Valeska Soares: passa tempo

Concurrent exhibition at Eleven Rivington February 28 - April 10

Greenberg Van Doren Gallery is pleased to present passa tempo, an exhibition of sculptural installations by New York-based Brazilian artist Valeska Soares, from February 18 – March 20, 2010. The exhibition is concurrently on view with a large-scale installation, titled Vaga Lume, on view at Eleven Rivington, NY, from February 28 - April 10, 2010. Included in passa tempo are three recent works which address the often complex relationship between how we perceive, experience, and record time, and how this plays out in our collective / individual memory. Soares uses found and collected objects such as book pages and domestic items in these new sculptures and installations re-casting their individual past identities and subverting their original use. Installed as the centerpiece of the exhibition under the gallery's skylight is Un-rest comprised of over 100 footstools in every shape and form and from different periods, from the 1800s on, arranged from the vantage point of a single glass chair. Another assemblage appropriates old and rare wooden boxes that have inlayed tops picturing native Brazilian scenes. Soares repurposes these landscapes and installs them as a single extended line with a shared horizon, synthesizing their specific singular uses as cigar boxes, sewing kits, and keepsake holders into an idealized collective panorama. horizontes relates to another work, timeline, which is entirely made of pages from found and discarded books strung along a wire that connects two adjacent walls of the front gallery. Each page has a phrase connoting the passing of time which is one of the meanings of the word passa tempo.Born in 1957 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Soares has lived and worked in Brooklyn, New York since 1992. Her works are included in important museum collections such as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA and the Tate Modern, London, U.K. Soares has participated in various important exhibitions, including the Sharjah Biennial, the last São Paulo Biennial and the 2005 Venice Biennale. Solo exhibitions include Folly (2009), permanent installation at INHOTIM, Minas Gerais, Brazil; After, Galeria Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo, Brazil (2007); Follies, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (2003); Puro Teatro at Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City (2002); and Vanishing Point, Galeria Camargo Vilaça, São Paulo, Brazil (1998).