#InTheLoop | SculptureCenter Artist Talks About Her Exhibition on Oct. 28 – QEDC

#InTheLoop | SculptureCenter Artist Talks About Her Exhibition on Oct. 28

BY QEDC It's In Queens

Diane Severin Nguyen talks to curator Sohrab Mohebbi about her solo show IF REVOLULTION IS A SICKNESS at SculptureCenter on Thursday, Oct. 28, at 6:30 pm.

On display at the Long Island City museum until Dec. 13, IF REVOLUTION IS A SICKNESS is built around a new moving image work, co-commissioned by SculptureCenter and the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago and filmed in 2021. Set in Poland’s Warsaw, the film loosely follows the character of an orphaned Vietnamese child who grows up to be absorbed into a South Korean pop-inspired dance group. Widely popular within a Polish youth subculture, K-pop is used by the artist as a vernacular material to trace a relationship between Eastern Europe and Asia with roots in Cold War allegiances.

Poland has a large Vietnamese population these days, and Korean culture is well-respected there. Many Northern Vietnamese migrated before the fall of the Iron Curtain, while Southerners mostly arrived after the Vietnam War. Nguyen investigates the two groups’ layered inner conflicts.

Based in Los Angeles and the Big Apple, Nguyen specializes in photography, film, time-based media, and sculpture made from found materials (organic and synthetic).

Capacity is limited. RSVP via email to caque@sculpture-center.org.

Knobkerry

SculptureCenter is also exhibiting Niloufar Emamifar and SoiL Thornton, who created art inspired by Knobkerry, an East Village store that designer Sara Penn ran from the 1960s through the 1990s. It traded in textiles and ethnographic objects, which Penn transformed into patchwork garments and arranged in elaborate and densely layered displays.

Foundational to the project is writer Svetlana Kitto’s years-long oral history project that pins together a potential sphere of influence for Penn, her work, and her store. Penn and Knobkerry are represented by a publication that collects 15 long-form interviews that Kitto conducted with figures close to Knobkerry between 2017 and 2020.

Emamifar and Thornton present new work for the exhibition, which strives to engender conversation about Penn’s legacy.

Founded by artists in 1928 and currently located at 44-19 Purves St., ScuptureCenter has 6,500 square feet of unique exhibition spaces on two levels and a 1,500-square-foot, enclosed courtyard for outdoor displays. Click here for the museum’s COVID policies. The hours of operation are noon to 6 pm from Thursday through Monday along with virtual programs.