Aleksandra Mir (born 1967) is a Swedish-American[1] contemporary artist known for her large scale collaborative projects and for her anthropological methods, involving rigorous archival research, oral history and field work.[2] Her work deals with travel, time, placehood, language, gender, identity, locality, nationality, globality, mobility, connectivity, performativity, representation, transition, translation and transgression.[3]

Aleksandra Mir
Mir in 1999
Born1967 (1967)
Lubin, Poland
Awards
Websitealeksandramir.info

She has exhibited at Kunsthaus Zurich (2006), Tate Modern, London (2014), Tate Liverpool (2017), Modern Art Oxford (2017), Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2009),[4] M – Museum Leuven (2013),[5] Whitney Museum of American Art (2014),[6][7] Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2007), MoMA, New York City (2012), YUZ Museum, Shanghai (2018), Whitney Biennial (2004), Biennale of Sydney (2002), Biennale di Venezia (2009), Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre (2015),[8] Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2020),[2] and Inhotim, Belo Horizonte (2021).[9]

Personal life edit

Mir was born in Lubin, Poland in 1967.[10] Her Polish citizenship was revoked during the 1968 Polish political crisis.[11] She holds dual Swedish-American citizenship.[12] She grew up in Sweden, where she studied at the University of Gothenburg. She moved to the United States in 1989[13] to attend the School of Visual Arts in New York and studied cultural anthropology at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research.[14] Mir lived in Palermo, Sicily from 2005 to 2010.[4] She lives in London.[15]

Work edit

The How Not to Cookbook, (Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, 2009 and Rizzoli, NYC 2010) collected advice from 1,000 home cooks from around the world who explained what not to do in the kitchen.[16][17]

In First Woman on the Moon (1999), Mir converted a Dutch beach into a moonscape for one day with the help of bulldozers.[18][19][20] The video of this event has been presented at multiple venues,[21][22] at the International Space University, Strasbourg [23] and at the UK Space Conference, Liverpool, 2015.[24]

In 2002, Mir painted the Mandela Way T-34 Tank pink with Cubitt Artists.[25]

For Newsroom 1986–2000 (2007), Mir with a group of assistants copied 240 NYC tabloid covers in felt-tip marker and mounted them in an ever-revolving installation to simulate the daily workings of a Manhattan newsroom.[26][27][28][29][30][31] Mir has created a series of large scale murals using only Sharpie marker pens.[32]

In Triumph she collected 2529 trophies from the general public of Sicily and exhibited them all in one installation at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2009). It traveled to the South London Gallery for the London Olympics in 2012.[33]

Mir has created Plane Landing, a real size helium inflatable jet plane, meant not to fly, but to hover above the ground as "a sculpture of a jet plane in a permanent state of landing".[34]. In 2023 Kunsthaus Zurich acquired the work for its permanent collection, having previously staged it at the tarmac of the Zurich airport.[35]

References edit

  1. ^ "Contributors: Aleksandra Mir". MIT. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
  2. ^ a b "Aleksandra Mir : Artimage". Artimage. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
  3. ^ "Aleksandra Mir : Mediterranean". Inhotim. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
  4. ^ a b Sandra Danicke, Plunder des Triumphs, Frankfurter Rundschau, 13 May 2009
  5. ^ Steverlynck, Sam. "Een kleine stap voor een vrouw". De Standaard (in Flemish). Retrieved 1 January 2020.
  6. ^ Cascone, Sarah (24 April 2015). "10 Must-See Whitney Contemporary Works". artnet News. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
  7. ^ Donnelly, Ryann (25 September 2011). "Built to Spill". Interview Magazine. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
  8. ^ "Obra que simula queda de satélite em Porto Alegre abre 9ª Bienal do Mercosul". GaúchaZH (in Brazilian Portuguese). 12 September 2013. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
  9. ^ "Aleksandra Mir". Inhotim. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
  10. ^ Great women artists. Phaidon Press. 2019. p. 276. ISBN 978-0714878775.
  11. ^ Harald Starzer; Christian Ohlinger. "Interview with Aleksandra Mir". Sculpture Unlimited Symposium. Institute of Fine Arts, Kunstuniversitat Linz. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
  12. ^ Jasper, Adam (January 2007). "Aleksandra Mir". Frieze (104). Retrieved 24 April 2020.
  13. ^ "Aleksandra Mir – Top Ten". Art Forum. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
  14. ^ "Aleksandra Mir". Guggenheim. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
  15. ^ Stuart Comer, Valentina Ravaglia ([s.d.]). Aleksandra Mir. Tate Modern. Accessed March 2016.
  16. ^ Alex Renton, Never boil and avocado, and other handy tips, The Times, 20 August 2009
  17. ^ Forbes, Paula. "The How Not to Cookbook: Lessons Learned the Hard Way, the Anti-Cookbook – Eat Me Daily". Eat Me Daily. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
  18. ^ Lars Bang Larsen Archived 3 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine, First Woman on the Moon, Frieze, London, #50, January 2000
  19. ^ Will Bradley Archived 9 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Life and Times: Aleksandra Mir, Frieze, Issue 75, 2003
  20. ^ Nancy Spector Archived 22 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine, All the World..., Frieze, Issue 98, London, April 2006
  21. ^ Jeroen Junte, Kunstenares Mir landt op strand, De Volkskrant, Amsterdam, 27 August 1999
  22. ^ Tim Griffin, Openings: Aleksandra Mir, Artforum, NYC, February 2003
  23. ^ Lecturers, International Space University, Strasbourg, 2015
  24. ^ Speakers, UK Space Conference, Liverpool, 2015
  25. ^ Gibbs, Jonathan (2 November 2003). "Talk of the Town: Pink Tank". The Independent on Sunday. Archived from the original on 4 September 2005. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
  26. ^ Steven Stern Archived 28 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Newsroom, Frieze, #115, London, May 2008
  27. ^ Simon Houpt, Yesterday's front page turns into today's art, The Globe and Mail, Toronto, 22 October 2007
  28. ^ Roberta Smith, New York Stories: Art Torn Screaming From the Headlines, Then Hung on Walls, New York Times, 20 October 2007
  29. ^ gninja, Review of "Newsroom 1986 – 2000": What Is Roberta Smith Going on About?, Art(h)ist'ry, 20 October 2007
  30. ^ Jen Schwarting, Aleksandra Mir Newsroom 1986–2000, The Brooklyn Rail, NYC, November 2007
  31. ^ James Reinl, 9/11 art and the 'Course of Empire' , Al Jazeera, NYC, 10 September 2015
  32. ^ Johanna Hofleitner, Albertina: Zeichnungen zimmern, Die Presse, Vienna, 21 May 2015
  33. ^ Catherine Gaffney, Going for Gold: Aleksandra Mir investigates our relationship with the trophy, itsnicethat, London, July 2012
  34. ^ Aidan Dunne, A Sligo group show dreams big and succeeds, The Irish Times, Dublin, 10 September 2015
  35. ^ "Interview with Mirjam Varadinis". On Curating. Retrieved 1 July 2023.

External links edit