Latest news with #SayaWoolfalk
New York Times
12-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
What's It Like to Inhabit Saya Woolfalk's World of Plant-Human Hybrids?
In a science-fiction cosmology imagined by the multidisciplinary artist Saya Woolfalk, a group of people discover bones from a future race sent back in time. A fungus on the bones allows the finders to transform genetically — becoming part human and part plant — and to perceive the world through one another's eyes. Called the Empathics, these hybrid beings take part in rituals like joining their heads and communing in a floral starburst. The details may sound a bit absurd. 'Do we actually want to become plant people?' Woolfalk said with amusement at her studio in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, on the eve of the biggest show of her career. Titled 'Empathic Universe,' at the Museum of Arts and Design (or MAD) in New York, this retrospective — her first — unfolds a narrative that Woolfalk has built in chapters over the last two decades. Visitors can step into Woolfalk's fantastical and playful landscape, which features sculptures, videos, paintings, works on paper and performances, and is on view through Sept. 7. 'Empathic Universe' introduces the elaborate and rather goofy back story of her cast of characters in vibrant sculptural tableaus and narrative video performances on the fourth floor, then treats the fifth floor as a hallucinatory environment with an ethereal soundscape — what it might look and feel like to inhabit such a world. Projected animations in deep blues, purples, reds and greens — washing over a suspended explosion of glass elements and wallpaper with dizzying patterns that is hung with collages and figurative sculptures adorned in brilliant textiles — make everything feel moving and alive. Woolfalk said she hoped the installation would be seductive enough to draw people in while making them question what exactly was going on. 'I'm always trying to facilitate disorientation,' she said, 'and part of that does have to do with being multiracial.' Woolfalk, 45, was born in Gifu City, Japan, and raised in the New York suburb of Scarsdale from the age of 2 by her Japanese mother and her father, who is of African American and Czech descent. Her experience growing up bilingual and spending summers in Japan with her grandmother — who taught her traditional crafts including sewing, origami, beadwork and dollmaking — meant she continually had to reorient herself to shifting cultures and codes. That destabilizing is 'actually really important for understanding other human beings and being empathetic,' she said. 'My story world is one vehicle for that.' Woolfalk's garment-based sculptures, which double as costumes in her performances, sit at the intersection of art, design, fashion and craft, and made her a natural fit for MAD, said Alexandra Schwartz, the museum's curator of modern and contemporary art, who organized the exhibition. 'Saya thinks like a novelist in terms of this extended story line,' Schwartz said, comparing Woolfalk's episodic narrative to sci-fi writers like Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler, and her immersive world-building to the Pop artist Takashi Murakami. 'The whole story of the Empathics is a metaphor for how people from all different perspectives and backgrounds and set of assumptions either do or don't live together,' she said, adding that in the current political and cultural climate this 'could not be more topical.' The curator gave Woolfalk her first solo museum show in 2012 when Schwartz worked at the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey. There, Woolfalk presented her story world in a series of dioramas and videos, and used Colonial Williamsburg-esque live performers, dressed as Empathics in West-African-inspired textiles, to lead visitors through the museum and illustrate their transformation. At MAD, student actors from New York University perform an audio play, available through the Bloomberg Connects app, guiding a group of prospective Empathics, as if on a college tour, through the fifth floor. 'There are questions built into it like, 'Is this a cult?'' Schwartz said. 'Some people are less into it. Part of Saya's work is satirical and we want to bring that out.' Woolfalk studied economics and visual art at Brown University, where she was influenced by feminist thought and began making outlandish costumes inspired by the sexualized soft sculptures of Louise Bourgeois and Yayoi Kusama. After graduating in 2001, she cold-called Bourgeois, who invited Woolfalk to attend her weekly salon. 'She made me get under my sculpture and sing,' Woolfalk said. 'She was very formative.' In 2004, Woolfalk finished her M.F.A. at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she met her husband, Sean Mitchell, an anthropologist, and moved with him to Brazil for two years. On a Fulbright scholarship, she studied folklore performance traditions around Carnival, fusing Catholic, Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous influences — a 'gateway,' she said, for mixing identity and multiculturalism in her work. At a time when there were not a lot of artists of color in the mainstream art world, Woolfalk discovered community in a new way during her 2007-08 residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem. 