CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 5/8/2018

Marathon Reading of 'Sculptures for the Blind' by Lenka Clayton at MoMA PS1

Join J & L Books Sunday, May 13, from 2-6 PM in the Artbook at MoMA PS1 Book Space for a Marathon Reading of Sculptures for the Blind by Lenka Clayton. Contributors (listed below) will read all 192 pages of the book (out loud) from a podium. Drop in, listen for a while, go see the exhibitions, then come back. (They'll still be there.)

Readers will include these contributors to the book:

John D. Alexander, The Morgan
Lenka Clayton, artist
Peter Drake, New York Academy of Art
Jason Fulford, J&L Books
Dakin Hart, Noguchi Museum
John Klacsmann, Anthology Film Archives
Andrew Lampert, artist and archivist
Chris Seifert, Parrish Art Museum
Arden Sherman, Hunter East Harlem Gallery
Nat Trotman, Guggenheim
Amy Whitaker, NYU

In the archives of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pittsburgh-based artist Lenka Clayton (born 1977) came across a letter written in 1978 by a member of the public to the curator of 20th-century art. The writer—a Mr. Brian H. Morgan—describes a white marble egg made by his Romanian great-grandfather Peter Finck. He notes a startling similarity between this egg and Brancusi’s “Sculpture for the Blind,” in the museum’s collection. The letter poses this question: “What is it about Brancusi that makes his egg a work of art suitable for a museum, and not the egg by Finck?” At its heart is a timeless question: how does one object come to be understood as an important work of art, while another, so similar, is entirely forgotten? Clayton found the letter almost 40 years after it was written and discovered that it was never answered. She sent a copy of the letter to 1,000 curators, museum directors and other art professionals, inviting them to imagine that the letter was addressed to them and to respond to Mr. Morgan.

ARTBOOK @ MoMA PS1 Book Space
22-25 Jackson Ave (at 46th Ave.)
Long Island City, NY 11101
(718) 433-1088