Andra Ursuţa : Void Fill
David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Andra Ursuţa (b. 1979), on view at the gallery’s Paris location. This will be the Romanian-born, New York–based artist’s debut solo presentation with David Zwirner since the gallery announced representation in July 2020, and her first solo exhibition in France.
Over the past decade, Ursuţa has gained recognition for her inventive sculptural work that mines the darker undercurrents of contemporary society. Drawing from memory, nostalgia, art history, and popular culture and employing a variety of media, the artist transforms commonplace objects and materials into viscerally evocative sculptures and installations that give new, redemptive form to subjective experience.
The exhibition will feature a group of new cast-glass sculptures that build upon a body of work the artist debuted at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. To create these figures, Ursuţa pushes everyday objects to their conceptual and physical limits in an elaborate process of duress and transformation.
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Video: Installation view, Andra Ursuţa: Void Fill, David Zwirner, Paris, 2021. Video by Pushpin Films
Location
Dates
September 4—October 9, 2021
Artist
Known for her uniquely innovative sculpture, Andra Ursuţa moved to New York from her native Romania in 1999. Attuned as much to history, cultural inheritance, religion, and rupture as to disposable products, irony, and discomfort, her work is also technically masterful. The glass sculptures on view in this exhibition are from a series that debuted at the 2019 Venice Biennale, curated by Ralph Rugoff. Andra Ursuţa: Alps, the artist’s critically acclaimed first museum solo exhibition in New York, was curated by Massimiliano Gioni at the New Museum in 2016. Her work has also been presented internationally, including solo shows at Kunsthalle Basel (2015), Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (2014–2015), and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014).
Andra Ursuţa
Predators 'R Us, 2020
Lead crystal
29 x 27 x 52 inches (73.7 x 68.6 x 132.1 cm)
“There is a stratification of references to the past and the future that makes Andra’s sculptures incredibly unique. There is this tension between an imagination of what is to come and a fictional construction of one’s own origins.”
—Massimiliano Gioni
Andra Ursuţa
Canopic Jerrycan, 2021
Lead crystal
31 x 13 3/4 x 21 1/4 inches (78.7 x 34.9 x 54 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
Yoga Don't Help, 2021
Lead crystal and soda-lime glass
51 1/4 x 23 3/4 x 20 3/4 inches (130.2 x 60.3 x 52.7 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
Succubustin' Loose, 2020
Lead crystal
44 3/4 x 17 7/8 x 12 inches (113.7 x 45.4 x 30.5 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
Canopic Demijohn, 2020
Lead crystal and soda-lime glass
30 1/2 x 15 7/8 x 16 inches (77.5 x 40.3 x 40.6 cm)
“I prefer to look at art from different historical periods. The intricacies of decorative work are really interesting to me.… [Historical artifacts] can capture life that is so real, more so than contemporary art. You really feel the pain.… Mummies, especially, are instances of ancient science fiction to me. You move to the afterlife. Then you see these sarcophagi and they look like space ships.”
—Andra Ursuţa, Zoo magazine, 2015
The Dying Gaul, Roman copy after a sculpture situated in the Pergamon Acropolis. Photo by DEA /G. NIMATALLAH/Getty Images
The Dying Gaul, Roman copy after a sculpture situated in the Pergamon Acropolis. Photo by DEA /G. NIMATALLAH/Getty Images
Thutmose, Model Bust of Queen Nefertiti, c. 1340 BCE. Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection/Neues Museum, Berlin
Thutmose, Model Bust of Queen Nefertiti, c. 1340 BCE. Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection/Neues Museum, Berlin
Left: Glass double head flask, Late Imperial, 3rd–4th century A.D., Roman. Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917; Right: Mummy with an Inserted Panel Portrait of a Youth, Roman period (80-100 BCE). Rogers Fund, 1911
Left: Glass double head flask, Late Imperial, 3rd–4th century A.D., Roman. Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917; Right: Mummy with an Inserted Panel Portrait of a Youth, Roman period (80-100 BCE). Rogers Fund, 1911
