Specials
Specials
Specials is a collaboration between artists Lisa Sigal and Paul Ramírez Jonas, launched in June 2009. For this ongoing, roving art project, the artists have constructed a mobile unit composed of vendor carts and a 10 x 4 foot wall. On one side of the wall, they hang artwork by a wide range of artists; on the flip side, they serve homemade tacos, free of charge. Each time Specials is presented, the artwork and the type of taco change, in the manner of restaurants’ daily menu specials or art galleries’ changing exhibition schedules. This project deliberately blurs the boundaries between visual art, performance, social gathering space, and festive event. As the artists have stated, "Specials will continue to evolve following a desire to go beyond tired dichotomies of inside/outside, art audience/non art audience, viewer versus participant. It is not This or That; it is This and That."
Specials will be presented on the High Line in the 14th Street Passage (between 13th and 14th Streets). The planned schedule is as follows (subject to change):
• Thursday September 17, 4:00 - 8:00 PM
Featuring works by Fiona Tan and Regina Silveira, and a potato and corn croquette with red cabbage and avocado taco.
• Thursday October 1, 4:00 - 8:00 PM
Featuring artists who participated in the 1993 Whitney Biennial, including Janine Antoni, Byron Kim, Simon Leung, Glenn Ligon, Suzanne McClelland, Kiki Smith and Fred Wilson, and a spicy pumpkin taco.
Specials
For more information about Specials, see the artists' blog.
Specials was recently written up in Art in America.
This High Line Art Commission is presented by Friends of the High Line and the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. High Line Art Commissions are made possible by Donald R. Mullen, Jr.
About the artists: Specials is the first collaboration between these two Brooklyn-based artists. Sigal has forthcoming solo exhibitions in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2010. Past solo shows have been held at Frederieke Taylor Gallery in New York; Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT; and White Columns, New York. Additionally, her work has been shown in group exhibitions at such venues as Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, PS1, and Brooklyn Museum of Art. She has received grants from New York Foundation for the Arts, Joan Mitchell Foundation, and Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, among others.
Specials
Ramírez Jonas’ solo exhibitions include Alexander Grey Associates, New York; Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; and Roger Björkholmen Galleri, Stockholm, Sweden. The many group exhibitions in which he has participated include Fare Mondi/Hacer Mundos, Pabellon de America Latina, 53rd Venice Biennial, Venice, Italy; The Quick and the Dead, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Urban Stories, The 10th Baltic Triennale, Vilnius, Lithuania; 28a. Bienal de São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Democracy in America Convergence Center, presented by Creative Time. His work is included in the permanent collections of Blanton Museum; Bronx Museum of Art; Malmö Konstmuseum, Sweden; and the New Museum of Contemporary Art.
Specials wall installation.
Culture Pundits is the Media Sponsor for Specials.
