The Nasher Sculpture Center is pleased to present its first exhibition of a Dallas-based artist, Sightings: Erick Swenson, April 14 through July 8, 2012, which will feature new work especially conceived by the artist for the Lower Level Gallery.
“Sculptural feats of verism and imagination, Erick Swenson’s works are haunting, beautiful, and surprising; testaments to the most painstaking dedication to process,” notes Nasher Sculpture Center director Jeremy Strick. “While this internationally known artist has lived and worked in Dallas since the late 1990s, Sightings: Erick Swenson will be his first museum show in this community, a point of particular pride for the Nasher.”
Erick Swenson has received national and international acclaim for his beguiling sculptures. Rendered with a naturalist’s sensitivity and incredible precision, the works often present fantastic vignettes of animals ensnared in strange, sometimes devastating circumstances, or quietly poetic scenes that evoke the beauty and tragedy of nature, as well as our own human condition. Often shocking in their realism and precise details, the works take months, sometimes years, for the artist to fabricate, making new sculptures by Swenson rare.
A graduate of the University of North Texas and member of the Good/Bad Art Collective in Denton c. 1999–2000, Swenson first gained international attention when his work was featured in the 2004 Whitney Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. His sculptures now grace the collections of the Whitney, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Saatchi Collection in London.
Sightings: New Art at the Nasher is a series of small-scale exhibitions and installations that invites established and emerging contemporary sculptors from across Texas and around the world to create new work, sometimes in response to the unique collection and architectural context of the Nasher Sculpture Center. The series focuses on artists whose work draws on modernist precedents, yet reconsiders accepted notions and generates new ideas about modern and contemporary sculpture. In doing so, the exhibitions expand upon, invigorate, and re-contextualize the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, which is noted for its strong holdings in work by modern masters such as Calder, Giacometti, Matisse, Miró, Moore, Picasso, Rodin, and David Smith, among others.
In addition, inviting contemporary artists to engage the variety of spaces of the Nasher Sculpture Center in new, thought-provoking ways provides occasions to examine the evolving relationship between sculpture and architecture, also a hallmark of the modernist era. Previous Sightings installations at the Nasher have included works by Martin Creed and Diana Al-Hadid.
The Sighting Series is generously sponsored by the Avant-Garde Society of the Nasher Sculpture Center, Maribeth Messineo Peters of Allie Beth Allman & Associates and CBRE.
About the Nasher Sculpture Center;
Open since 2003 and located in the heart of the Dallas Arts District, the Nasher Sculpture Center is home to one of the finest collections of modern and contemporary sculptures in the world, the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, featuring more than 300 masterpieces by Calder, Giacometti, Matisse, Picasso, Rodin, and more. The longtime dream of the late Raymond and Patsy Nasher, the museum was designed by world-renowned architect Renzo Piano in collaboration with landscape architect Peter Walker.
Hailed by the "USA Today" as one of the great sculpture gardens where art enhances nature, the roofless museum seamlessly integrates the indoor galleries with the outdoor spaces creating a museum experience unlike any other in the world. On view in the light-filled galleries and amid the landscaped grounds are rotating works from the Collection, as well as blockbuster exhibitions and one-of-a-kind installations by the most celebrated artists of our times. In addition to the indoor and outdoor gallery spaces, the Center contains an auditorium, education and research facilities, a cafe, and a store.
The Nasher brings the best of contemporary culture to Dallas through special programs designed to engage visitors, including artist talks, lecture programs, contemporary music concerts, educational classes and exclusive member events.
The Nasher Sculpture Center is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 am to 5 pm and until 11 pm for special events, and from 10 am to 5 pm on the first Saturday of each month. Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors, $5 for students, and free for members and children 12 and under, and includes access to special exhibitions. For more information, visit www.NasherSculptureCenter.org.
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For more information and photos, please contact:
Kristen Gibbins
Associate Director of Media Relations
[email protected]
972.514.2099