Clemente Susini, La Venere Smontabile (The Dismantable Venus), anatomical model (wax), c. 18th century. Museo della Specola, Florence, Italy. Photo by Raffaello Bencini
Clemente Susini, La Venere Smontabile (The Dismantable Venus), anatomical model (wax), c. 18th century. Museo della Specola, Florence, Italy. Photo by Raffaello Bencini
H.R. Giger behind the scenes photo during the filming of Alien, 1979
H.R. Giger behind the scenes photo during the filming of Alien, 1979
Egyptian Mummy at The Louvre Museum, Paris, France
Egyptian Mummy at The Louvre Museum, Paris, France
Left: Venus of Willendorf, c. 24,000-22,000 BCE; Right: Statuette of Woman, 14th–12th censure BCE. Louvre, Paris. Photo by Josse / Bridgeman Images
Left: Venus of Willendorf, c. 24,000-22,000 BCE; Right: Statuette of Woman, 14th–12th censure BCE. Louvre, Paris. Photo by Josse / Bridgeman Images
Left: Novelty Whiskey bottle; Right: Glass Fish, Kitsch Museum, Bucharest. Credit: Daniel Mihailescu
Left: Novelty Whiskey bottle; Right: Glass Fish, Kitsch Museum, Bucharest. Credit: Daniel Mihailescu
Canopic jars belonging to Djedbastetefankh, from his tomb at Hawara, Late Period, c.380–342 BC. © Ashmolean Museum / Bridgeman Images
Canopic jars belonging to Djedbastetefankh, from his tomb at Hawara, Late Period, c.380–342 BC. © Ashmolean Museum / Bridgeman Images
Left: Herm of Dionysos, 200–100BC, front view. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, inv. 79.AB.138; Right: Design for a Stained Glass Window with Terminus, 1525
Left: Herm of Dionysos, 200–100BC, front view. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, inv. 79.AB.138; Right: Design for a Stained Glass Window with Terminus, 1525
“Memory, death, the human condition, and the absurdity and irony of life are all inspirations for the artist. Her work is ripe with emotion and contradictions—pathos and humor, melancholy and hope, raw and refined, hard and soft, aggressive and tender. It’s at times vulgar and political, poignant and wry, exotic and familiar.”
—Ali Subotnick, essay for Hammer Projects: Andra Ursuţa, 2014
Andra Ursuţa
Impersonal Growth, 2020
Lead crystal
26 3/8 x 21 1/2 x 7 inches (67 x 54.6 x 17.8 cm)
“There’s the element of studio trash, and then there’s the cultural trash. There’s a lot of fake scary props that are processed into the sculptures.… The throwaway, cheap props that the culture uses to express its fear—I love to use those kinds of things.… Through these very elaborate processes, I can turn them into something that’s going to last for a very long time. That’s the idea, to take something very low culture and treat it with reverence.”
—Andra Ursuţa
Installation view, Andra Ursuţa: Void Fill, David Zwirner, Paris, 2021
Installation view, Andra Ursuţa: Void Fill, David Zwirner, Paris, 2021
Andra Ursuţa
Half-Drunk Mummy, 2020
Lead crystal
63 x 33 1/2 x 19 inches (160 x 85.1 x 48.3 cm)
“The hollow statues, with their crystal flesh stained glacial blue and absinthe green, seemed to emit their own icy light, as though Ursuţa had bottled the aurora borealis.”
—Zoë Lescaze, Artforum , 2020
Andra Ursuţa
Phantom Mass, 2021
Lead crystal
43 1/2 x 18 1/4 x 20 5/8 inches (110.5 x 46.4 x 52.4 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
Void Fill Carboy, 2020
Lead crystal
30 1/4 x 24 x 19 inches (76.8 x 61 x 48.3 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
Terminal Figure, 2021
Lead crystal
40 3/4 x 19 x 11 1/2 inches (103.5 x 48.3 x 29.2 cm)
Installation view, Andra Ursuţa: Void Fill, David Zwirner, Paris, 2021
Installation view, Andra Ursuţa: Void Fill, David Zwirner, Paris, 2021
In 2020, Ursuţa began working on a series of photograms. Collectively titled False Hope, these works draw on the notions of chance and transformation that have come to define the artist’s practice. Printed using photoreactive dye and Halloween props, a recurring image emerges, apparition-like, from a velvet surface.
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
45 1/4 x 38 1/8 inches (114.9 x 96.8 cm)
Framed: 48 1/2 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (123.2 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 48 1/2 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (123.2 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
“I really wish I were the maker of the Shroud of Turin.”
