Lehmann Maupin, New York, United States
02 Jun 2017 - 25 Aug 2017
Lehmann Maupin present TILL, LIT, Nari Ward’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. Ward will debut a series of new work comprised of mixed media paintings, sculptures, and installations.
These works examine the ways value is assigned throughout society, with Ward attempting to disrupt existing monetary-based value structures in favor of social enrichment. On the occasion of this exhibition, Ward and Lehmann Maupin will donate a percentage of sales to Housing Works, the New York City-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to end the dual crisis of homelessness and AIDS.
In essence and action, TILL, LIT engages the value systems found in our relationship with currency, with the artist subverting this system to ultimately benefit those who have been undervalued and marginalized economically and socially. While politically minded, Ward is not an activist, but an alchemist, removing a small part of the transactional economy to add tangible value to the social transformation that takes place in art making.
Running concurrent with TILL, LIT in Chelsea, Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens will exhibit Nari Ward: G.O.A.T., again, through September 4, 2017, a series of newly commissioned outdoor artworks created on site by Ward, while a recent commission of his piece, We the People, is on view at the New-York Historical Society on the Upper West Side. His mid-career survey, Nari Ward: Sun Splashed, will be on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, through September 4, 2017.
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