Fiona Connor: Closed for Installation at SculptureCenter, New York, N.Y. (2020)

Los Angeles-based artist Fiona Connor often uses strategies of repetition and replication to produce objects that draw attention to their own material forms as well as to the layered social histories and relationships embodied in architectural structures and the built environment. Among other types of everyday objects that are typically overlooked, she has remade in high fidelity community noticeboards, park benches, doors of closed down clubs, real estate signs, and municipal water fountains, and re-presented them within the space of art institutions. In this film, Connor speaks about an identical set of bronze objects that were displayed in two different exhibitions that overlapped in time: Closed for installation, Fiona Connor, SculptureCenter, #4, held at the SculptureCenter, New York, from April 29 - July 29, 2019; and #8, Closed for Installation, Sequence of Events, held at the Secession, Vienna, from June 27 - September 1, 2019. For these works, Connor reproduced objects that represent a lingua franca of tools used for the installation of art exhibitions-including a measuring tape, hammer, drill, dolly, stool, and water bottle-and contextualized them within their respective exhibition situations so as to bring into view aspects of each institution's specific site as well as how value is produced within the exhibitionary art system through practices of labor, maintenance, and collective participation.