Jointly organized by the Institute for Advanced Study at CEU and the Visual Studies Platform.
My work stands on the shoulders of the feminist movement of the 1970s. My roots are deeply embedded in this generation where making work about domesticity, autobiography, hand-made crafts, and the decorative was a political statement. When women started breaking the rules about who they had to be, and artists started breaking the rules about what art had to be. I am not afraid to make art that some would call decorative or about adornment; however, the term Baroque is more fitting. My work has always been about abundance and accumulation. The installation provided the greatest elasticity in a time when flexibility, protest, and re-inventions were part of the psychological culture. It enabled me to gather seemingly unrelated thoughts, techniques, and passions within one playing field. Process, reflection, metaphor, materials, and the visual translation of issues about time and the human condition are at the core of the work. Working with others to produce labor-intensive environmental projects derives from my deliberate effort to "slow down time." In a fast paced and technologically interconnected non-stop world what I attempt, with the support of others, is to produce work using repetitive, ritualized, hand-made and primarily low tech creative techniques, like meditation practice, encourage viewers to step outside their everyday always pressing concerns. Art and social practice is a conversation at the fore of the contemporary art dialogue, yet, I am clear that my contribution is one that quietly nurtures and hopefully offers hope within an environment that promotes an unorthodox sense of beauty.
Margery Amdur is professor of fine arts at Rutgers University. Over her career, she has had 60 solo and two-person exhibitions. Her most recent and near future projects include an installation at the Philadelphia International Airport (My Nature), and an installation at Central European University to be unveiled on December 9, 2015.
