Installation View: Streaming Live from a Private New York Collection is a curatorial project by US-based artists Jennifer and Kevin McCoy that explores “the private lives of artworks.” For their investigation, the artist/curators have gained access to an extensive private contemporary art collection, and have selected works by William Eggleston, Fischli & Weiss, Susan Hamburger, Louise Lawler, Abelardo Morell, Gabriel Orozco, Richard Serra, Stephen Shore, Thomas Struth, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Jeff Wall.

Rather than bring the actual artworks to the exhibition space, the McCoys stream live images from the original locations where the pieces are currently being displayed (or stored) to screens in the gallery. The artists reference Louise Lawler’s ongoing practice of capturing art behind the scenes by observing the selected artworks “in their natural habitats”—some in the collector’s home, others in the living room and the garden of his country house, in a storage facility, guesthouse, or artist studio.

The McCoys’ curatorial intervention questions the presumed primacy of direct visual experience in art, and invites viewers to challenge the way they are trained to view artworks or visit curated exhibitions. An artwork itself in disguise, this exhibition explores the notion of “display” both in its content and its own structure. Some of the works included in the show are images or representations of a display while others are presented to highlight the act of display.

Installation View has been initiated at 601Artspace in New York City before being shown simultaneously at collectorspace in Istanbul, and uses two different display formats to bring the views of the artworks from their private locations to exhibition spaces in two different time zones. Live images of the artworks can be viewed 24/7 from the street in front of the collectorspace location.

In conjunction with this exhibition, a video interview with the collector whose collection houses the artworks that the McCoys bring to the public is presented in the resource library of collectorspace.

***

Jennifer McCoy (b. 1968) and Kevin McCoy (b. 1967) have been artistic collaborators since 1990. The McCoys completed their MFAs in Electronic Art at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York in 1994. Jennifer McCoy currently works as a Professor of Art at Brooklyn College, and Kevin McCoy is an Associate Professor of Art at New York University. Their work has been part of numerous exhibitions, including SITE Santa Fe Biennial–The Dissolve, Santa Fe, NM (2010); Automatic Update, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2007); and Soft Rains, FACT Liverpool, UK (2003). Solo exhibitions include Abu Dhabi Is Love Forever, one step past the airport, Postmasters Gallery, New York (2011); Soft Rains #6: Suburban Horrors, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto Film Festival, Toronto, Canada (2010); Constant World, Beall Center for Art + Technology, University of California, Irvine, CA (2008); Tiny, Funny, Big and Sad, British Film Institute Galleries Southbank, London, UK (2007). The McCoys live and work in New York.

601Artspace is a New York-based nonprofit arts organization that partners with artists, curators and other not-for-profit organizations to produce unconventional exhibitions, talks, film screenings and special projects within a non-commercial context. Its permanent collection acts as a catalyst for artistic and curatorial encounters. Through these interdisciplinary practices 601Artspace engages and investigates issues in the making, organizing, and reception of contemporary art.

Installation View: Streaming Live from a Private New York Collection is a curatorial project by US-based artists Jennifer and Kevin McCoy that explores “the private lives of artworks.” For their investigation, the artist/curators have gained access to an extensive private contemporary art collection, and have selected works by William Eggleston, Fischli & Weiss, Susan Hamburger, Louise Lawler, Abelardo Morell, Gabriel Orozco, Richard Serra, Stephen Shore, Thomas Struth, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Jeff Wall.

Rather than bring the actual artworks to the exhibition space, the McCoys stream live images from the original locations where the pieces are currently being displayed (or stored) to screens in the gallery. The artists reference Louise Lawler’s ongoing practice of capturing art behind the scenes by observing the selected artworks “in their natural habitats”—some in the collector’s home, others in the living room and the garden of his country house, in a storage facility, guesthouse, or artist studio.

The McCoys’ curatorial intervention questions the presumed primacy of direct visual experience in art, and invites viewers to challenge the way they are trained to view artworks or visit curated exhibitions. An artwork itself in disguise, this exhibition explores the notion of “display” both in its content and its own structure. Some of the works included in the show are images or representations of a display while others are presented to highlight the act of display.

