To deepen appreciation for the exhibition Dana Barnes: Untamed Gestures, visitors are invited to join senior curator Barbara Paris Gifford for an intimate conversation in the gallery with artists and collaborators Dana Barnes and Christopher Kurtz. The discussion will focus on the artists’ 2024 Between Us: Tête-à-Tête. This suspended two-seater chaise, carved by Kurtz from basswood, is enveloped by Barnes’ hand-twisted woollen vines, melding the artists’ distinct sensibilities in form and material. Balancing strength and delicacy, Between Us: Tête-à-Tête evokes both resilience and tenderness.
The discussion will range from the work’s conceptual development and craftsmanship to the converging of the artists’ practices for their first collaboration. Visitors also will have the opportunity to investigate textile materials and watch a demonstration of the artists’ process.
Space is limited. Seating will be provided. Advance registration is required.
About the artists
Dana Barnes creates textural and sculptural works, objects, and site-specific installations by hand, exploring the visceral possibilities of fiber, material, and transformation. Working from her Lower East Side studio in New York City, housed in a 19th-century former synagogue, Barnes pioneers innovative wet-bonding techniques to mold masses of exotic fibers into large-scale sculptural expressions. Her practice fuses the tactile with the architectural, often melding wool with concrete, stone, copper, wood, and found materials. Her work has been exhibited at major art and design venues around the world, including The Armory Show, the Museum of Arts and Design, the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco, TEFAF New York, Design Miami, and R & Company’s Woven Forms show at Palazzo Benzon, Venice Biennale. She is represented in prestigious private collections across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Barnes studied at Parsons School of Design and the New York Studio School, and her career spans both fine art and high fashion.
Christopher Kurtz (born 1975) grew up in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. He studied sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute, Landscape Architecture at The GSD at Harvard University (Career Discovery Program) and received a BFA in sculpture from The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in Alfred, New York.
After college, he went on to work as the studio assistant to artist Martin Puryear, who is the subject of a recent retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (traveled). While working with Puryear, Christopher refined his woodworking skills and began maturing as an artist.
In 2005 Christopher set up his studio in the Hudson Valley of New York State. Kurtz has always had a passion for furniture and began experimenting with some designs. In 2008 he expanded his studio practice to include furniture design in addition to sculpture.
Kurtz has gained international attention with his sculpture and furniture designs; and is included in several public and private collections. Recently, Christopher’s work has been included in traveling museum exhibitions which include, “Against the Grain: Wood in Contemporary Art, Craft and Design” at The Museum of Art and Design (MAD) in New York City and The Ft. Lauderdale Art Museum; and “Making America; Myth, Memory Identity”, at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Christopher has received numerous grants and awards, including the prestigious Louis Comfort Tiffany Award in ‘05, and in ‘07 he received a New York Foundation For the Arts (NYFA) Award (Lily Auchincloss fellow). Christopher currently serves as an advisor for NYFA in the field of crafts.