—Andra Ursuţa in conversation with Maurizio Cattelan, Purple magazine, 2015
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
51 3/8 x 35 1/4 inches (130.5 x 89.5 cm)
Framed: 54 1/2 x 38 3/8 inches (138.4 x 97.5 cm)
Framed: 54 1/2 x 38 3/8 inches (138.4 x 97.5 cm)
Ursuţa’s photograms recall nineteenth-century spirit photography and acheiropoieta—“made without hands”—Christian icons which are said to have come into existence miraculously. A skeletal hand alludes to the historical trope of the triumph of Death, immortalized in the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and others.
Central detail of the Shroud of Turin showing the face (left). Photo by Marco Destefanis/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
Central detail of the Shroud of Turin showing the face (left). Photo by Marco Destefanis/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
The Veiled Christ, Giuseppe Sanmartino, 1753. Museo Cappella San Severo, Italy
The Veiled Christ, Giuseppe Sanmartino, 1753. Museo Cappella San Severo, Italy
Anonymous Catalan painter, Triumph of Death, in Abbatellis Palace fresco, Sicily Palermo, 1446 (detail). Contributor: Realy Easy Star / Alamy Stock Photo
Anonymous Catalan painter, Triumph of Death, in Abbatellis Palace fresco, Sicily Palermo, 1446 (detail). Contributor: Realy Easy Star / Alamy Stock Photo
Giovanni Battista della Rovere, Burial of Jesus (detail), Turin Royal Museum, Italy. Photo: The Picture Art Collection / Alamy Stock Photo Photo
Giovanni Battista della Rovere, Burial of Jesus (detail), Turin Royal Museum, Italy. Photo: The Picture Art Collection / Alamy Stock Photo Photo
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
54 3/8 x 39 1/8 inches (138.1 x 99.4 cm)
Framed: 57 1/2 x 42 3/8 x 3 inches (146.1 x 107.6 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 57 1/2 x 42 3/8 x 3 inches (146.1 x 107.6 x 7.6 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
53 1/4 x 38 1/8 inches (135.3 x 96.8 cm)
Framed: 56 1/2 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (143.5 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 56 1/2 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (143.5 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
45 1/4 x 37 1/8 inches (114.9 x 94.3 cm)
Framed: 48 1/2 x 40 3/8 x 3 inches (123.2 x 102.6 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 48 1/2 x 40 3/8 x 3 inches (123.2 x 102.6 x 7.6 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
53 1/4 x 37 1/8 inches 1(35.3 x 94.3 cm)
Framed: 56 3/8 x 40 x 3 inches (143.2 x 101.6 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 56 3/8 x 40 x 3 inches (143.2 x 101.6 x 7.6 cm)
Massimiliano Gioni, Artistic Director of the New Museum, on the work of Andra Ursuta
Ursuţa’s cast-glass sculptures result from an elaborate process of duress and transformation. The artist combines 3D scans of casts of her own body with cheap props, BDSM garments, “void fill” packaging, bottles, and other materials, finally casting them in semitranslucent glass. “It’s a process that confuses the moment in technology that created it,” she says, “fusing both new and old techniques.”
