Sara VanDerBeek

Last updated
Sara VanDerBeek
Born1976
Education Cooper Union
Known for Photography
Website https://saravanderbeekstudio.com

Sara VanDerBeek (born 1976), [1] is an American artist who lives and works in New York City. She is known for photographing sculptures and three-dimensional still-life assemblages of her own making, [2] some of which she destroys after the photos have been taken, as well as for exploring the depiction of women in art history particularly classical or ancient sculpture.

Contents

Early life and education

VanDerBeek grew up in Baltimore and studied visual arts at Baltimore School for the Arts during her high school years. [3] [4] Her father, Stan VanDerBeek, was an experimental filmmaker. [2] [5] She moved to New York in 1994 to attend her father's alma mater, Cooper Union. [2] After graduating, she worked in commercial photography in London for three years. [2] She returned to New York in 2001 and in 2003 she opened Guild & Greyshkul, an art gallery, in Soho with her brother, Johannes VanDerBeek, a sculptor, and artist Anya Kielar, another Cooper graduate. [2] The gallery closed in 2009. [6]

Work

VanDerBeek is considered one of several contemporary photographers — among them Michele Abeles, Liz Deschenes and Eileen Quinlan — who are extending the innovations of the earlier Pictures Generation into new territory. [7] Her work focuses on photographs of assemblages that she creates in her studio. Her work was included in "New Photography 2009" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. [8] Curator Eva Respini, who put together the MoMA show, described VanDerBeek's art as having a hybrid nature: "Although Sara is a photographer, I like to think of her practice as multidisciplinary... [She is] very interested in the space of sculpture, the space of theater." [2]

Her first solo museum show, "To Think of Time" at the Whitney in 2010, contained photographs of still lifes with objects including funerary masks and architectural details. [2] VanDerBeek also uses imagery of classical figures in her work. [9] She told Aperture's Brian Sholis in 2013, "I have always been interested in how photography affects the reading of scale, time, and place. It can be disorienting or confusing to encounter a photograph of something, but it can also usefully enlighten some little-perceived aspect of real-life experience." [10] Since 2010, VanDerBeek's work has been shown in numerous solo exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the U.S. and internationally. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]

Collections

VanDerBeek's work is in the permanent collections:

References

  1. "Sara VanDerBeek - Artist's Profile". The Saatchi Gallery. Retrieved 2014-02-05.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kino, Carol (14 September 2010). "Putting Memories to New Use" . The New York Times . pp. AR.24. ProQuest   751430529. Archived from the original on 23 February 2025. Retrieved 2 September 2025.
  3. "Alumni".[ dead link ]
  4. "Alumni Connections — BSA Past & Present" (PDF). Fanmail. Baltimore School for the Arts. Summer 2012. p. 3. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 September 2025. Retrieved 2 September 2025. ...visual arts students toured the Candida Hofer exhibit at the BMA with Sara Vanderbeek '94 who has had shows at both the MOMA and Guggenheim
  5. "Stan VanDerBeek Dies at 57; Made Experimental Movies". The New York Times . 22 September 1984. p. 1.32. ProQuest   425187280. Archived from the original on 21 September 2023. Retrieved 2 September 2025.
  6. Smith, Roberta (6 February 2009). "A Gallery Goes Out in a Burst of Energy" . The New York Times . pp. C.5. ProQuest   434047227. Archived from the original on 27 November 2024. Retrieved 5 February 2014.
  7. Smith, Roberta (16 May 2013). "Art in Review; Michele Abeles: 'English for Secretaries'" . The New York Times . pp. C.24. ProQuest   1352272045. Archived from the original on 3 September 2025. Retrieved 2 September 2025.
  8. "Exhibitions: New Photography 2009: Walead Beshty, Daniel Gordon, Leslie Hewitt, Carter Mull, Sterling Ruby, Sara VanDerBeek". Museum of Modern Art . 2009. Archived from the original on 8 August 2022. Retrieved 5 February 2014.
  9. Roffino, Sara (1 May 2013). "25 Questions for Photographic Assemblage Interpreter Sara VanDerBeek". Blouin Artinfo . Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 5 February 2014.
  10. Sholis, Brian (6 May 2013). "Interview with Sara VanDerBeek". Aperture Foundation . Archived from the original on 10 December 2023. Retrieved 5 February 2014.
  11. Perrone, Cloé (2012). "Sara VanDerBeek". Fondazione Memmo (in Italian). Archived from the original on 12 September 2016. Retrieved 17 November 2015.
  12. "Exhibitions: Sara VanDerBeek, Electric Prisms, Concrete Forms". The Approach Gallery . 2015. Archived from the original on 21 May 2025. Retrieved 17 November 2015.
  13. "Exhibitions: Sara VanDerBeek". Metro Pictures Gallery . 2013. Archived from the original on 26 March 2021. Retrieved 17 November 2015.
  14. "Exhibitions: Sara VanDerBeek". Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland . 2014. Archived from the original on 20 October 2016. Retrieved 17 November 2015.
  15. "Artists: Sara VanDerBeek". Altman Siegel. Archived from the original on 27 November 2020. Retrieved 17 November 2015.
  16. "Calendar & Exhibitions - Sensory Spaces 6 - Sara VanDerBeek". Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen . 2015. Archived from the original on 20 July 2015. Retrieved 17 November 2015.
  17. "Exhibitions: Front Room: Sara VanDerBeek". Baltimore Museum of Art . 2015. Archived from the original on 6 July 2017. Retrieved 17 November 2015.
  18. "Artist: Sara VanDerBeek". Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum . Archived from the original on 3 September 2025. Retrieved 17 November 2015.
  19. "Artists: Sara VanDerBeek". Whitney Museum . Archived from the original on 13 February 2025. Retrieved 5 February 2014.
  20. "Artist: Sara VanDerBeek". Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles . Archived from the original on 5 November 2024. Retrieved 5 February 2014.
  21. "Artists: Sara VanDerBeek". Brooklyn Museum . Archived from the original on 3 September 2025. Retrieved 5 February 2014.
  22. "The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art at Rollins College". Cornell Fine Arts Museum . Rollins College. Archived from the original on March 18, 2015. Retrieved March 9, 2015.