88.625″x61.75″x2.25″; archival pigment print mounted on Dibond in yellow artist’s frame. Edition of 3 and 2 Artist Proofs. © Sara Cwynar. Courtesy the artist and 52 Walker, New York. Photo: Kerry McFate.
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Sara Cwynar
at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Massachusetts, USA
7 February-7 September 2025
The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) unveils an ambitious two-part exhibition from New York-based artist Sara Cwynar. Cwynar created a floor-to-ceiling, photo collage billboard for the Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall in the ICA’s lobby, as well as an installation in the Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser Gallery on the fourth floor, marking the first time an artist has worked simultaneously in these two spaces at the ICA. The photo-based exhibition builds on the artist’s longstanding investigation of the relationship between images and the construction of selfhood in the digital era.
72.25″x51″x2″ (framed); unique digital pigment print; 2024. Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, London. © Sara Cwynar
Cwynar’s densely layered photographs, films, and installations employ the visual languages of design and advertising to explore themes of seduction, desire, and commodification. Her practice of constant archiving and re-presentation of collected visual materials recalls advertisements, retail catalogues, and old history books. These visual assemblages invite viewers to consider how life online increasingly structures our perceptions of the world, and how these perceptions can change through time and contextual manipulation. Her work interrogates how the dizzying velocity with which images circulate today online conceals systems of control embedded in our everyday lives.
(text adapted from material provided by the gallery)
INFORMATION
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