Gabriela Albergaria, Two Trees in Balance at Socrates Scultpure Park

On Sunday, May 17th from 3-6pm, Socrates Sculpture Park opens its latest exhibitions, featuring premiere works by Agnes Denes, Heide Fasnacht, Gabriela Albergaria, Vera Lutter, and the architectural firm IK Studio.

Together, these individual projects have transformed the natural landscape of the park, stretching and striking its earth, plant life, and trees to create carefully devised and complex connections between the social, scientific, and artificial.

As part of the opening, Agnes Denes and Socrates invite the public to become part of her grand vision, sowing and planting The Living Pyramid to begin its evolution as a living artwork.

May 17, 2015 – August 30, 2015

Opening: May 17, 2015 (3:00 pm – 6:00 pm)

Artists: Gabriela Albergaria

Gabriela Albergaria’s work involves one territory: Nature. Through drawing, photography, and sculpture the artist seeks to examine and deconstruct the cultural and social beliefs surrounding images of the natural. Albergaria builds on these concepts with Two Trees in Balance at Socrates Sculpture Park, where she will erect a 10-foot concrete wall adorned with two suspended trees. For the artist, Two Trees in Balance is “the moment where human and natural terrains intersect.”

As part of her installation Albergaria will meticulously reconstruct dozens of branches and tree stumps salvaged from across New York City into two new trees, which she will hang diagonally off of the ground from a steel cable. Each tree hovers in-between the wall and the earth, poised in a precarious state by their own equal weight. Visually the piece implies suspended movement – simultaneous growth and decay – and the effort required to maintain that balance. With Two Trees in Balance, the artist manipulates preconceived expectations of what the natural should look like, as well as the fictional beliefs that we use to conjure the natural world.

Two Trees in Balance opens at Socrates Sculpture Park in
Long Island City, Queens, on Sunday, May 17th from 3:00-6:00PM.

ABOUT GABRIELA ALBERGARIA
www.gabrielaalbergaria.com
Since 1999 Albergaria has exhibited regularly around the world. Recent solo shows include in Galeria Vermelho, São Paolo and Hacienda La Trinidad Parque Cultural, Caracas, Venezuela (2013). Group exhibitions include Prickley, tender and steamy, Artists in the Hothouse, Wave Hill Garden, Glyndor Gallery, New York (2014), and “Do barroco para o barroco – está a arte contemporânea”, Casa da Parra, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (2013). Her work has been featured at the 1a Bienal de Montevideo (2012); Do Not Destroy, Trees Art and Jewish Thought, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco (2012); Reverse Position (Invertir la Posición), Galeria Wu, Lima, 2012 ; Ecológica, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (2010; kurs: the tree, Fuglsang Kunstmuseum, Toreby, Denmark (2009). Residencies include the Wave Hill Public Garden and Cultural Center (Winter Workshop 2012), Villa Arson , Centre National d’ Art Contemporain , Nice , France (2008 ) and the University of Oxford Botanic Garden in collaboration with The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art , Oxford (2009/2010).

Albergaria is currently participating in a residency at Residency Unlimited in New York.

Socrates Sculpture Park

32-01 Vernon Blvd

Long Island City, NY

http://socratessculpturepark.org/exhibition/two-trees-in-balance/