Alexandra Grant
Alexandra Grant (born 1973 in Fairview Park, Ohio) is a Los Angeles-based artist,[1] who uses language as a source for imagery in sculpture,[2] painting, drawing, and video.
Life
She graduated from Swarthmore College with a BA in 1994, and from California College of the Arts with a MFA in 2000.[3]
Grant’s first solo exhibition at a museum was in 2007, organized by curator Alma Ruiz, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA). A catalog from the exhibition features Grant’s large-scale works on paper, an essay on Grant’s work by Ruiz, and an essay that inspired Grant by Hélène Cixous the French writer and philosopher.[citation needed]
Numerous other shows at museums and galleries have included Grant’s work, including the 2010 California Biennial of Art at the Orange County Museum of Art, the Artists’ Museum at MOCA, and Human Nature: Contemporary Art from the Collection at LACMA.[citation needed]
Grant is known as a ‘radical collaborator’ – the longest of her exchanges being with the pioneering writer of hypertext fiction, Michael Joyce. The paintings and sculpture based on Joyce’s texts (using them as scores or scripts to interpret rather than follow) have been the subject of at least three series: the Ladder Quartet (shown at MOCA in 2007), the Six Portals (shown at Honor Fraser gallery in 2008), and Bodies (shown at Honor Fraser gallery in 2010).[citation needed]
Grant is also known for her work in collaboration with the Watts House Project, a non-profit in Watts, across the street from the Watts Towers. She was the Founding Board Chair of the organization, working with director Edgar Arceneaux, and is the creator of the Love House, a renovation of a house on 107th Street designed with the Cerant Family and architects Roberto Sheinberg and Arnold Swanborn. Grant’s idea in creating the Love symbol is that an artist can also be a philanthropist.[4]
In early 2011, Gerhard Steidl published the Ode to Happiness, in collaboration with Keanu Reeves. It was Grant’s first artist book and Reeves’ first book as a writer.[5]
Grant is currently working with Cixous, on a project revolving around that writer’s book Philippines.[citation needed]
References
- ^ "Looking Back Looking Forward". 136. Frieze Magazine. January 2011. Retrieved March 8, 2011.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Trebay, Guy (October 6, 2009). "Rodarte's Mulleavy Sisters Find No Limits in L.A." The New York Times. Retrieved March 8, 2011.
- ^ http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2010/10/26/alexandra-grants-word-play/
- ^ http://wattshouseproject.org/wp/?p=253
- ^ Miller, Ken (March 2, 2011). "Q+A: Alexandra Grant and Keanu Reeves Collaborate, Happily". Art in America. Archived from the original on March 7, 2011.
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External links
- Artist's website
- "A way with words", Modern Edition
- "Interview with Alexandra Grant", ArtSlant Ed Schad
- "It Speaks to Me: Alexandra Grant on R.B. Kitaj's 'How to Read' at LACMA", Los Angeles Times, December 15, 2010