David
Zwirner, 533 West 19th Street USA | NEW
YORK | CHELSEA
JUNE 27,
2017-JULY 21, 2017
David
Zwirner is pleased to announce a benefit exhibition in New York to support
Thread, a Senegal-based non-profit established in 2015 by The Josef and Anni
Albers Foundation. The exhibition will feature 28 works generously donated by
26 gallery artists and estates, as well as photographs by Giovanni Hänninen
depicting Thread and its surroundings. With this fundraiser, Thread will be
able to establish an endowment so that it can operate in perpetuity in the
region.
Opened in
March 2015, Thread is an artists' residency and community center in Sinthian, a
village in the southeastern region of Senegal with a population of nearly
1,000. The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation initiated the project in an
isolated part of sub-Saharan Africa to allow painters, dancers, photographers,
and other artists from all over the world, as well as from within Senegal, to
pursue their own work while also interacting with the local community.
Anni Albers
said "You can go anywhere from anywhere." In the two years since it
opened, Thread—like Black Mountain College and the Bauhaus, where Anni and
Josef both worked and taught—has proved her point.
Thread''s
collaborative enterprises with the people of the region have grown
significantly since its inception. Thread now provides agricultural training,
and is home to an unprecedented cooperative of some 135 local women who grow
and sell nutritious legumes and vegetables—thus eliminating, for the first
time, hunger during the season of famine, while also providing income to its
members. Thread has also become home to music and dance festivals, soccer
tournaments, daily study halls, English classes, and village meetings. In
addition, Thread, unlike other local spaces, offers a public gathering place
for the female population of Sinthian, as well as teenagers from the
surrounding area.
Since
Thread has opened, the resident population of Sinthian has grown—the exact
opposite of the prevalent trend of people moving away from the area and trying
to emigrate. Thread has added inestimable vibrancy, sustainability, and joy to
local life, creating bridges between the inhabitants of Sinthian and the
surrounding region with a global community of artists, writers, singers,
rappers, dancers, food specialists, and designers.
Contact
details
533 West
19th Street , Chelsea - New York, NY, USA 10011
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