'For me, as an artist, it was like finding a home,' she said, describing an 'intergenerational space where we were learning from and trying to support each other' — unlike her experience of intense competition in graduate school. This environment prompted her to crowdsource ideas about utopia among artists and staff members at the Studio Museum. From these conversations, she produced 'No Place' — exhibited at the Studio Museum in 2008 and included at MAD — a garden-like tableau inhabited by humanoid plant creatures of the future called No Placeans. Living in erotic harmony, they can change color and gender, as explained by a mock anthropologist in an accompanying video. The No Placeans are the ones who send the bones with the magic fungus back in time in subsequent chapters of Woolfalk's story world. 'The Empathics are people in the present who believe that No Place is a future worth attempting to inhabit,' said Woolfalk, who clearly relishes the far-flung details of her heady narrative. The artist Wendy Red Star, part of a women's virtual critique group that Woolfalk initiated during the pandemic, finds Woolfalk's work to be freeing. 'Saya gets to make the rules and figures out the different outcomes, and then those narratives can riff off each other,' Red Star said. 'She has been able to create these monumental pieces but not have a giant factory that produces them. She's like a magician.' Thelma Golden, the director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, has followed Woolfalk's career since her residency there. Golden feels that viewers who take the time to delve into the minutiae of her universe will be rewarded, but that it's not necessary to appreciate her art. 'Her work lives like so much work across the history of art that is involved with mythologies and world creations,' Golden said. 'We can recognize it and understand it without knowing its entire back story.' Woolfalk's 'Floating World of the Cloud Quilt,' first shown in 2022 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, is on view through Sept. 8 at the Crow Museum of Asian Art at the University of Texas at Dallas. Floral- and mandala-patterned projections sweep over a Japanese Buddha drawn for the Crow's collection, as well as over beautifully adorned mannequins and heads jutting from the walls and printed-vinyl flooring. 'You don't know where the video stops and ends with her work,' said the Crow's curator, Natalia Di Pietrantonio, who has observed the popularity of the artist's installations with school tours as well as collectors. 'It invites you into this different world but at the same time is very relatable.' For Woolfalk, incorporating familiar materials is important to making her work accessible. 'I use craft-based approaches so my grandma, who didn't go to college, can understand,' she said. Critique and parody are built into Woolfalk's narrative. Works shown at MAD explore how the Empathics formed a corporation, ChimaTEK, to promote their lifestyle. ChimaTEK videos advertise how anyone can experience interspecies hybridization without actually becoming an Empathic, but by just buying a product. 'Corporatization is the corruption of that utopian vision,' Woolfalk said, pointing out the ethics and problems that arise in utopian movements. 'Life Products by ChimaTEK' (2014) is now in the collection of the Whitney Museum. Other site-specific installations the artist made for the Seattle Art Museum in 2015 and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2023 were also acquired by those institutions. Woolfalk is currently working on her second permanent commission for New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and she's making a giant upside-down ship, with a hanging garden, out of glass for the lobby of the Bronx Museum's new building, projected to open next year. Before offering pieces to collectors, Woolfalk's dealer, Leslie Tonkonow, has to confirm that they haven't morphed into something else. 'I always have to ask, 'Does that piece still exist or have you taken it apart?'' Tonkonow said. 'Everything is part of this universe and gets mixed up and reused.' Woolfalk was already world-building when she learned that her father's mother, a child of Czech immigrants who lived in Harlem, had actually grown up in Father Divine's Peace Mission — a Black religious sect espousing communal child-rearing and racial equality. 'My grandma always talked like she was an orphan but she wasn't — she was part of a multiracial utopian project,' Woolfalk said. 'I don't think she thought of it as positive. But I am the product of that Father Divine experiment, for better or for worse.' Woolfalk, now raising her 13-year-old daughter, emphasizes the importance of choice in her empathic universe. Her characters voluntarily transform so they can perceive the world with empathy. 'It's not a dictatorship,' she said. 'That utopia may not be utopia for other people.'
