Danna Vajda and Rona Yefman: Short Stories

SculptureCenter is pleased to announce a unique exhibition series Short Stories, guest curated by Isla Leaver-Yap. Short Stories navigates the fabricated spaces of representation. It questions the role of art historian and critic as the best readers of an artwork, favoring instead the internal logic and fiction of the artist's practice. The series will feature rotating solo exhibitions by six New York-based artists, an onsite reading room, as well as readings and performances. Exhibiting artists include: Alejandro Cesarco, Iman Issa, Ursula Mayer, Ben Schumacher, Danna Vajda and Rona Yefman. 

September 10 - October 2: Iman Issa, Ben Schumacher
October 8 - November 6: Danna Vajda, Rona Yefman
November 12 - December 4: Alejandro Cesarco, Ursula Mayer

During each month of Short Stories, SculptureCenter's lower level galleries will be turned over to two artists who will each present an autonomous exhibition project. The rear ground floor gallery, meanwhile, will be transformed into a reading room, a locus and constant throughout the duration of project. It will feature art works, books selected by the artists in relation to their exhibition presentations, commissioned texts, audio works and other ephemera. This space will act as a site of production and dissemination, where the accrual of material will also serve as the documentation for Short Stories. Finally, in the closing week of Short Stories, the main gallery will be used as an event space by participating artists to feature performances, screenings, and talks.

Through the artist independently fashioned narratives, Short Stories presents work engaged in the architecture of how to read and write the object, the image, and the practice. Short Stories takes the notion of 'reading' as a framework through which an artist might begin to construct personal positions and self-determined subjects.

Exhibiting Artist Biographies
Danna Vajda (North Vancouver, Canada, 1983) is an artist and writer who works with performative readings and scripting of objects, images, and situations. Her work uses points of contact with disparate fields such as economics, acting, policy research, fan-fiction, and graphic design as means to rethink situations in which abstract ideas are disseminated, while highlighting the pervasive fetishism that surrounding the aesthetics of knowledge.

Rona Yefman (Haifa, Israel, 1972) is engaged in notions of freedom, and the gap between what we are and what we want to be. Yefman often collaborates with individuals that have formed a radical persona, documenting her relationship to them and exploring identity with photography, video, and text. Her practice reveals the humanity of her subjects, reinventing positive and complex notions of a customized conception of identity.