Artists: Basma Alsharif and Corin Hewitt
Exhibition title: Down & Out
Venue: The Sunroom, Richmond, Virginia, US
Date: May 14 – June 31, 2017
Photography: images copyright and courtesy of the artist and The Sunroom
Banquet Still Life (1667) is a work by painter Abraham van Beyeren (Holland, ca. 1620 – 1690). A traditional pronkstillevens, it features an excess of objects that typifies the grade of wealth kept by the Dutch upper class of the 17th century: silver-gilt dinnerware, oysters, fruits, lobster, and finely hand-woven tapestry. Both financially unstable and largely unrecognized for much of his lifetime, van Beyeren, perhaps satirically, chose as his organizing principle for Banquet Still Life the infinity symbol. Through the meticulous composition of light, color, and form, the eye of the viewer often takes to the red lobster; slides down along the dangling curl of the fruit peel; scoops upwards across pearly white shells; into that missing section of melon; and then abruptly down towards the peculiarly tilted dishware; and so on. In the act of tracing an inevitable return, we are compelled to move backwards, forwards, and throughout this scene of literal stasis, reinforcing the very infinite properties that comprise the cycle of life, which plays solely with, and by, itself.
Basma Alsharif is an Artist/Filmmaker born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents, raised between France and the US. Since receiving a Master of Fine Arts in 2007 from the University of Illinois at Chicago, she developed her practice nomadically between Chicago, Cairo, Beirut, Sharjah, Amman, the Gaza Strip and Paris. Major exhibitions include: the Whitney Biennial, Le Prix Découverte des Rencontres D’Arles, les Module at the Palais de Tokyo, Here and Elsewhere at the New Museum, the Jerusalem Show, Yamagata Documentary Film Festival, the Berlinale, the Sharjah Biennial, Videobrasil, and Manifesta 8. She received a jury prize at the Sharjah Biennial 9, the Marion MacMahon award at Images, and was awarded the Marcelino Botin Visual Arts grant. Basma is represented by Galerie Imane Farés in Paris, distributed by Video Data Bank and Arsenal, and is now based in Los Angeles.
Corin Hewitt received his BA from Oberlin College and his MFA from Bard College. Solo exhibitions of his work include Whitney Museum of American Art, MOCA Cleveland, the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center, and the Seattle Museum of Art. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo; Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp; the Memmo Foundation, Rome; the Sao Paolo Biennial in Brazil ; the Whitney Museum, New York; the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Galerie Perrotin, Paris; with the Public Art Fund in New York; and the Wanas Foundation in Sweden. Hewitt was a recipient of the 2014-5 American Academy Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2011, and a Joan Mitchell Fellowship in 2010. In 2015, Mousse Publications released a 300-page monograph, entitled Seven Performances featuring six years of work.
Corin Hewitt, Fireplace Extrusion 1, 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 29 3/4 x 23 1/4 x 6 1/2 inches; Sausage Frescoes 1, 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 115 x 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches
Corin Hewitt, Fireplace Extrusion 1, (detail) 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 29 3/4 x 23 1/4 x 6 1/2 inches
Corin Hewitt, Fireplace Extrusion 1, (detail) 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 29 3/4 x 23 1/4 x 6 1/2 inches
Corin Hewitt, Sausage Frescoes 1, (detail), 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 115 x 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches
Corin Hewitt, Sausage Frescoes 1, (detail), 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 115 x 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches
Basma Alsharif, Renée’s Room, 2015, Installation with digital video on loop (14:50), live-feed surveillance camera feeding to monitor, and white carpet
Basma Alsharif, Renée’s Room, 2015, 14:50, video excerpt
Basma Alsharif, Renée’s Room, 2015, 14:50, video excerpt
Basma Alsharif, Renée’s Room, 2015, Installation with digital video on loop (14:50), live-feed surveillance camera feeding to monitor, and white carpet
Corin Hewitt, Fireplace Extrusion 2, 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 24 3/4 x 15 1/4 x 12 inches; Sausage Frescoes 2, 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 69 x 2 3/4 x 3 1/4 inches
Corin Hewitt, Sausage Frescoes 2, (detail) 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 69 x 2 3/4 x 3 1/4 inches
Corin Hewitt, Fireplace Extrusion 2, 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 24 3/4 x 15 1/4 x 12 inches
Corin Hewitt, Fireplace Extrusion 2, (detail) 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 24 3/4 x 15 1/4 x 12 inches
Corin Hewitt, Fireplace Extrusion 2, (detail) 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 24 3/4 x 15 1/4 x 12 inches
Corin Hewitt, Sausage Frescoes 4, 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 34 x 17 x 6 1/2 inches; Sausage Frescoes 5, 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 92 x 4 x 3 1/2 inches
Corin Hewitt, Sausage Frescoes 5, (detail), 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 92 x 4 x 3 1/2 inches
Corin Hewitt, Sausage Frescoes 4, 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 34 x 17 x 6 1/2 inches
Corin Hewitt, Sausage Frescoes 4, (detail), 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 34 x 17 x 6 1/2 inches
Corin Hewitt, Fireplace Extrusion 3, 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 24 1/2 x 15 1/4 x 9 inches
Corin Hewitt, Fireplace Extrusion 3, (detail), 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 24 1/2 x 15 1/4 x 9 inches
Corin Hewitt, Fireplace Extrusion 3, (detail), 2017, Plaster, pork casings, makeup and mixed media, 24 1/2 x 15 1/4 x 9 inches
Corin Hewitt, Smoking Garbage Eye (from the Foro Mussolini), 2017, mixed media, 62 x 59 x 40 inches
Corin Hewitt, Smoking Garbage Eye (from the Foro Mussolini), 2017, mixed media, 62 x 59 x 40 inches