On the heals of The High Line Plinth’s inaugural installation, Simone Leigh: Brick House, today The High Line announced its next artist ~ Sam Durant: Untitled (drone), arriving on the Plinth in May.
Durant’s monumental fiberglass sculpture in the shape of an abstracted drone atop a 25-foot-tall steel pole continues High Line Art’s mission of presenting new, powerful, thought-provoking artworks that generate and amplify some of today’s most important conversations.
With this work, Durant seeks to make visible the intentionally obscured drone warfare perpetuated by the US, and to remind the public that drones and surveillance are a tragic and pervasive presence in the daily lives of many living outside—and within—the United States. Since it was selected over three years ago, Untitled (drone) has only increased in relevance. Over the past months, we have witnessed not only an escalation in international drone warfare but also a vertiginous increase in domestic surveillance carried out by military drones employed by US Customs and Border Protection and ongoing surveillance of activists by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local law enforcement agencies. At the same time, drones are employed daily for humanitarian purposes, such as delivering supplies and medicine to isolated locations, to survey mine fields, and to tame wildfires that have ravaged landscapes.
Along with Simone Leigh’s Brick House, which has been displayed since 2019, Durant’s work was selected from a shortlist of 12 artworks—narrowed from over 50 total submissions—proposed in 2016 for the first and second High Line Plinth commissions.
Sam Durant was born in 1961 in Seattle, Washington and lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Recent new projects and solo exhibitions have been presented internationally at the ARoS Museum, Aarhus, Denmark (2020); Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2020); Paula Cooper Gallery, New York (2020); Library Street Collective, Detroit (2019); Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis (2015); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (2014); and Museo d’Arte Contemporanea (MACRO), Rome, Italy (2013). Notable public commissions include The Meeting House, a Trustees Art in Public Places project, Concord, Massachusetts (2016); Labyrinth, Mural Arts, Philadelphia (2015), and What #isamuseum, The Getty Center, Los Angeles (2013). His work has been featured in group exhibitions at Copenhagen Contemporary, Denmark (2020); Historisches Museum Frankfurt/Main, Frankfurt, Germany (2019); The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles (2016); Fundación/Colección Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico (2013); and Museum of Modern Art, New York (2011). His work has been featured in international exhibitions including dOCUMENTA 13, Kassel, Germany (2012) and the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2004). His work is represented in major collections worldwide, including Tate, London, England; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium.
Sam Durant, Untitled (drone) will be on view from May 2021 through August 2022 on the High Line at the Spur, at 30th Street and 10th Avenue in Chelsea. Artworks on the Plinth rotate every 18 months and are selected from proposals solicited from artists around the world.
Look back at The High Line Plinth’s inaugural installation, Simone Leigh: Brick House. Take a look at The High Line’s 80 artists’ proposals for the third and fourth High Line Plinth Commission.
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While you’re there, walk over to The Shed, The Vessel, and The Edge.