Ariana Reines and Oscar Tuazon at Modern Art

Artists: Ariana Reines and Oscar Tuazon

Exhibition title: PUBIC SPACE

Venue: Modern Art, London, UK

Date: February 25 – April 9, 2016

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Modern Art, London

Modern Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of new sculptures made in collaboration between poet Ariana Reines and sculptor Oscar Tuazon.

The exhibition comprises new works inspired by herms: sculptural forms of ancient Greek origin that are publicly sited, with a head and sometimes a torso atop a plain pillar with genitals.

Ariana Reines is a poet and playwright who lives and works in New York, NY, USA. She was born in Salem, MA, USA in 1980. She earned a BA from Barnard College, New York, NY, USA, and completed graduate work at Columbia University New York, NY, USA, and the European Graduate School, Leuk-Stadt, Switzerland, where she studied French literature, performance and philosophy. She has taught at Columbia University, the European Graduate School, NYU, Tufts, and The New School. In 2009 she was the Roberta C. Holloway Lecturer in Poetry at the University of California-Berkeley, CA, USA. Reines’ books include The Cow (2006); Coeur de Lion (2007); Mercury (2011); The Origin of the World (2014) and A Sand Book (2016). In 2009 her first play TELEPHONE was performed at the Cherry Lane Theater, New York, NY, USA, and received two Obie Awards; a Norwegian translation will premiere in Lillehammer, Norway in 2017. Performance and theatre works include: MORTAL KOMBAT, commissioned by Le Mouvement Biel/Bienne & performed at The Whitney Museum, New York, NY, USA, & Gallery TPW, Toronto, Canada (2015); and LORNA at Martin E. Segal Theatre, New York, USA, both in collaboration with Jim Fletcher (2013); THE WATER OF POETRY at The Renaissance Society, Chicago, IL, USA (2013), SAVE THE WORLD at Fiac: Voices of Urgency, Paris, France (2014), THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD at Modern Art, London (2013), STAND UP, A Proposition by Cathy Park Hong at The New Museum, New York, NY, USA (2013), UN<3SIMPLE at MoMA, New York, NY, USA (2012); SWISSNESS at The Swiss Institute, New York, NY, USA (2012); MISS ST’S HIEROGLYPHIC SUFFERING at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA (2009); and GOLD for Oscar Tuazon at Galerie Balice Hertling, Paris, France (2009). Her work has been included in group exhibitions EXHAUST, Contemporary Art Tasmania, Australia (2016), and JANE DARK, Western Front, Vancouver, Canada (2014). Reines is the translator of Baudelaire’s My Heart Laid Bare (2009); Jean-Luc Hennig’s The Little Black Book of Grisélidis Réal: Days and Nights of an Anarchist Whore (2009); and Tiqqun’s Preliminary Materials Toward a Theory of the Young-Girl (2012).

Oscar Tuazon is a sculptor who lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, USA. He was born in Seattle, WA, USA in 1975. From 1995-1999 he studied at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, NY, USA, and from 2001-2003 on the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program, Studio Program, New York, NY, USA. Recent solo exhibitions include Hammer Projects, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, LA, USA (2016); Le Consortium Dijon, Dijon, France (2015); Alone in an Empty Room, Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany (2014); White Walls, Sensory Spaces, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands; Spasms of Misuse, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, Germany (2013); People, Public Art Fund, New York, NY, USA (2012); My Mistake, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), London (2010); Kodiak (with Eli Hansen), Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA, USA (2008) and Where I Lived And What I Lived For, Module, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2007). His work has been included in recent exhibitions including The Promise, Arnolfini, Bristol (2014); Deftig Barock, Von Cattelan bs Zurbaràn, Manifeste des prekär Vitalen, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland (2012); Heart in Hand, Swiss Institute, New York, NY, USA (2012); The Language of Less, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL, USA (2011); Displaced Fractures – Über die Bruchlinien in Architekturen und ihren Körpern, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, Switzerland (2010); and Rehabilitation, WIELS Center for Contemporary Art, Brussels, Belgium (2010). Tuazon’s work was included in the 76th Whitney Biennial of American Art (2012); and the 54th Venice Biennale (2011).

In 2009 when I went to Paris to perform at the opening of Oscar’s show ASS TO MOUTH, he said we should do something together called “Mein Cock”, which is the title of a memoir by the protagonist/antagonist of a book of mine, Coeur de Lion.

I said we should make herms.

– Ariana Reines