Curated by Lumi Tan

Time and space in the urban setting are often highly regimented, with different moments and places typically allocated for specific behaviors, both public and private. Yet often overlooked in any such structure is the personal history carried within each individual, which inevitably informs her or his experience at the same time that it offers the possibility of reshaping the use of any site. Taking its title from anthropologist Mary Douglas’s analyses of how disturbances arise in the city’s physical contours and social order, Matter Out of Place presents new work by New York–based artists who observe, represent, and activate public sites, generating alternative relationships to such strictly defined spaces as the housing project, park, and museum lobby. Artists include Paul Branca, Frank Heath, David Horvitz, Fawn Krieger, Sara Jordenö (in collaboration with Amber Horning), and Anna Lundh.

This exhibition is made possible with support from Dedalus Foundation Inc., The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.