Preoccupied Waveforms. Silver Lion Award Winner, Mirza uses simple industrial materials to radically transform the perceptual experience of architectural space. Turntables, speaker cabinets, monitors, and more contemporary electronic equipment are rewired and integrated into objects that recall antiquated technologies, and work together to create new visual and auditory landscapes.
curated by Gary Carrion-Murayari and Jenny Moore
New Museum to show Silver Lion Award Winner Haroon Mirza at Studio 231
Mirza to employ LED Lights, Video, and Remixed Samples of Music and
Sounds to Dissolve and Reconstruct the Exhibition Space for his First New
York Solo Show
New York, NY...“Preoccupied Waveforms” is the first New York solo show by the artist Haroon Mirza.
This exhibition is the fourth in a series of new projects by young international artists at Studio 231, the
New Museum’s adjacent, ground-floor space at 231 Bowery. Mirza uses simple industrial materials to
radically transform the perceptual experience of architectural space. Over the past ten years, Mirza
has deployed a range of both analog and digital devices to create dynamic compositions of sound and
light. His performances, kinetic sculptures, and immersive installations have made him one of the most
celebrated young international artists working
today. Mirza was the recipient of both the 2010
Northern Art Prize in the United Kingdom
and the Silver Lion Award for most promising
young artist at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011).
“Preoccupied Waveforms” is on view from
September 19, 2012–January 6, 2013, and is
curated by Gary Carrion-Murayari, Curator, and
Jenny Moore, Associate Curator.
Mirza’s work is often distinguished by its
improvised use of outmoded audiovisual
technologies. Turntables, speaker cabinets,
monitors, and more contemporary electronic
equipment are rewired and integrated into
objects that recall antiquated technologies, and work together to create new visual and auditory
landscapes. More recently, Mirza has expanded his work to take on entire architectural environments.
Strands of LED lights, fragments of video, and amplified electricity are programmed to disrupt and
destabilize the exhibition space. Mirza often incorporates references to or even works by other artists into
his installations and his pieces extend beyond formal experimentation to consider the social, historical,
and political conditions in which his compositions are sited.
Mirza has recently completed a trio of interrelated site-specific exhibitions: \|\|\|\| \|\|\ at the Kunst Halle
Sankt Gallen in Switzerland, /\/\/\/\ /\/\ at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and --{}{}{} {}--{}{}{}
{}--{} at the Ernst Schering Foundation in Berlin. These installations, whose titles comprise typographical
symbols to represent various wavelengths, each use an array of programmed devices activated throughout
diverse architectural spaces. Similarly, his project for the New Museum will use LED lights, video, and
remixed samples of music and sounds to dissolve and reconstruct the Studio 231 space.
Haroon Mirza was born in London in 1977. He studied Design Critical Theory and Practice at Goldsmiths
College and Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design. Mirza has presented exhibitions and
performances at venues including Chisenhale Gallery, London, the Camden Arts Centre, London, and
Spike Island, Bristol. His work has been included in a number of group exhibitions internationally including
the British Art Show 7 (2010) and Performa 11. He currently lives and works in London and Sheffield, UK.
About the Studio 231 Series
The New Museum’s Studio 231 series presents commissioned projects in the Museum’s adjacent, ground-
floor space at 231 Bowery. The Museum inaugurated the series in October 2011 with a new installation
and performances by Spartacus Chetwynd, followed by exhibitions by Enrico David, and Nathalie Djurberg
and Hans Berg. This new initiative gives international, emerging artists the opportunity to realize ambitious
new works conceived especially for the space. These projects at 231 Bowery 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.
Exhibition Support
Generous support for Studio 231 is provided by Ellyn and Saul Dennison, Mitzi and Warren Eisenberg,
Susan and Leonard Feinstein, Hermine and David Heller, Lietta and Dakis Joannou, Toby Devan Lewis,
and the Board of Trustees of the New Museum.
Additional support for programming at Studio 231 is provided, in part, by the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination
Fund.
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 is 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 building on the Bowery designed by SANAA in 2007, the New Museum continues to be a
place of experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas.
Haroon Mirza, Digital Switchover, 2012. Installation view: \|\|\|\| \|\|\ Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Switzerland, 2012. Courtesy the artist. Photo Gunnar Meier
PRESS CONTACTS:
Gabriel Einsohn, Communications Director
press@newmuseum.org
Andrea Schwan, Andrea Schwan Inc.
info@andreaschwan.com
special preview: Wednesday September 19 10 AM to 11 AM, 10:15 AM Remarks
New Museum - Studio 231
231 Bowery - New York, NY 10002
Hours & Admission
Public Hours
Wednesday 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
Thursday 11 a.m.–9 p.m.
Friday–Sunday 11 a.m.–6 p.m
Museum Night: Free Admission on Thursday Evenings from 7 p.m.–9 p.m.
Admissions:
General $14 Under 18 Free
Seniors $12 Members Free
Students $10