JOANNA MALINOWSKA in BROADWAY MOREY BOOGIE
Wednesday, September 17, 2014 – Wednesday, April 1, 2015
September 17, 2014 – February 2015
Columbus Circle
New York City
Broadway Morey Boogie is a group exhibition of contemporary sculpture occupying sites along Broadway from Columbus Circle to 166th Street in Manhattan. Sculptures and installations by contemporary artists such as Dan Colen, Matt Johnson, Devin Troy Strother and Joanna Malinowska are speckled over 5 miles of New York Citys streets and over a dozen of neighborhoods.
Joanna Malinowska’s 15 foot-tall concrete sculpture of Chronicle of the Latter World equipped with an SLR camera around his neck is a reflection of the thousands of tourists passing by Columbus Circle, yet its size and palette reminiscent of the American West and the Yukon contrasts drastically with the commotion of New York City life. The plastiglomerate stonea newly-discovered multi-composite rock of plastic and molten lava from Kamilo Beach in Hawaii in the paw of the bear additionally symbolizes the clash between humanity and nature. This rock is the first sign of human-made debris binding permanently with nature.
Joanna Malinowska’s long love affair with anthropology has been guiding her artistic practice throughout the years. For the 2012 Whitney Biennial Malinowska hung a painting by an – in some circles – unjustly imprisoned American Indian Movement activist and artist Leonard Peltier alongside her own work. This gesture questioned the lack of representation of Native American artists in the biennale, and ultimately in the art world. The playful silhouette of an American black bear standing on Columbus Circle is a continuation of artists fascination with the American West, the Native Americans and Inuits, and serves as a symbol of Americana, the wild west.