Andra Ursuţa, installation view, May You Live In Interesting Times, 58th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, 2019
Andra Ursuţa, installation view, May You Live In Interesting Times, 58th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, 2019
Installation view, Andra Ursuţa: Alps, New Museum, New York, 2016
Installation view, Andra Ursuţa: Alps, New Museum, New York, 2016
Installation view, Andra Ursuţa: Whites, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015
Installation view, Andra Ursuţa: Whites, Kunsthalle Basel, 2015
Installation view, Andra Ursuţa: As I Lay Drying, ICA Miami, 2016
Installation view, Andra Ursuţa: As I Lay Drying, ICA Miami, 2016
Andra Ursuţa, installation view, The Encyclopedic Palace, 55th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, 2013
Andra Ursuţa, installation view, The Encyclopedic Palace, 55th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, 2013
Andra Ursuţa, 2020. Photo by Jason Schmidt
Andra Ursuţa, 2020. Photo by Jason Schmidt
Inquire about works by Andra Ursuţa
Andra Ursuţa
Predators 'R Us, 2020
Lead crystal
29 x 27 x 52 inches (73.7 x 68.6 x 132.1 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
Canopic Jerrycan, 2021
Lead crystal
31 x 13 3/4 x 21 1/4 inches (78.7 x 34.9 x 54 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
Yoga Don't Help, 2021
Lead crystal and soda-lime glass
51 1/4 x 23 3/4 x 20 3/4 inches (130.2 x 60.3 x 52.7 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
Succubustin' Loose, 2020
Lead crystal
44 3/4 x 17 7/8 x 12 inches (113.7 x 45.4 x 30.5 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
Canopic Demijohn, 2020
Lead crystal and soda-lime glass
30 1/2 x 15 7/8 x 16 inches (77.5 x 40.3 x 40.6 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
Impersonal Growth, 2020
Lead crystal
26 3/8 x 21 1/2 x 7 inches (67 x 54.6 x 17.8 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
Half-Drunk Mummy, 2020
Lead crystal
63 x 33 1/2 x 19 inches (160 x 85.1 x 48.3 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
Phantom Mass, 2021
Lead crystal
43 1/2 x 18 1/4 x 20 5/8 inches (110.5 x 46.4 x 52.4 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
Void Fill Carboy, 2020
Lead crystal
30 1/4 x 24 x 19 inches (76.8 x 61 x 48.3 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
Terminal Figure, 2021
Lead crystal
40 3/4 x 19 x 11 1/2 inches (103.5 x 48.3 x 29.2 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
50 1/4 x 35 1/4 inches (127.6 x 89.5 cm)
Framed: 53 3/8 x 38 x 3 inches (135.6 x 96.5 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 53 3/8 x 38 x 3 inches (135.6 x 96.5 x 7.6 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2021
Photoreactive dye on velvet
51 x 38 inches (29.5 x 96.5 cm)
Framed: 54 3/8 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (138.1 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 54 3/8 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (138.1 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
47 1/4 x 38 1/8 inches (120 x 96.8 cm)
Framed: 50 1/2 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (128.3 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 50 1/2 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (128.3 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
50 3/8 x 38 1/8 inches (128 x 96.8 cm)
Framed: 53 1/2 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (135.9 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 53 1/2 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (135.9 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
53 1/4 x 37 1/8 inches 1(35.3 x 94.3 cm)
Framed: 56 3/8 x 40 x 3 inches (143.2 x 101.6 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 56 3/8 x 40 x 3 inches (143.2 x 101.6 x 7.6 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
54 1/4 x 38 1/8 inches (137.8 x 96.8 cm)
Framed: 57 1/2 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (146.1 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 57 1/2 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (146.1 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
Signed and dated verso
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
54 3/8 x 39 1/8 inches (138.1 x 99.4 cm)
Framed: 57 1/2 x 42 3/8 x 3 inches (146.1 x 107.6 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 57 1/2 x 42 3/8 x 3 inches (146.1 x 107.6 x 7.6 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
45 1/4 x 38 1/8 inches (114.9 x 96.8 cm)
Framed: 48 1/2 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (123.2 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 48 1/2 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (123.2 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
53 1/4 x 38 1/8 inches (135.3 x 96.8 cm)
Framed: 56 1/2 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (143.5 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 56 1/2 x 41 3/8 x 3 inches (143.5 x 105.1 x 7.6 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
45 1/4 x 37 1/8 inches (114.9 x 94.3 cm)
Framed: 48 1/2 x 40 3/8 x 3 inches (123.2 x 102.6 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 48 1/2 x 40 3/8 x 3 inches (123.2 x 102.6 x 7.6 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
51 3/8 x 35 1/4 inches (130.5 x 89.5 cm)
Framed: 54 1/2 x 38 3/8 inches (138.4 x 97.5 cm)
Framed: 54 1/2 x 38 3/8 inches (138.4 x 97.5 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
54 3/8 x 40 1/4 inches (138.1 x 102.2 cm)
Framed: 57 1/2 x 43 3/8 x 3 inches (146.1 x 110.2 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 57 1/2 x 43 3/8 x 3 inches (146.1 x 110.2 x 7.6 cm)
Andra Ursuţa
False Hope, 2020
Photoreactive dye on velvet
52 1/4 x 36 1/8 inches (132.7 x 91.8 cm)
Framed: 55 1/2 x 39 1/8 x 3 inches (141 x 99.4 x 7.6 cm)
Framed: 55 1/2 x 39 1/8 x 3 inches (141 x 99.4 x 7.6 cm)
Signed and dated verso