The exhibition is comprised of sculptural works made from paper and found materials. These materials represent over forty years of Alison Knowles’ life in New York City. The works evince an extreme interest in paper—made of raw flax, cotton and abaca fibers, the paper becomes a sculptural element to house an assortment of found objects and the base material for wall panels. As Knowles said in her acceptance statement for the College Art Association Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003,
I collect shoe heels ….
I am not hunting usually, just rushing to get somewhere like everybody else, but suddenly,
Unexpectedly, akin to a found item, a found time opens up….
The heel I pick up. …quickly, offhandedly …gets stashed in my pocket.
There is a chemistry peculiar to the mysterious terrain I find myself in at that time….
I love to surf the street….
At home it gets cleaned, studied, it is drawn in silhouette, perhaps screen-printed with the name of an animal….
You know the worn shoe heels cannot be bought. Not for sale anywhere.
Isn’t it special to have recognized the energy expended in a shoe heel.
Knowles is best known as a founding member of Fluxus and, notably, was the first woman to participate in Fluxus. Knowles studied with Joseph Albers and Richard Lindner and graduated from Pratt University in 1954. Earlier this year, Knowles performed “Identical Lunch” at MoMA, NY. Recent group exhibitions include; Contemporary Art from the Collection, organized by Kathy Halbreich and Christophe Cherix, MoMA, NY, 2011 and The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860 –1989, organized by Alexandra Munroe at the Guggenheim Museum, NY, 2009. In 2010 Knowles was a Frieda L. Miller Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.
