The New Décor

Date

Place

Garage Center for Contemporary Art

DESCRIPTION

The New Décor is an international survey of over 30 contemporary artists from 22 countries who have created sculptures and installations which explore interior design as a means of engaging with changes in contemporary culture.

The artists have transformed, subverted or recast the appearance of objects we associate with the everyday – a bed, a shelf, a lamp – into something uncanny, compelling, and revealing. Their work plays on the evolution of our interior and exterior environments, as objects metamorphose into a hub of competing references, evoking individual as well as collective scenarios, historical events as well as intimate encounters.

Ralph Rugoff, Director of the Hayward Gallery in London and curator of the exhibition commented “The New Décor challenges visitors’ perceptions of their own environment and explores a new chapter in the history of exhibitions looking at art and design. In French the word décor refers to stage sets as well as interior design, and in a similar spirit the works in this exhibition explore an arena between practicality and imagination, theatre and everyday life by drawing out the social, historical and personal stories which are embedded in the furnishings that surround us.” To celebrate The New Décor travelling to Moscow, Garage has invited two artists - Jaroslaw Kozlowski and Diango Hernández - to create newly commissioned works involving assemblages of locally sourced Russian materials and furniture. The resulting works will allow Garage visitors to reconsider their relationship with more familiar or basic domestic Russian forms as they are refashioned and reconceptualized into art work, they will be challenged to reassess their encounters with both sculpture and décor.