Paula Crown – Architecture of Memory

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Dallas Contemporary is pleased to present Paula Crown: The Architecture of Memory, an exhibition to run as a partner program to the American Pavilion, organized by School of the Art Institute of Chicago and University of Chicago, at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale.

Commissioned and curated by Dallas Contemporary Director Peter Doroshenko (who was also the commissioner of the Ukrainian Pavilion for the Venice Biennale last year), this exhibition places Paula Crown’s artwork in an international biennale festival setting for the first time—underscoring the basic critical building blocks that form the languages of contemporary sculpture and architecture. The installation, along with its supporting publication, educational programs, and student workshops, will provide a valuable overview of Crown’s contribution to recent installation art and object production.

It is particularly appropriate that a focused exhibition of Crown's work should be organized at this point in her career. Crown began creating installations in 2013 and has expanded her projects to include complex and advanced interventions. Her work pushes our conceptions of reality through seminal examinations of critical platforms that are the framework structures and systems around us. Studio Cannaregio, where The Architecture of Memory will be installed, is a new exhibition space in the oldest part of Venice and adjacent to the Jewish Ghetto. The exhibition, consisting of a selection of three new artworks for the 2,200 square-foot (204 square-meter) space, will run concurrently with the 16th Venice Architectural Biennale and offer a distinctive voice as an independent reflection of the Biennale theme of Freespace. Crown's multifaceted works draw upon critical references and advanced studio practices—examining public interactions and built space with significance and wit.

Doroshenko has noted that “Over the years, Paula Crown has focused her art work on complex multi-layered concerns such as space, physics, semiotics, and sustainability. Crown’s timely art works examine critical theory issues that exist between language and space—fitting subjects for the Venice Architectural Biennale. Her oeuvre is a catalyst for both discussion and contemplation.” As an institutional off-site exhibition, the project reinforces Dallas Contemporary’s overall vision and mission, further engaging wider international audiences in the art of our own time and contributing to the scholarship of recent art in international contexts.

A catalogue with text by Peter Doroshenko will accompany the exhibition. To further extend the project to wider audiences, the implementation of a structured learning program will include an international panel, a city-wide art professionals lecture series, and regional teachers and professors workshops for students. Partnerships with art and linguistic classes at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the summer school camps at the Scola Grande Tedesca near the exhibition space will further enhance the educational programming surrounding the architecture biennale.

Paula Crown states: “After years of ongoing dialogue with Peter and my interest in the work being presented by Dallas Contemporary, it is an honor to be part of this ambitious new program. I can't imagine a more urgent time to give form to feeling and generate crucial conversations about individual and collective responsibility on numerous levels—political, environmental, and social. The history of Studio Cannaregio and the city of Venice provide the perfect setting for reflection and to ask the pressing question—what will be contemporary culture’s mark on the planet?"

About the artist
Paula Crown is a multimedia artist with a practice encompassing drawing, painting, video and sculpture. Crown rigorously incorporates cutting-edge technology, collaboration and a commitment to sustainability in her studio. Crown has had solo exhibitions at the Aspen Institute (2013), Dallas Contemporary (2014), the Marlborough Gallery in New York (2015), and the Goss-Michael Foundation in Dallas (2016), and 10 Hanover Gallery in London (2017). She has participated in several group exhibitions nationally, including For Freedoms (2016), at the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York, Mount Analogue (2016), curated by Neville Wakefield, at Performance Ski in Aspen, and most recently In This House (2018), a group exhibition curated by Michelle Grabner at the Elmhurst Art Museum/ Mies van der Rohe McCormick House. Crown earned her M.F.A. in painting and drawing in 2012 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and was appointed in 2009 by President Barack Obama to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Born in Marblehead, Mass., the artist lives and works in Chicago and Aspen. Artist website

About the curator
Peter Doroshenko is the Executive Director at Dallas Contemporary. He previously held directorship positions at Pinchuk Art Centre, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst and the Institute of Visual Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In 2007, 2009, and 2017, he was the commissioner of the Ukrainian Pavilion for the Venice Biennale. In 2002, he was awarded the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Ministrère de la Culture et de la Communication in Paris, France for his embrace of post-structuralist theory.

About Dallas Contemporary
Dallas Contemporary is a non-collecting art museum presenting new and fresh ideas from regional, national and international artists. Modeled after European art centers and located in an industrial building in the Design District, Dallas Contemporary is one of the only institutions of its kind in the United States, offering temporary exhibitions, important lectures and seminal learning programs.