Each year the Abrons provides 11 months of free studio space, starting in late September, to five New York City visual artists and one curator under the AIRspace residency program. Among the artists selected for this residency are painters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors, and video and installation artists.

Along with workspace, the visual artists and curators in residence receive studio visits with distinguished artists, critics, and curators, access to teaching and community-based projects, as well as an open studios event and this culminating group exhibition. The AIRspace 2011 exhibition features new work by current artists Veronica Frenning, Yeon Jin Kim, Beth Livensperger, Nyeema Morgan, and Austin Shull. Opening concurrently with this group exhibition is Miguel Martin: All Good in The Manhood, curated by AIRspace curator in residence Miguel Amado.

Veronica Frenning creates sculptures and installations using ceramics, mixed media, and found objects. Her current body of work consists of small-scale pieces whose inspiration stems from everyday objects, shapes and routines. These become the scaffolding or formwork for the clay. There is a large degree of chance during the firing process, which creates a tension and fragility in her pieces. This process also allows the work to be imbued with a cumulative memory and patina of its making.

Yeon Jin Kim’s practice employs traditional drawing and sculptural techniques to construct long scroll drawings and elaborate three-dimensional models. She then films the scrolls and environments, usually in a single long take to produce narrative videos. The delineation of every square inch her intensely rendered imagery creates a charged, mildly hallucinogenic atmosphere. The handmade, low-tech quality of her work avoids the spectacular effects of Hollywood.

Beth Livensperger’s most recent body of work focuses on objects and spaces seen through glass. The painted reflections cause the image to fluctuate between flatness and depth. The paintings may be of American period furniture and sculpture from the Metropolitan Museum, or a poster on a restaurant wall. The work engages immediate material fact, but also distance in both time and place.

Nyeema Morgan is a New York based artist whose multi disciplinary practice is engaged with epistemological systems and their hierarchical structure. In her work, which references familiar images, artifacts and data, she questions information’s conceptual value by rupturing its formal and structural gravitas.

Austin Shull’s installations, sculptures, videos and photography, explore the contingent relationships between the social, cultural and political, in relation to the continual reproduction of fractured narratives, biased meta-histories, affects and experiences represented through dominant media and cultural institutions.