Aria Dean

Last updated

Aria Dean (born 1993) is an American artist, critic, and curator. [1] Until 2021, Dean served as Curator and Editor of Rhizome. [2] [3] Her writings have appeared in various art publications including Artforum , e-flux , The New Inquiry , Art in America , and Topical Cream. [4] Dean has exhibited internationally at venues such as Foxy Production and American Medium in New York, Chateau Shatto in Los Angeles, and Arcadia Missa in London. [5] Dean also co-directs As It Stands LA, an artists project space that opened in 2015. [6] Dean lives and works in New York City and Los Angeles. She is represented by Greene Naftali. [7]

Contents

Early life and education

Dean was born in 1993. She graduated from Oberlin College in 2015. [8]

Work

After graduating from Oberlin College, Dean was appointed social media coordinator for the Museum of Contemporary Art.

In September 2016, ARTnews announced that Dean had been appointed assistant curator of net art and digital culture for Rhizome. [9] Dean helped Rhizome's efforts to preserve, present, and re-perform works of net art from the 1980s to the present day (called Net Art Anthology), organize events, and publish articles online. [10] Dean stepped down as Editor and Curator in January 2021 to pursue her solo practice and a new project.

Dean's first solo exhibition, Baby Is A Cool Machine, opened at American Medium in 2017. The exhibition, according to the gallery's website, "hones in on her materially-driven examination of the situation of blackness in the United States." [11] The show was critically praised by James Hannaham at 4Columns and selected by Kat Herriman as a Critic's Picks for Artforum . [12] [13] In 2018, Aria Dean was named one of Cultured Magazine's [14] 30 artists under 35.

In late 2017, Dean curated New Black Portraitures as part of Rhizome's Net Art Anthology. [15] The online exhibition included visual artists Manuel Arturo Abreu, Hamishi Farah, Juliana Huxtable, Rindon Johnson, Pastiche Lumumba, N-Prolenta (Brandon Covington), Sondra Perry, and Redeem Pettaway and, "explored the changing status of black portraiture in relation to strategies for visibility, concealment, and self-representation online." [16]

In early 2018, Dean wrote and directed a play for the Swiss Institute in New York. [17]

Her second solo exhibition, lonesome crowded west, featured sculptural objects and installation that "shuttle between experiences as personally lived and the sweeping generalizations of the media and historical modernism" according to critic Matt Stromberg of Hyperallergic . [18] In an interview with Travis Diehl, Dean revealed sourcing the clay in her painting-like sculpture from Mississippi, and that the series speaks to her "proximity and distance in relation to that place." Other works featured crowd shots from hip-hop videos, a two-channel installation that explore the loneliness of black existence in predominantly-western contexts. [19]

"They index the sort of relationship that I was interested in, subsuming oneself into this particularly black crowd where individuals that already don’t exist so distinctly as "proper" western individual subjects get subsumed into this other object. The show title is from a Modest Mouse album, The Lonesome Crowded West (1997), and I’m not a huge Modest Mouse fan, but I like the album. I latched onto that phrase. "The Lonesome Crowded West" is my situation in relationship to the objects. I am the lonesome crowd, in the west…" [20]

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Selected two-person exhibitions

Selected group exhibitions

Selected lectures/presentations

Bibliography

Essays

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Museum</span> Museum in New York City

The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker.

<i>Artforum</i> Magazine on contemporary art

Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ × 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably, the Artforum logo is a bold and condensed iteration of the Akzidenz-Grotesk font, a feat for an American publication to have considering how challenging it was to obtain fonts favored by the Swiss school via local European foundries in the 1960s. Artforum is published by Artforum Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Media Corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Plagens</span> American journalist

Peter Plagens is an American artist, art critic, and novelist based in New York City. He is most widely known for his longstanding contributions to Artforum and Newsweek, and for what critics have called a remarkably consistent, five-decade-long body of abstract formalist painting. Plagens has written three books on art, Bruce Nauman: The True Artist (2014), Moonlight Blues: An Artist's Art Criticism (1986) and Sunshine Muse: Modern Art on the West Coast, 1945-70 (1974), and two novels, The Art Critic (2008) and Time for Robo (1999). He has been awarded major fellowships for both his painting and his writing. Plagens's work has been featured in surveys at the Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Whitney Museum, and PS1, and in solo exhibitions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Las Vegas Art Museum. In 2004, the USC Fisher Gallery organized and held a 30-year traveling retrospective of his work. Critics have contrasted the purely visual dialogue his art creates—often generating more questions than answers—with the directness of his writing; they also contend that the visibility of his bylines as a critic has sometimes overshadowed his artmaking—unduly. Los Angeles Times critic David Pagel described Plagens's painting as a "fusion of high-flying refinement and everyday awkwardness" with an intellectual savvy, disdain for snobbery and ungainliness he likened to Willem de Kooning's work. Reviewing Plagens's 2018 exhibition, New York Times critic Roberta Smith called the show an "eye-teasing sandwich of contrasting formalist strategies," the hard-won result of a decade of focused experimentation.

