The Sculpture Shoppe is an exhibition of plaster reproductions of classical Greco- Roman art from the Cornell Cast Collection and responses to cast culture and classical art by contemporary artists and thinkers. The exhibition will take place spring 2022 in a former retail space at the Ithaca Mall. A goal of The Sculpture Shoppe is engaging the general mall-going public through interactive exhibition design and public events. By bringing classical art and contemporary responses into an unexpected context through the venue of the near-abandoned shopping mall (a nod to the decline of our own western capitalist civilization), we hope to educate the public about the history, problematics, and mutability of the “western canon”. This project will feature extensive public facing programming for both general and academic audiences.
We are looking for works of art in any medium engaging with traditions of classical art and history, figurative sculpture, and the “remixability” of mold making and casting processes, including digital processes such as 3D printing and scanning. We especially welcome submissions from POC artists that critique the problematic “whiteness” of classical sculpture (and art historical narratives more broadly) and queer artists (re)examining the tradition of the classical nude. We also encourage submissions from makers and thinkers who exist outside a “gallery art” world. We can support the exhibition of performance or dance documentation, sound art, book projects with a visual component, etc.
This project is funded by the Cornell Council for the Arts and the Society for Classical Studies. This show is strictly non-commercial in scope and any sales will be solely between the artist and potential buyers. There is a budget for a nominal honorarium for artists whose work is selected for inclusion and to pay for the shipment of work. This project will coincide with an academic conference on “Media and the Premodern Image” and will present an opportunity for artists to present their work to an academic audience and in a unique context alongside plaster casts.
Submitted works will be juried by Professor Verity Platt (Cornell University, Professor of Classics and History of Art; Chair, Department of Classics), Annetta Alexandridis (Cornell University, Associate Professor of History of Art and Classics), and David Nasca (Cornell University MFA 2022).
Please submit up to 5 images along with a CV or resume to thesculptureshoppe@cornell.edu by February 13th 2022. Alternatively, you may submit a narrative proposal and sketches for a to-be-realized work. Notification of acceptance will be made by March 1st 2022.
On 13th December at 5PM we will be hosting an online seminar/information session. Further webinars will be hosted by the Department of Classics at Cornell examining the relationship between classicism, casts, and contemporary politics in 2022. To be informed of further events or with any questions please email thesculptureshoppe@cornell.edu.
Image caption: ‘Firing the Canon: the Cornell Casts and their Discontents’, Cornell University, 2014
