacts:
Gabriel Einsohn, Communications Director 212.219.1222 x 209 press@newmuseum.org
Andrea Schwan, Andrea Schwan Inc. info@andreaschwan.com
New Museum - Studio 231
231 Bowery - New York
Opening Hours:
Wednesday 11-6 PM
Thursday 11-9 PM
Friday, Saturday, Sunday 11-6 PM
Monday and Tuesday closed
The Museum is closed to the public on Monday and Tuesday
Free Thursday Evenings (from 7 PM to 9 PM)
Admission:
General Admission: $12
Seniors: $10
Students: $8
18 and under: FREE
Members: FREE