Angela Washko is an American new media artist and facilitator based in New York. After nine years as a professor of art at Carnegie Mellon University, she is currently the Catherine B. Heller Collegiate Professor of Art at University of Michigan. Washko mobilizes communities and creates new forums for discussions of feminism where they do not exist.

Helen Anne Molesworth is an American curator of contemporary art based in Los Angeles. From 2014 to 2018, she was the Chief Curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juliana Huxtable</span> American artist

Juliana Huxtable is an American artist, writer, performer, DJ, and co-founder of the New York–based nightlife project Shock Value. Huxtable has exhibited and performed at a number of venues including Reena Spaulings Fine Art, Project Native Informant, Artists Space, the New Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and Institute of Contemporary Arts. Huxtable's multidisciplinary art practice explores a number of projects, such as the internet, the body, history, and text, often through a process she calls "conditioning." Huxtable is a published author of two books and a member of the New York City–based collective House of Ladosha. She is on the roster of the talent agency Discwoman, a New York based collective and talent agency that books DJs for parties and events around the world. She previously lived and worked in New York City, and has been based in Berlin since 2020.

Danielle Dean is a British-American visual artist. She works in drawing, installation, performance and video. She has exhibited in London and in the United States; her work was included in an exhibition at the Hammer Museum focusing on new or under-recognized artists working in Los Angeles.

Sondra Perry is an interdisciplinary artist who works with video, computer-based media, installation, and performance. Perry's work investigates "blackness, black femininity, African American heritage" and the portrayal or representation of black people throughout history, focusing on how blackness influences technology and image making. Perry explores the duality of intelligence and seductiveness in the contexts of black family heritage, black history, and black femininity. "Perry is committed to net neutrality and ideas of collective production and action, using open source software to edit her work and leasing it digitally for use in galleries and classrooms, while also making all her videos available for free online. This principle of open access in Perry's practice aims to privilege black life, to democratize access to art and culture, and to offer a critical platform that differentiates itself from the portrayal of blackness in the media". For Perry, blackness is a technology which creates fissures in systems of surveillance and control and thus creates inefficiency as an opportunity for resistance.

Hannah Black is a British visual artist, critic, and writer. Her work spans video, text and performance.

Nora Nahid Khan is a Warwick, Rhode Island-born American art critic, curator, and writer of fiction, non-fiction, and literary criticism. Khan has served on the Faculty of the University of California, Riverside, and at the Rhode Island School of Design. She was the Executive Director of the Project X Foundation for Art & Criticism from 2022 to 2023. In 2022 Nora Khan was appointed the first Editor-in-Residence of Topical Cream.

Diamond Stingily is an American artist and poet. Stingily's art practice explores aspects of identity, iconography and mythology, and childhood. Stingily lives and works in New York City.

Rindon Johnson is an American artist and writer. Johnson has based his work on language and its slippery nature. He uses animal hides, animation, virtual reality, wood and vaseline to consider capital accumulation and the systemic violences that maintain it. Johnson has exhibited and performed internationally, and is a published author. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and Berlin, Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greene Naftali Gallery</span> Contemporary art gallery in New York City

Greene Naftali is a contemporary art gallery located in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City.

Mia Locks is a contemporary art curator and museum leader.

Christopher Y. Lew is an American art curator and writer based in New York City. Lew is currently the Nancy and Fred Poses Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Château Shatto is a contemporary art gallery in downtown Los Angeles, California directed by co-founder Olivia Barrett.

Meg Onli is an African-American art curator and writer. She is currently the Andrea B. Laporte Associate Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her curatorial work primarily revolves around the black experience, language, and constructions of power and space. Her writing has been published in Art21, Daily Serving, and Art Papers. In September 2022, it was announced that Onli would co-curate the 2024 Whitney Biennial with Chrissie Iles.

