Rachel de Joode

Amersfoort, Netherlands
Residency: June-July 2012

About the Artist:
Rachel de Joode, from Amersfoort, The Netherlands, studied time-based arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie Amsterdam. She currently lives and works in Berlin. De Joode creates installations, sculptures, photographs and performances. Her work addresses an object’s ability to transfer and measure what she calls "our humanness." Among others, de Joode has exhibited at: CEAC in Xiamen, the Herzliya Biennial, Giant Bowl in Oslo, Yautepec Gallery in Mexico DF, Kunstihoone in Tallinn and the Kunsthall in Bergen. Currently her work will be shown at MACO (Mexcio City’s Art Fair). Her work has been published in numerous art publications, such as NY Arts Magazine, Picnic, Vorn, It’s Nice That, VVORK. She is founder and art director of online magazine ‘META’ and founder and curator of the art auction house de Joode & Kamutzki.

Residency Project Description:
During my residency at Sculpture Space I worked on 4 different projects:

1) I created a body of work (8 pieces) for the solo show ‘Real Things’ at the Oliver Francis Gallery in Dallas, the opening August 11, 2012.

2) I organized, curated and participated in the performance night ‘Important Things’ at Interstate Gallery in NYC on July 14, 2012.

3) I created 4 works for the groupshow ‘Wobbly Misconduct’ at LVL3 Gallery in Chicago, opening August 18, 2012.

4) I created one work for the group exhibition “Survivor” which is held on an island in Boston, opening August 4, 2012.

1) ‘Real Things’
I have been working on the notion of space in relation to the art-object.

The eight works that I’ve made during my residency at Sculpture Space deal with (physical) space, the object (ness of) space, with 3-dimentionality, with art documentation as the art piece, with the real vs. the unreal, with facades, with gravity, with time…….

For example; I’ve made a "space-object": a sculpture of a rotating and moving (life-size) gallery corner.

This work is made out of Styrofoam and has 3 large-size prints, of images of a real (empty) museum corners mounted on them, These prints cover the entire inside of the structure of the corner sculpture. Underneath the structure is a robot that makes the piece move through the (empty) gallery space. The corner itself is a symbol of space. The corner (three lines) is the mathematical model for representing three-dimensional space (the Cartesian coordinate system). By building this corner, I created space as a thing, as an object; which moves through the space itself.

Also, I’ve made a 2-d statue of myself standing upside down: 7-feet tall cutout photo mounted and standing upside down). I wanted to create a façade of a sculpture, almost a fake sculpture that unveils. I posed as an unveiled sculpture and I posed upside down defying gravity.

Another example, I worked with the idea of the color of the universe. I visited the Golden Paint factory and they custom-made a pigment in the exact color of ‘cosmic latte’: which is the name of the color considered to be the color of the universe. Since we are encrusted with this color, as we are permanently encrusted with space, I sculpted a pizza-crust and encrusted this sculpture with the cosmic latte pigment.

2) ‘Important Things’
I invited 8 artists to “bring their own self (and Stuff to do Things with)” for an evening of presentation of the artist as self and thus the act of art. This is not necessarily “performance” art. The presence of the artist is performance in itself. The artists’ tool as self, and that presentation during Important Things is a means to spare down the meaning of what is art and what is required for the creative act. The presence of the possibilities and the artist as the medium is the purpose of this one night event.

Artists participated include: Ann Hirsch, Jennifer Chan, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Dora + Maja, Meghan Gordon, Travess Smalley, Kate Steciw, Dafna Maimon and Rachel de Joode

3) ‘Wobbly Misconduct’
During the residency I worked on 4 pieces for the groupshow Wobbly Misconduct. The show explores themes of balance and tension and investigates the edge of stability. I will be exhibiting together with the artsts: Amy Feldman and Allison Wade.