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Work of art to rubble': Austin reevaluating public art program, addressing concerns
AUSTIN (KXAN) — After concerns were raised about elements of the city of Austin's Art in Public Places (AIPP) program, the city is reevaluating it. 'Created in 1985, by action of Austin City Council, the City ordinance establishes 2% of eligible capital improvement project budgets as a set-aside commitment to commission artists or purchase art for City-owned property and facilities,' the AIPP website reads. As part of the AIPP reevaluation, city staff said they would look at the program's public-private partnerships, public art requirements and accessibility, use of funds, solicitation and artist engagement, barriers to local artists' participation, and stakeholder engagement. 'We appreciate the City Council's leadership in this effort and will provide updates on our assessment and program improvements. ACME looks forward to collaborating with the City Council, artists, and the community to uphold the integrity and impact of Austin's public art program,' said Austin's newly created Office of Arts, Culture, Music and Entertainment (ACME) in a Wednesday memo. One set of concerns was about the artists selected for large-scale art contracts at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, leading to reevaluation of those contracts. Three contracts for artwork at AUS, totaling $10.6 million, were initially scheduled for discussion at the March 27 Austin City Council meeting. But ACME withdrew those items from the agenda. Agenda items on art at Austin airport removed from next council meeting The three contracts would go to: Saya Woolfalk, Jim Campbell and Yvette Mayorga. According to biographies for those artists online, Woolfalk is based in New York, Campbell in San Francisco and Mayorga in Chicago. 'Phase I of the public art plan has been temporarily paused to ensure meaningful participation from Austin-based artists. ACME, in partnership with AUS leadership, is reassessing the selection process to better reflect Austin's unique cultural identity,' the memo said. City staff said a revised process would be presented to the city council within a month. This year's South by Southwest was the last before the Austin Convention Center closes for a massive expansion and reconstruction process. Some Austin artists raised concerns about what was being left behind. Several pieces of art at Convention Center deemed 'infeasible for relocation' 'Four pieces were identified as infeasible for relocation due to site-specific design constraints, but artists were given the opportunity to reclaim their work where possible,' said an Economic Development Department public information officer earlier this month. 'For artworks that cannot be saved, we are documenting them to honor their cultural significance.' Margo Sawyer, who made 'Index for Contemplation,' a piece of art identified as 'infeasible for relocation,' called the city's process 'very opaque' at a Tourism Commission meeting earlier this month. John Yancey's 'Riffs and Rhythms,' which has been in the convention center since 1996 is another artwork set to be destroyed with the building. 'In contradiction to this assertion, I have secured a bid on my own and have a company lined up to do the installation for $40,000. However, there are currently no funds to pay this company,' Yancey told the Tourism Commission earlier this month. 'Consequently, on or about May 1 the city is still scheduled to reduce this valuable work of art to rubble and toss it into the dumpster like so much garbage.' But ACME's memo appears to backtrack on that. 'ACME has taken immediate steps to preserve and relocate these pieces. Based on input from artists, stakeholders, and the Tourism Commission, ACME is actively exploring meaningful alternatives to ensure these culturally significant works remain accessible to the public,' the memo reads. KXAN has reached out to the city of Austin to understand the change in stance. You can read the city of Austin's memo on the subject here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Austin to debate $10.6M for art at the airport, artists selected are not local
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Three contracts for artwork at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) totaling $10.6 million will be discussed at next week's Austin City Council meeting. According to council documents, the funding is available from the airport's capital budget. The art will be showcased in new portions of the airport created by its expansion. What's the latest on Austin's airport construction projects? Those three contracts will go to: Saya Woolfalk, Jim Campbell and Yvette Mayorga. According to biographies for those artists online, Woolfalk is based in New York, Campbell is based in San Francisco and Mayorga is based in Chicago. Austin Mayor Kirk Watson has asked that those contracts be discussed at next week's work session: 'On the upcoming council meeting agenda, there are three items that award three contracts to national artists for projects at our new airport expansion. Though I believe that the work of these