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  • Art

Judy Pfaff: Real and Imaginary

When
All Day
Where
Glyndor Gallery
Untitled 2022 smokkfiskur29 crop
Judy Pfaff, "My Wild Garden", 2022. Panels: glitter and resin over photographic inspired digital images on MDF with aluminum frame. Sculptures: steel wire, melted plastic, faux flowers, acrylic, pigmented expandable foam. Courtesy of Judy Pfaff Studio.

Judy Pfaff’s room-filling sculptural works have been described as three-dimensional expressionist paintings come to life. Her “brushstrokes” are composed of organic and fabricated objects, repurposed materials, plastics, ceramics, metal strips, foam, and lighting tubes. Hailed as a pioneer of installation art, that accolade all too neatly fixes Pfaff’s place in postwar art history but fails to encompass the remarkable scope of the artist’s decades-long career. Since the 1970s, she has continued to develop her art while constantly experimenting with new techniques, processes, materials and modes of display. Pfaff’s works typically inhabit the space in which they are shown, incorporating the room itself, from floor to ceiling and stretching off the walls. In her site-specific approach, she considers the interior architecture and the outdoors, the geographic features of the location and its history. Often inspired by landscape and natural elements, Pfaff moved to the Hudson Valley more than 25 years ago, first to Kingston, NY, living directly on the Rondout Creek, which flows into the Hudson River. She now lives and works in Tivoli, NY.

Real and Imaginary presents Pfaff’s recent sculptures, mixed-media drawings and works on paper, as well as site-specific installations created for Wave Hill, responding to its gardens and the historic architecture and former domestic interior of the building that now houses Glyndor Gallery. Rather than delineate the divide between the real and imaginary, the title suggests the presence of both, existing simultaneously. Live plants are shown alongside her sculptural ones. Representational forms based on nature are on view, along with shapes derived from the artist’s imagination—and from recollections tied to real life imagery. There are white steel vines and leaves, painted roots and stumps, pigmented expanded foam and lighting tubes that evoke light streaming through the landscape. Although Pfaff does not consider herself an environmental artist, the natural world can be felt throughout her practice, whether she is tending her own garden or making her work. Her interest lies beyond our visible surroundings. Indeed, the world that Pfaff has built within Wave Hill’s gallery extends further than the walls of the space, conjuring visions in the mind’s eye, and creating an entirely new space that is real, imaginary, and both at once.

Judy Pfaff: Real and Imaginary is organized by Gabriel de Guzman, Director of Arts and Chief Curator, with Rachel Raphaela Gugelberger, Curator of Visual Arts; and Afriti Bankwalla, Curatorial Administrative Assistant.

Meet the Artist: Judy Pfaff
Sat, Nov 16, 2024, 2:00 – 3:00PM

Glyndor Gallery is wheelchair-accessible. There is an accessible, ground-level entrance at the front of the building with an elevator that provides access to the gallery level. The Sunroom Project Space can be accessed with an ADA-compliant ramp. The restroom on the gallery level is all-gender and ADA-compliant.

  • Judy Pfaff

    Judy Pfaff headshot Peter Aaron slash OTTO

    Judy Pfaff

    Often cited as a pioneer of installation art and contributor to the Pattern and Decoration Movement, Judy Pfaff has created work that spans disciplines from painting to printmaking and sculpture to installation. Born in London in 1946, Pfaff earned a BFA from Washington University Saint Louis and an MFA from Yale University, where she studied with Al Held. She exhibited work in the Whitney Biennials of 1975, 1981, and 1987, and represented the United States in the 1998 São Paulo Bienal. Her pieces reside in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Gallery, Brooklyn Museum, and Detroit Institute of Arts, among others. She is currently represented by the Miles McEnery and Accola Griefen galleries in New York and has been previously represented by Holly Solomon, Carl Solway and Susanne Hilberry. She is the recipient of many awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center, the MacArthur Foundation Award, and the Guggenheim Fellowship. Pfaff lives and works in Tivoli, New York.

    Learn more about the artist: judypfaffstudio.com

    Photo: Peter Aaron /OTTO

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Meet the Artist: Judy Pfaff