Explore publicly sited figurative sculpture at a time when both public art and the role of figurative monuments are particularly charged in cultural discourse. Artists Tania Bruguera, Hans Haacke, and Fred Wilson discuss various critical approaches to these topics, including how their practices interrogate, or antagonize, the history and tradition of celebratory sculpture and representations of the human body within public space and institutions. This talk is moderated by Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director of the New Museum.

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Moderator / Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director of the New Museum
Massimiliano Gioni is the Edlis Neeson Artistic Director of the New Museum, where he leads the curatorial team and is responsible for the museum’s exhibition program. At the New Museum he has curated exhibitions by John Akomfrah, Pawel Althamer, Ed Atkins, Lynda Benglis, Tacita Dean, Nicole Eisenman, Urs Fischer, and Hans Haacke, among many others. He has organized major group shows including After Nature; Ostalgia; Here and Elsewhere; The Keeper; and Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America, an exhibition originally conceived by Okwui Enwezor and realized in collaboration with Naomi Beckwith, Glenn Ligon, and Mark Nash. Gioni’s international exhibitions include The Warmth of Other Suns at the Phillips Collection (Washington DC, 2019); The Restless Earth (Milan, Triennale, 2017), and The Great Mother (Milan Expo at Palazzo Reale, 2015), both with the Trussardi Foundation; the 55^th Venice Biennale (2013); the 10th Gwangju Biennale (2010); the 1^st New Museum Triennial (2009); the 4^th Berlin Biennale (2006), and Manifesta 5 (2004).

Panelists

Tania Bruguera is a political-timing specific artist working for over 25 years on created socially-engaged performances and installations that examine the nature of political power structures and their effect on the lives of their constituency. Her research is on ways in which art can be applied to the everyday political life, and on the transformation of social affect into political effectiveness. Her long-term projects are intensive interventions on the institutional structure of collective memory, education, and politics. Bruguera exposes the social effects of political forces on present global issues of power, migration, censorship, and repression through participatory works that turn viewers into active citizens. Bruguera is the 2021 Velazquez Prize recipient and the 2018 Tate Modern Hyundai Commissioned Artist.

Hans Haacke was born in Cologne, Germany, in 1936, and has lived and worked in New York since 1965. He has had solo exhibitions at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2012); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA (2011, 1967); X Initiative, New York (2009); Generali Foundation, Vienna (2001); Serpentine Gallery, London (2001); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (1996); Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona (1995); Centre Pompidou, Paris (1989); Tate London (1984); Renaissance Society, Chicago (1979); Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (1979); Modern Art Oxford, UK (1978); and Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (1976), among others. His last major American survey exhibition took place at the New Museum in 1986. He has participated in international exhibitions including documenta, Kassel (2017, 1997, 1987, 1982, 1972); Lyon Biennial (2017); Venice Biennale (2015, 2009, 1993, 1976); Liverpool Biennial (2014); Mercosul Biennial (2013); Sharjah Biennial (2011); Gwangju Biennale (2008); Whitney Biennial, New York (2000); Skulptur Projekte Münster (1997, 1987); Johannesburg Biennial (1997); Sydney Biennial (1990, 1984); São Paulo Biennial (1985); and Tokyo Biennial (1970). He won the prestigious Golden Lion (shared with Nam June Paik) at the Venice Biennale in 1993.

Fred Wilson is a conceptual artist whose work investigates museological, cultural, and historical issues, which are largely overlooked or neglected by museums and cultural institutions. Since his groundbreaking exhibition Mining the Museum (1992) at the Maryland Historical Society, Wilson has been the subject of more than 40 solo exhibitions around the globe, including the retrospective Objects and Installations 1979-2000, which was organized by the Center for Art and Visual Culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. His work has been exhibited extensively in museums including the Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Allen Memorial Museum at Oberlin College, Ohio; Cleveland Museum of Art; Institute of Jamaica, W.I.; Museum of World Cultures, Sweden; Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College; British Museum; and the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His work can be found in several public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Long Museum, Shanghai; Tate Modern, London; and National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. He represented the U.S. at the Cairo Biennale (1992) and Venice Biennale (2003). His many accolades include the prestigious MacArthur Foundation’s “Genius” Grant (1999); the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture (2006), the Ford Foundation’s Art of Change fellowship (2018), and Brandeis University’s Creative Arts Award (2019).

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 in 2007, the New Museum continues to be a place of experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas.

About Nasher Prize Dialogues

The discussion is part of Nasher Prize Dialogues, the discursive platform of the Nasher Prize, the annual international prize for a living artist in recognition of a body of work that has had an extraordinary impact on the understanding of sculpture. The Dialogues are intended to foster international awareness of sculpture and to stimulate discussion and debate. Programs—including panel discussions, lectures, and symposia—are held in cities around the world on a yearly basis, offering engagement with various audiences, and providing myriad perspectives and insight into the ever-expanding field of sculpture.

Sponsors

Bowdon Family Foundation, Michael Corman and Kevin Fink, Hartland and Mackie Family, Marian Goodman Gallery, Janelle and Alden Pinnell / The Pinnell Foundation, Stephen Friedman Gallery, and Patricia J. Villareal and Thomas S. Leatherbury are the Dialogues Sponsors of the Nasher Prize.