Swoon (artist)
| Swoon | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Caledonia Dance Curry |
| Born | 1978 New London, Connecticut |
| Nationality |  United States |
Swoon is a street artist born in New London, Connecticut, and raised in Daytona Beach, Florida. She moved to New York City at age nineteen, and specializes in life-size wheatpaste prints and paper cutouts of figures. Swoon, real name Caledonia Dance Curry, studied painting at the Pratt institute in Brooklyn and started doing street art around 1999.
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Career [edit]
Street Pasting [edit]
Swoon regularly pastes works depicting people, often her friends and family, on the streets in various places around the world. Usually, pieces are pasted on uninhabited locations such as abandoned buildings, bridges, fire escapes, water towers and street signs. Her work is inspired by both art historical and folk sources, ranging from German Expressionist wood block prints to Indonesian shadow puppets.
Swimming Cities of Serenissima, 2009 [edit]
Swoon and a crew of 30 crashed the 2009 Venice Biennale with "the Swimming Cities of Serenissima," a performance project similar to the Miss Rockaway Armada and the Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea. The crew sailed from Slovenia in rafts made of New York City garbage, as well as one raft made from material scrapped along the coast of Slovenia. The project stopped at various points on the way to meet the locals, collect artifacts for their on-board "cabinet of curiosities" and to prepare for the culminating performance entitled, "The Clutchess of Cuckoo." Once in the Venice Lagoon, the rafts and their company performed throughout Venice nightly and docked at Certosa Island.[1][2] They "barnstormed" the Grand Canal at 3:00 a.m.[3]
Konbit Shelter, 2013 [edit]
Konbit Shelter is a sustainable building project begun in 2010 with the objective of sharing knowledge and resources through the creation of homes and community spaces in post-earthquake Haiti. A group of artists, builders, architects and engineers are working to build permanent, creatively designed structures utilizing the techniques of Super Adobe earth bag construction and dome architecture. The buildings use inexpensive and locally-available materials and are meant to be resistant to earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and fires. The technique uses little to no wood, an invaluable asset in timber-depleted Haiti.
As of December 2010, a community center and a house had been completed.
Transformazium [edit]
Based in Braddock, Pennsylvania the collective of artists and activists, known as Transformazium, provide classes and opportunities for hands-on learning. Their focus is on creative re-use, and re-imagining of Braddock’s derelict urban spaces and resources. The goal is to turn an abandoned 1880s United Brethren Church and its adjacent lot into an experiential learning and arts-based community center.
Exhibitions [edit]
Swoon started doing large-scale installations in 2005.
In 2011, Swoon created a site-specific installation depicting the goddess in the atrium of the New Orleans Museum of Art.[4]
In December 2011 Swoon held her first solo exhibition in London, England, filling the gallery at Black Rat Projects with sculptures and paper cuts.[5]
Notes [edit]
- ^ Jacquelyn Lewis, "Swoon's 'Swimming Cities' Crashes the Venice Biennale" Art in America June 3, 2009.
- ^ Vanessa Grigoriadis, "Barging In to Venice," New York magazine June 7, 2009.
- ^ Porter Fox, "Explorer: An Artists’ Armada to Venice on Ancient Waterways,", New York Times Travel, August 23, 2009.
- ^ "SWOON: THALASSA - The Great Hall Project". Retrieved 2013-04-16.
- ^ Swoon “Murmuration” At Black Rat Projects, Living Proof Magazine, November 23, 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-26.
Press [edit]
- Barging In to Venice
- NY Times Article
- NY Times article
- Interview with The Morning News
- Sadie Magazine interview
- Gammablog interview
- KultureFlash interview
- Rising Artist on Curbs and Stoops
- October 10, 2008 "Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea", Scribe Media
- November 2008, "A Two Way Street", ARTNEWS
- Interview with The Huffington Post
- video about Swoon's project Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea at Deitch Projects, New York. 2008
- interview with Swoon about the Portrait of Silvia Elena at Honey Space, New York
- Article and Interview in Time Out London, November 25, 2011
Bibliography [edit]
- "Art in the Streets", Jeffrey Deitch, Skira Rizzoli, 2011, ISBN 0-8478-3648-7
- "Swoon", Abrams, 2010, ISBN 0-8109-8485-7
- "Graffiti World", Thames & Hudson, 2004, ISBN 0-500-51170-5
- "Street Logos", Tristan Manco, Thames & Hudson, 2004, ISBN 0-500-28469-5
- "re:vision", Chris Pieretti, 606, 2006, ISBN 1-59975-832-6
Appearances in other media [edit]
- Swoon as herself, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Banksy, 2010
- Swoon as herself, Our City Dreams, Chiara Clemente, 2009
- Swoon as herself, Inside Outside, 2005
- Swoon at Internet Movie Database
External links [edit]
- Swooninprint.com
- Deitch Projects
- Dithyrambalina
- Just Seeds
- Konbit Shelter
- Swimming Cities
- Transformazium
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