Fred Wilson was born
in the Bronx, New York in 1954, and lives and works in New York.
He received a BFA from SUNY/Purchase. Commenting on his unorthodox
artistic
practice,
Wilson has said
that, although he studied art, he no longer has a strong desire
to make things with his hands. “I get everything that satisfies
my soul,” he says, “from bringing together objects
that are in the world, manipulating them, working with spatial
arrangements, and having things presented in the way I want to
see them.” Thus, Wilson creates new exhibition contexts for
the display of art and artifacts found in museum collections, along
with wall labels, sound, lighting, and non-traditional pairings
of objects. His installations lead viewers to recognize that changes
in context create changes in meaning. While appropriating curatorial
methods and strategies, Wilson maintains his subjective view of
the museum environment and the works he presents. He questions—and
forces the viewer to question—how curators shape interpretations
of historical truth, artistic value, and the language of display,
and what kinds of biases our cultural institutions express. In
his groundbreaking intervention, “Mining the Museum” (1992),
Wilson transformed the Baltimore Historical Society’s collection
to highlight the history of slavery in America. For the 2003 Venice
Biennale, Wilson created a mixed-media installation of many parts,
focusing on Africans in Venice and issues and representations of
black and white, which included a suite of black glass sculptures;
a black-and-white tiled room with wall graffiti culled from texts
of African-American slave narratives; and a video installation
of Othello screened backwards. Wilson received a John D. and Catherine
T. MacArthur Foundation Achievement Award (1999) and the Larry
Aldrich Foundation Award (2003). He is the Distinguished Visiting
Fellow in Object, Exhibition, and Knowledge at Skidmore College.
Fred Wilson represented the United States at the Biennial Cairo
(1992) and Venice Biennale.
For additional biographic & bibliographic information:
PaceWildenstein, New York | Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
Fred Wilson on the Art21 blog |