Reba Maybury, is a British-Pakistani artist sometimes working under the name Mistress Rebecca. Her work explores the tension between her perceived strength as a figure of fantasy and how through the reality of sex work and gender she turns this power into something tangible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zoé Whitley</span> American art historian and curator

Zoé Whitley is an American art historian and curator who has been director of Chisenhale Gallery since 2020. Based in London, she has held curatorial positions at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tate galleries, and the Hayward Gallery. At the Tate galleries, Whitley co-curated the 2017 exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, which ARTnews called one of the most important art exhibitions of the 2010s. Soon after she was chosen to organise the British pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale.

Emmanuel Olunkwa is an artist, writer, designer, editor, and filmmaker. Olunkwa currently serves as the editor of Pin-Up Magazine. In 2020, Olunkwa co-founded November Magazine, E&Ko., and served as an editor of The Broadcast, a virtual publication by the cultural center Pioneer Works. Olunkwa's work has been published in Artforum, Interview, T-Magazine, Architectural Digest, Maharam, Artek, The New York Times, Museum of Modern Art, Curbed, Remodelista, and the New Museum and he is based in New York.

References

  1. "Notes on Blacceleration – Journal #87 December 2017 – e-flux". www.e-flux.com. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  2. Durón, Maximilíano (September 22, 2016). "Rhizome Hires Aria Dean as Assistant Curator of Net Art". ARTnews. Retrieved January 15, 2018.
  3. "Announcing: Aria Dean appointed as Rhizome's assistant curator of net art". Rhizome. Retrieved January 15, 2018.
  4. "Announcing: Aria Dean appointed as Rhizome's assistant curator of net art". Rhizome. Retrieved January 15, 2018.
  5. "Variation and Repetition: Aria Dean •Mousse Magazine". moussemagazine.it (in Italian). Retrieved January 15, 2018.
  6. "Baby is a Cool Machine". American Medium. Retrieved January 15, 2018.
  7. "ARTnews in Brief: Contemporary Austin Announces New Director, Marfa Invitational Names 2020 Exhibitors—and More from February 21, 2020". ARTnews. February 21, 2020. Retrieved October 8, 2020.
  8. Hannaham, James. "Aria Dean" . Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  9. Durón, Maximilíano (September 22, 2016). "Rhizome Hires Aria Dean as Assistant Curator of Net Art". ARTnews. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  10. "Announcing: Aria Dean appointed as Rhizome's assistant curator of net art". Rhizome. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  11. "Baby is a Cool Machine". American Medium. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  12. Hannaham, James. "Aria Dean" . Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  13. "Aria Dean at American medium". www.artforum.com. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  14. Dean, Aria. "Aria Dean Cultured Magazine" . Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  15. "online black art is moving from instagram to bitmapping". I-d. January 31, 2018. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  16. "New Black Portraitures". www.newmuseum.org. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  17. "SI OFFSITE | LUNAR INTERVAL IV: FULL MOON | Aria Dean: Get-Together: A Tragedy of Language | Swiss Institute". www.swissinstitute.net. Retrieved March 27, 2018.
  18. "Aria Dean Searches for an "Ontology of Blackness"". HyperAllergic. October 24, 2018. Retrieved October 26, 2018.
  19. Olunkwa, Emmanuel. "Interviews. ARIA DEAN". ArtForum. Retrieved October 26, 2018.
  20. Diehl, Travis. "Aria Dean with Travis Diehl: Going Formal". X-TRA. eXhibitions. Retrieved October 26, 2018.
  21. "Aria Dean: Suite!". January 8, 2021.
  22. "Gut Pinch". thesunroom.xyz. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  23. "White ppl think I'm radical, Arcadia Missa". Arcadia Missa. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  24. Mitter, Siddhartha (January 25, 2022). "Whitney Biennial Picks 63 Artists to Take Stock of Now". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved January 25, 2022.
  25. "ARIA DEAN, HELEN MARTEN, KELLEY WALKER, OLGA BALEMA, RAQUE FORD - 8TH FLOOR - Exhibition Highlights - Greene Naftali".
  26. "Condo New York | Chateau Shatto". chateaushatto.com. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  27. "At this stage | Chateau Shatto". chateaushatto.com. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  28. "Notes on Blacceleration – Journal #87 December 2017 – e-flux". www.e-flux.com. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  29. "The Demand Remains". The New Inquiry. March 28, 2017. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  30. "Poor Meme, Rich Meme – Real Life". Real Life. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  31. Dean, Aria. "Alex Da Corte at Art + Practice". artforum.com. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  32. "Closing the Loop". The New Inquiry. March 1, 2016. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  33. "Infinite, Fragmented Anguishes". Los Angeles Review of Books. August 15, 2024. Retrieved September 11, 2024.