HIGH LINE CHANNEL
Sturtevant, Warhol Empire State
On View Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Exterior Wall next to the High Line at West 22nd Street

High Line Art, presented by Friends of the High Line, is pleased to announce that Sturtevant’s Warhol Empire State will be the fourth installment on HIGH LINE CHANNEL, an outdoor video program that features daily screenings of art films, historic works, new productions, and curated series, from dusk to 10:00 PM. HIGH LINE CHANNEL is projected on a building to the east of the High Line at West 22nd Street, where it is visible from the park’s Seating Steps, as well as the sidewalk on West 22nd Street.

In 1972, Sturtevant completed Warhol Empire State, a black-and-white remake of Andy Warhol’s notoriously unwatchable film Empire (1964). Warhol’s original film consists of a single black-and-white shot of the Empire State Building over the course of an evening, filmed from 8:06 PM on July 25, 1964 to 2:42 AM on July 26, 1964. Empire is an ode to one of New York City’s most iconic buildings, as well as a meditation on the passage of time.

In Warhol Empire State, Sturtevant remakes Warhol’s original work to push the limits of resemblance and representation, shifting the viewer’s attention to what lies beneath the surface of images in order to examine the structures that give power and autonomy to the concepts of authenticity and authorship in the experience of artworks. Sturtevant’s work is often an appropriation and repetition of works by other artists, like Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Frank Stella, and Marcel Duchamp. She cites these legendary artists as catalysts for thinking about image and illusion — the experience of art and its authenticity. Sturtevant’s work is not about copying others, but rather about “summoning with sufficient intensity the memory of images viewed in order to be able to recreate and reinvent them.”

“Over the past 50 years, Sturtevant has explored the relationship between original and copy, between the act of watching and what is unwatchable,” said Cecilia Alemani, the Donald R. Mullen Jr. Curator and Director of High Line Art. “I am excited to see Warhol Empire State projected along the High Line in such close proximity to views of the actual Empire State Building.”

About the Artist

Born in Lakewood Ohio in 1930, Sturtevant has shown her work internationally including solo exhibitions at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris; Galerie Neu, Berlin; Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main; Casino Luxembourg, Forum d'Art Contemporain, Luxembourg, and many others. She has been included in numerous group exhibitions at venues such as Tate Modern, London; The Danish and Nordic Pavilions, 53rd Venice Biennale, Venice; CCS Bard, Annendale on Hudson, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, Foundation Beyeler, Basel; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2011 she awarded the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement at the 54th Venice Biennale. Sturtevant has also been the recipient of the Greenburger Award, New Museum, New York (2008); Beaux-arts Magazine Award, Best International Exhibition, Paris, France (2006); Beaux-arts Award: Best International Exhibition "Sturtevant: The Brutal Truth," Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany (2005); and Art Award: Best Exhibition of the Year, Paris, France (2004).

Support

HIGH LINE CHANNEL 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., with additional support from Vital Projects Fund, Inc. High Line Art is supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.