Contemporary dancers animate archival poses. A line, jackhammered into a concrete floor, is inked and printed like a copper plate. A cast-off Hollywood set is repurposed with mirrored boxes and 16mm film, its final sequence a backwards reflection of the opening.
Over the past 20 years, artist Jennifer Bornstein has earned an international reputation for large-scale installations that combine film, video, photography, printmaking and performance to investigate themes of time and perception. This fall, the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis will welcome Bornstein to St. Louis as their 2017-18 Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellow.
“Bornstein’s work meanders between her fascination with the aesthetics of technologies, drawn images, photographs, billboards, theatrical staging and subtly provocative video performances, challenging the viewer’s perception of a given situation or setup,” said Patricia Olynyk, the Florence and Frank Bush Professor and director of the Sam Fox School’s Graduate School of Art.
“Her subtly humorous work, which transforms and retransmits both the remarkable and the mundane, is a thought-provoking conversation starter,” Olynyk added. “Her residency will inspire our MFA students to think about the various ways in which to pursue a material practice while exploring discursive themes.”
Supported by the Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Endowment Fund, the Freund Teaching Fellowship is designed to promote the creation and exhibition of contemporary art as well as the teaching of contemporary art principles. It consists of two month-long residencies, during which recipients lead studios in the Sam Fox School while preparing an exhibition for the museum’s Currents series.
Bornstein’s work has been widely exhibited at institutions across the United States and Europe, including: the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Her numerous honors include a DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm fellowship; a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant; a Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship; and a 2017 Foster Prize from the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston.
Bornstein has published five artist’s books as well as articles for Frieze Magazine, the Getty Research Journal and others. She is represented by Gavin Brown in New York and Greengrassi in London.
“We at the museum are so excited to welcome Jennifer Bornstein as the Freund Fellow,” said Hannah Klemm, assistant curator of modern and contemporary art at the Saint Louis Art Museum. “Throughout her impressive career, Jennifer has worked across media, from photography and film to printmaking. Her work strikingly pairs technical skill with a deeply thoughtful conceptual framework. We very much look forward to her upcoming Currents exhibition.”
Saint Louis Art Museum
The Saint Louis Art Museum is one of the nation’s leading comprehensive art museums with collections that include works of art of exceptional quality from virtually every culture and time period. Areas of notable depth include Oceanic art, pre-Columbian art, ancient Chinese bronzes, and European and American art of the late 19th and 20th centuries, with particular strengths in 20th-century German art. The museum offers a full range of exhibitions and educational programming generated independently and in collaboration with local, national and international partners.
Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts
The Sam Fox School supports the creation, study and exhibition of multidisciplinary and collaborative work. Offering rigorous art and architecture education at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, the Sam Fox School links four academic units — the College of Art, College of Architecture, Graduate School of Art and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design — with the university’s nationally recognized Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.