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RAE STERN
We continue our series of news and stories about the twelve women artists in NATURE/NURTURE focusing our eighth in the edition on Rae Stern.
Rae Stern and I met through Ceramic Top 40, the 2013 survey of contemporary ceramics organized to address the absence of documented, comprehensive, media specific surveys during that time. With support from Belger Arts, the exhibition was presented at their newly opened, expansive space in Kansas City, MO and again, in 2014 at the newly opened gallery of Office of the Arts, Harvard Ceramics.
Stern's work in CT40 show featured Web Souvenirs, a collaboration with Aya Margulis that used printed transfers on plates of images sourced from the internet. Attending the opening began a relationship with Belger Arts that led to the long term artist residency and enabled her to tackle the process of using photography, porcelain and lithopanes. The fall exhibition, In Fugue presented the resulting objects in 30 vignettes as a complete installation using images sourced from the community. Selected individual works are featured in Nature/Nurture at Ferrin Contemporary and an online exclusive on ARTSY.
Nature/Nurture, like Ceramic Top 40, is a survey exhibition that explores and documents the work of a group of artists at a specific moment in time. The nurturing role of survey exhibitions becomes more evident as careers evolve and interesting to note that five artists in the CT40 show are also included in our current exhibition, Nature/Nurture.
Cristina Cordova • Giselle Hicks • Lauren Mabry • Linda Sormin • Rae Stern
Due to the extended run of Nature/Nurture, we have been given the opportunity to reflect on paths taken, connections made and shared experiences in our now weekly series of FC News & Stories with each issue focusing on an individual artist in the exhibition. The ON NURTURE statements written by each artist acknowledges family, artist mentors, education and, particularly in Rae Stern's case, recognition of the importance of foundation support and artist residencies in the development of new works by individual artists.
Be Safe - Be Well - Stay in Touch
Leslie Ferrin
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Rae Stern: In Fugue, Belger Arts, 2019, installation view. Photo credit T. Maxwell Wagner
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ON NURTURE | Rae Stern
"Spending time at American art residencies has impacted my professional growth in unpredictable ways. Coming from a non-ceramic background, residencies allowed me to immerse myself in open-end exploration and experimentation with the medium. As an immigrant, spending time at these unique transient ecosystems offered an opportunity to build a professional network despite having graduated from a foreign school. One of the best experiences was the recent year-long residence at Belger Arts, KC, MO, during which I created the exhibition “Rae Stern: In Fugue”. The close mentorship from Evelyn Craft-Belger and the Belger Arts team was an empowering vote of confidence in my conceptual body of work as well as an unparalleled opportunity to step up the scope and technical complexity of my work."
- Rae Stern, 2020
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Rae Stern: In Fugue featured new, groundbreaking works in porcelain and paper. On view September 26, 2019 - February 8th, 2020 at the Belger Crane Yard Gallery, the exhibition focused on the elusive and ephemeral nature of memory as both a personal and universal phenomenon. Through the manipulation of translucent attributes of porcelain and paper, and with innovative use of digital technology, the works pose questions about the relationship between object, memory, and time.
VIEW MORE ON VIMEO
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In Fugue, select works from the series first presented at the Belger Arts Center are now featured in an online exhibition on the ARTSY digital platform.
Part of a recent body of work by Stern, the porcelain objects light up from within upon touch and expose hidden lithophanes. Stern collected the pre-WWII images from both her personal archive and through community outreach to people who suffered persecution during the war. The images depicted in the lithophanes often portray daily scenes from life in communities
across Europe that were later annihilated.
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Allen Lebovitz Vignette: The origins of resilience, 2019 was acquired by the Racine Art Museum and tells the story of Kate Lebovitz. Kate's family shared the news that she passed away last month at 92 years of age.
In memory of Kate & All Refugees.
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Kate’s daughter-in-law Susan Lebovitz said viewing so many pre-World War II pictures of Holocaust survivors and their loved ones who were killed depicted in such a beautiful and unique art form “almost seemed reverent.”
Rae’s attention to detail for period china, and display, and the art form itself illustrated how much she cares about this piece of work,” Susan Lebovitz said...."This young lady cares deeply for the past and wanted desperately to show how they lived with peace, joy and love in their lives...
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NATURE/NURTURE in Quarantine, IG Takeover: RAE STERN.
Cooped up in my apartment in NYC I miss my recent temporary studio @belgerarts where I worked during 2019 as the Visiting Artist. I had just come home to NYC a short while before the city shut down.
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These days I only leave my apartment for sanity walks in Central Park. Fortunately, I can continue some planned projects and research from home, but in order to create my installation art I can’t go long without a space to make a mess.
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Rae Stern: In Fugue
Select Works from In Fugue Available on our Online Shop.
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ABOUT RAE STERN
(b. 1981, Haifa, Israel, lives and works in New York, NY)
Rae Stern’s practice employs digital tools in the manipulation of multiple media including ceramics, photography, paper, and textiles. After a decade in the high-tech industry, her work is concerned with the social and cultural effects of technology. Between 2009 and 2018, Stern collaborated with Aya Margulis under the name Doda Design and created several bodies of work. Recent residencies include the Penland School of Crafts, Anderson Ranch, and Belger Crane Yard Studios. Stern has received grants from Asylum Arts, the Schusterman Foundation, and Belger Arts.
 Stern’s work has been exhibited internationally at the Eretz Israel Museum, (Tel Aviv, Israel), Belger Arts, (Kansas City, MO), Harvard University, (Cambridge, MA), and Medalta Museum, (Alberta, Canada). Her work is included in the collection of Eretz Israel Museum, as well as numerous private collections in Israel and the USA. Stern completed her undergraduate degree in psychology and communications at Tel Aviv University followed by a master’s degree in design from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design.
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Nature/Nurture is a group exhibition of twelve contemporary female artists invited to explore the influence of gender and its impact on their practice. The exhibition explores these ideas that range from direct interpretations of the natural world to more abstract notions, such as the construction of gender and the endowed role of women within their personal and professional careers. Works in clay range in form from individual vessels to composed still lifes and figural and abstract sculpture. This exhibition was extended due to COVID 19 which allowed the gallery and artists to engage in a dialog exploring the original issues surrounding gender but now through the lens of lives in #thetimeofcovid.
Open by appointment and will resume public hours when MASS MoCA reopens.
The NATURE/NURTURE series
NATURE/NURTURE | Group Show of 12 Women Artists
LESLIE FERRIN | Director Notes | Nature of Nurturing
CRISTINA CORDOVA | Nature/Nurture | PBS Craft in America – Identity
LAUREN MABRY | Nature/Nurture | Cylinders & Flow Blocks
ANINA MAJOR | Nature/Nurture | No Vacancy in Paradise
CRYSTAL MOREY | Nature/Nurture | Museum Acquisitions
MARA SUPERIOR | Nature/Nurture | Museum Acquistions
TRICIA ZIMIC | Nature/Nurture | Sins & Virtues
READ MORE HERE.
TAKE A VIRTUAL TOUR.
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