Books by Andrea Andersson
Cecilia Vicuña: About to Happen
by Lucy R. Lippard, Macarena Gomez-Barris, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Andrea Andersson
Vicuña makes art of gathered materials from the ocean, the river and the street
Beginning and ending at the edge of the ocean, Chileanborn artist and poet Cecilia Vicuña's (born 1948) artist's book serves as both a lament and love letter to the sea. Vicuña collects the detritus that washes up on shore and assembles out of the refuse tiny precarios and basuritas―little sculptures held together with nothing more than string and wire.
About to Happen, which accompanies an exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, traces a decades-long practice that has refused categorical distinctions and thrived within the confluences of conceptual art, land art, feminist art, performance and poetry. In an era of increasing climate change and economic disparity, Vicuña’s nuanced visual poetics―operating fluidly between concept and craft, text and textile―transforms the discarded into the elemental, paying acute attention to the displaced, the marginalized and the forgotten.
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Sanford Biggers: Codeswitch
by Andrea Andersson, Antonio Sergio Bessa
“What I want to do is code-switch. To have there be layers of history and politics, but also this heady, arty stuff—inside jokes, black humor—that you might have to take a while to research if you want to really get it.”—Sanford Biggers
Sanford Biggers (b. 1970) is a Harlem-based artist working in various media including painting, sculpture, video, and performance. He describes his practice as “code-switching”—mixing disparate elements to create layers of meaning—to account for his wide-ranging interests. This catalogue focuses on a series of repurposed quilts (many made in the 19th century) that embodies this interest in mixture. Informed by the significance of quilts to the Underground Railroad, Biggers transforms the quilts into new works using materials such as paint, tar, glitter, and charcoal to add his own layers of codes, whether they be historical, political, or purely artistic. Insightful essays survey Biggers’s career, his art in relation to music, and the history upon which the series draws. Also featured is a short yet powerful graphic essay by an award-winning illustrator that introduces the layered meanings inherent in the art and craft of quilting.
Published in association with The Bronx Museum of the Arts
Exhibition Schedule: The Bronx Museum of the Arts
(September 9, 2020–January 24, 2021)
California African American Museum, Los Angeles
(July 28, 2021–January 23, 2022)
Speed Art Museum, Louisville
(March 18–June 26, 2022)
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