SculptureCenter is a not-for-profit, contemporary art museum located in

Long Island City Long Island City (LIC) is a residential and commercial neighborhood on the extreme western tip of Queens, a borough in New York City. It is bordered by Astoria to the north; the East River to the west; New Calvary Cemetery in Sunnyside to the ...

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

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. It was founded in 1928 as "The Clay Club" by Dorothea Denslow. In 2013, SculptureCentre attracted around 13,000 visitors.

History

Founded in

Crown Heights, Brooklyn Crown Heights is a neighborhood in the central portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Crown Heights is bounded by Washington Avenue to the west, Atlantic Avenue to the north, Ralph Avenue to the east, and Empire Boulevard/East New Yo ...

, in 1928 as The Clay Club, it was located across the street from the

Brooklyn Children's Museum The Brooklyn Children's Museum is a children's museum in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City. Founded in 1899, it is the first children's museum in the United States – and according to some, the first one worldwide. It ...

. Its founder, sculptor , invited local children and later other artists to share her studio. SculptureCenter soon moved to 8 West Fourth Street in the

West Village The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, 14th Street (Manhattan ...

in 1932 and then, in 1948, to a carriage house at 167 East 69th Street on the

Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...

, where it operated a school with artists’ studios. The offerings included clay and wax modeling, stone and wood carving, welding, figure studies and portraits. There were are also after-school classes for children. In 2001, SculptureCenter's board closed both the school and the studios, sold the carriage house for $4.75 million and invested the proceeds in reinventing the organization in Queens as a European-style

kunsthalle A kunsthalle is a facility that mounts temporary art exhibitions, similar to an art gallery. It is distinct from an art museum by not having a permanent collection. In the German-speaking regions of Europe, ''Kunsthallen'' are often operated by ...

. The board also commissioned architects

Maya Lin Maya Ying Lin (born October 5, 1959) is an American designer and sculptor. In 1981, while an undergraduate at Yale University, she achieved national recognition when she won a national design competition for the planned Vietnam Veterans Memoria ...

and David Hotson to transform a derelict brick building into an exhibition space of with forty-foot-high ceilings and reinforced-concrete floors. In 2014, SculptureCenter underwent a 14-month, $4.5 million expansion and renovation led by architect

Andrew Berman Andrew Berman is an architectural and cultural heritage preservationist in New York City. He is known for being an advocate of LGBT rights and an opponent of new construction. Berman was named executive director of the Greenwich Village Society f ...

, including a addition, aimed at improving visitor experience and increasing exhibition space to , plus a enclosed courtyard for outdoor exhibitions and events.

Program

SculptureCenter has presented works by over 750 artists through its annual exhibition program, including Turner Prize winner

Charlotte Prodger Charlotte Prodger (born 1974) is a British artist and film-maker who works with "moving image, printed image, sculpture and writing". Her films include ''Statics'' (2021), ''SaF05'' (2019), ''LHB'' (2017), ''Passing as a great grey owl'' (2017), ...

and nominee

Anthea Hamilton Anthea Hamilton (born 1978) is a British artist who graduated from the Royal College of Art and was one of four shortlisted for the 2016 Turner Prize and responsible for the show's most popular exhibit, Project For Door. She is known for creatin ...

Sanford Biggers Sanford Biggers (born 1970 in Los Angeles) is a Harlem-based interdisciplinary artist who works in film/video, installation, sculpture, music, and performance.

Nairy Baghramian Nairy Baghramian (born 1971) is an Iranian-born German visual artist. Since 1984, she has lived and worked in Berlin. When the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum selected Baghramian as a finalist for the 2020 Hugo Boss Prize, they described Baghram ...

Tom Burr Tom Burr (born 1963) is an American conceptual artist. Burr's artwork explores the relationships between, "the built environment, subjectivity, and historical persona". He is based in New York City. Life Burr was born in 1963 in New Haven, Co ...

Liz Glynn Liz Glynn (born 1981) is an American artist. She is originally from Boston and now works out of Los Angeles. Much of her work is sculptural and installation-based, incorporating found objects and materials. Her work deals with institutional cri ...

, Rochelle Goldberg,

Camille Henrot Camille Henrot (born 1978) is a French artist who lives and works in Paris and New York. Biography Henrot was born in 1978 in Paris, France. She attended the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs where she studied film animation and s ...

Leslie Hewitt Leslie Hewitt (born 1977, Saint Albans, Queens) is an American contemporary visual artist. Education Leslie Hewitt was born in 1977 in Saint Albans, Queens in New York City. Hewitt received a B.F.A. from the Cooper Union's School of Art in 2 ...

Rashid Johnson Rashid Johnson (born 1977) is an American artist who produces conceptual post-black art. Johnson first received critical attention in 2001 at the age of 24, when his work was included in '' Freestyle'' (2001) curated by Thelma Golden at the St ...

Rita McBride Rita McBride (born 1960) is an American artist and sculptor. She is based in Los Angeles and Düsseldorf. Alongside her artistic practice, McBride is a professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and served as its director until 2017. McBride is ...

Ugo Rondinone Ugo Rondinone (born November 30, 1964) is a Swiss-born artist widely recognized for his mastery of several different media—most prominently sculpture, drawing and painting, but also photography, architecture, video and sound installation— ...

Katrín Sigurdardóttir Katrín Sigurdardóttir (born 1967 in Reykjavík, Iceland) is a New York-based artist who works in installation and sculpture. Katrin studied at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts, Reykjavík and received a BFA from the San Francisco Art In ...

, Alexandre Singh,

Monika Sosnowska Monika Sosnowska (born 7 May 1972 in Ryki) is a Polish installation artist. In 2003, she received the Bâloise Prize at Art Basel as well as the Polityka's Passport award given by Poland's most prestigious weekly. Life and career Sosnowska st ...

, Gedi Sibony, Mika Tajima, and Hugo Boss Prize winners

Anicka Yi Anicka Yi (born 1971 in Seoul, South Korea) is a conceptual artist whose work lies at the intersection of fragrance, cuisine, and science. She is known for installations that engage the senses, especially the sense of smell, and for her collaborat ...

and Simone Leigh. As a non-collecting museum, its annual program includes approximately three exhibition cycles of 1–2 commissioning programs by mid-career artists, 10–15 projects and commissions by emerging artists, and 3–6 solo and group exhibitions. SculptureCenter offers free public programs and events including artist talks, performances, film screenings, and publications.

Notable people

Alumni

Faculty and leadership

Armand Phillip Bartos Armand Phillip Bartos (1910 – December 29, 2005) was an American architect and philanthropist. Though active as a philanthropist, Bartos became primarily known as the co-designer of Shrine of the Book that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls in wes ...

, chairperson emeritus * Sahl Swarz

Directors

* 1999–2019: Mary Ceruti * 2019–2020: Christian RattemeyerGabrielle Debinski (June 28, 2019)
SculptureCenter Names New Director
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

References

External links

* 1928 establishments in New York City Art museums established in 1928 Art museums and galleries in New York City Sculpture gardens, trails and parks in New York (state) Contemporary art galleries in the United States Long Island City Museums in Queens, New York {{QueensNY-struct-stub