artists is important, I've always believed that any art work that we place in the airport should highlight the importance of our local artist and highlight Austin's creative, cultural community. I believe we should have a conversation about these contracts before moving forward at the upcoming work session. I plan to pull the three items for discussion and look forward to the dialogue.' According to city documents, the art is being commissioned through the city of Austin's Art In Public Places program. The city is looking for artists to create and install 'large to medium-scale interdisciplinary, mixed or multimedia artworks within AUS's Airport Expansion & Development Program.' The sites identified for art included the AUS tunnel that will connect the existing Barbara Jordan Terminal and the future Concourse B, along with two 'tunnel interfaces.' Documents also laid out the solicitation process, which included a seven-member selection panel 'comprised of visual arts and design professionals' who were 'assembled to nominate up to ten artists each. A total of 37 eligible nominations were received from selection panelists.' Nominated artists were then asked to submit qualifications, of which the city received 22 eligible applications. In November of last year, the selection panel looked over the 22 applications and recommended eight project finalists for interviews. According to council documents, all but one accepted the invitation. 'On December 19 and 20, 2024, the selection panel heard interviews from the seven advancing finalists. Artist Saya Woolfalk was chosen as the recommended artist for the Tunnel, and artists Jim Campbell and Yvette Mayorga were chosen as the recommended artists for the two Interfaces,' documents said. Austin City Council members are expected to discuss the contracts at their work session Tuesday, and the contracts are on the council agenda to be voted on Thursday. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Austin City Council sees some pushback on several items regarding art
The Brief Several items regarding art are causing some pushback at Austin City Hall The city if considering out-of-town artists for the airport, while a local artist's work could be destroyed at the Convention Center The vote on the artists for the airport has been postponed to March 27 AUSTIN, Texas - Two issues surrounding art are causing chatter at City Hall. The city is considering out-of-town artists for the airport, while a local artist's work could be destroyed at the Convention Center. A vote on agreements with three artists for displays at the airport has been pushed back. The total cost is $10.6 million from the airport's capital improvement budget. Three finalists, Saya Woolfalk from New York, Jim Campbell from San Francisco, and Yvette Mayorga from Chicago, were picked out of 22 eligible applications. About a quarter of applicants were local. A recent presentation to the Arts Commission lists technical skills, aesthetic appeal, and ability to deliver projects on time as evaluation criteria. The other side There has been pushback over picking non-local artists for both airport displays and at the Convention Center. "They're choosing artists that aren't even from Austin, locking out our local artists. Meanwhile, we get lip service from our council that they care so much about local art. It's really wrong. They need to bring that back into the public sphere," Bill Bunch, who supports local artists, said. What they're saying City Council did pass an item, sponsored by Council Member Zo Qadri, to review the Arts in Public Places ordinance, to allow more flexibility for the maintenance, conservation, and deaccession of art. This stems from John Yancey's "Riffs and Rhythms" mosaic, which is connected to the wall at the Convention Center. The Convention Center is set to be demolished and rebuilt next month. Yancey told FOX 7 last week he's working with preservationists and attorneys to figure out what to do. "If an artist has a work in a museum, you don't expect the museum to take it, throw it in the dumpster at the end of the workday. You expect there's care, stewardship, and that there's a responsibility there," he said. The item won't be able to be applied to Yancey's work. "I would ask you to recognize the need to be more transparent to table this item and to make it retroactive to cover Mr. Yancey's artwork," Zenobia Joseph, who supports local artists, said during public comment. "[It's] an incredible piece of mural, Riffs and Rhythms, that y'all should be doing triple backflips to save," Bunch said during public comment. What's next Qadri says he hopes something similar doesn't happen in the future. "We must strive to do better. It's crucial that we support and uplift our creative community and their contributions to our city," he said. "This item will make sure generations of artists will get stronger support and greater investments from the city, and I look forward to seeing what new iconic pieces of public art that Austin artists come up with next." The vote on the artists for the airport has been postponed to March 27. The Source Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin's Angela Shen