Installation View has been initiated at 601Artspace in New York City before being shown simultaneously at collectorspace in Istanbul, and uses two different display formats to bring the views of the artworks from their private locations to exhibition spaces in two different time zones. Live images of the artworks can be viewed 24/7 from the street in front of the collectorspace location.

In conjunction with this exhibition, a video interview with the collector whose collection houses the artworks that the McCoys bring to the public is presented in the resource library of collectorspace.

***

Jennifer McCoy (b. 1968) and Kevin McCoy (b. 1967) have been artistic collaborators since 1990. The McCoys completed their MFAs in Electronic Art at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York in 1994. Jennifer McCoy currently works as a Professor of Art at Brooklyn College, and Kevin McCoy is an Associate Professor of Art at New York University. Their work has been part of numerous exhibitions, including SITE Santa Fe Biennial–The Dissolve, Santa Fe, NM (2010); Automatic Update, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2007); and Soft Rains, FACT Liverpool, UK (2003). Solo exhibitions include Abu Dhabi Is Love Forever, one step past the airport, Postmasters Gallery, New York (2011); Soft Rains #6: Suburban Horrors, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto Film Festival, Toronto, Canada (2010); Constant World, Beall Center for Art + Technology, University of California, Irvine, CA (2008); Tiny, Funny, Big and Sad, British Film Institute Galleries Southbank, London, UK (2007). The McCoys live and work in New York.

601Artspace is a New York-based nonprofit arts organization that partners with artists, curators and other not-for-profit organizations to produce unconventional exhibitions, talks, film screenings and special projects within a non-commercial context. Its permanent collection acts as a catalyst for artistic and curatorial encounters. Through these interdisciplinary practices 601Artspace engages and investigates issues in the making, organizing, and reception of contemporary art.

collectorspace inaugurates its Istanbul location with the presentation of a single artwork from the Napoleone Collection, Goshka Macuga’s Madame Blavatsky (2007). Macuga’s sculpture-installation is a life-size figure of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, a 19th-century Russian aristocrat and self-professed psychic/mystic, suspended between two chairs in a hypnotic trance. Despite being accused of fakery and plagiarism on multiple counts, Blavatsky remained to be an influential figure at her time as the founder of Theosophy, a spiritual philosophy based on mystical insight, and the author of voluminous books on the subject. She traveled extensively throughout the world, and her main contribution is now believed to be one of the first to bring concepts such as brotherly love, racial equality, and Karma from the East to the Western societies suffering from the brutality of the Victorian Imperialist Industrialist Age. Using Blavatsky’s figure, Macuga’s work evokes thoughts on spiritualism, secret powers, and illusion, while exploring the conventions of exhibition displays for historical figures and objects.

Also included in this presentation is a video portrait of the collector, Valeria Napoleone, who collects art exclusively by contemporary women artists. Her collection includes works by Ghada Amer, Tauba Auerbach, Shirin Neshat, Rivane Neuenschwander, Pae White, and Lisa Yuskavage, among many other established and emerging artists. In the video, Napoleone gives details of her collecting style and methods, and discusses her goals and motivations for the collection. The video also shows how the artworks in the collection are displayed at Napoleone’s home, and how they interact with each other, thereby offering a context for understanding and evaluating the collection.  Talks and publications will be used throughout the exhibition to further explore the relevance of this collection, to critically review the collecting practices, and to provide feedback to the collector.

Goshka Macuga (b. 1967, Warsaw) is an artist based in London. Macuga studied at Wojciech Gerson School of Art, Warsaw; Central Saint Martins School of Art, London; and Goldsmiths College, London. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2008. Macuga is represented by Kate MacGarry (London), Rüdiger Schöttle (Munich), and Andrew Kreps Gallery (New York).

The Napoleone Collection is the private collection of Italian-born, London-based couple Valeria and Gregorio Napoleone.  Valeria Napoleone is an art patron who actively supports young art institutions and emerging artists.

Installation shots from “collectorspace Presents The Napoleone Collection Featuring Madame Blavatsky”, collectorspace, Istanbul, 2011. Photographs by Sevim Sancaktar.