New York, NY (February 23, 2018) — Presented Presented by Friends of the High Line, High Line Art is pleased to announce a new High Line Commission by Dorothy Iannone, a Berlin-based American artist whose works focus on eroticism and the female sexual experience. Inspired by Egyptian frescoes, Byzantine mosaics, and ancient fertility statues, Iannone depicts the act of lovemaking not as an act of taboo, but rather as an act of spiritual union and transcendence. While now commonly lauded as transgressive and radical, her work, which often portrays her love affair with the late artist Dieter Roth, has been subject to frequent censorship since the 1960s. Iannone and Roth began creating work side-by-side after Iannone moved to Europe in 1967, and the two artists influenced each other’s works greatly for almost a decade. Overlooked for much of her career, Iannone’s magnetic and highly influential work finally began to receive widespread recognition in the late 2000s.
For the High Line, Iannone creates a new large-scale mural installation at 22nd Street. Iannone’s mural features three colorful Statues of Liberty. Between them run the words “I Lift My Lamp Beside the Golden Door,” which is the final line from Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus,” the ode to the freedom promised by immigration to America engraved on a bronze plaque mounted inside the statue at Liberty Island. While Iannone’s piece was conceived before the recent months of upheaval in the United States around immigration, an already contested topic, these recent debates have raised the Statue of Liberty anew as a symbol of the openness of New York City and the United States to those seeking asylum, freedom, or simply a better life. Iannone’s vibrant Liberties bring a bit of joy to an often exhausting and demoralizing political debate.
“My first Statue of Liberty painting in 1976 presented a mighty woman with a torch who had, historically, in the feminine spirit of generosity and compassion, lifted her lamp before the golden door and offered welcome to the poor and tired of the world, yearning to breathe free,” says Iannone. “And now, some forty years later, Friends of the High Line has given me the privilege of enhancing an iconic public space. This time, my Liberties no longer stress their gender, because the times and our deepest needs have changed. Now, responding to the violence or indifference toward the pain of the others, and to the lack of recognition of their humanity, my Liberties cry.”
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Dorothy Iannone (b. 1933, Boston, Massachusetts) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Recent solo exhibitions have been presented at venues including the Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris, France (2016); Migros Museum, Zurich, Switzerland (2014); Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, Germany (2014); Camden Arts Centre, London, England (2013); Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2013); the New Museum, New York City (2009); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austrai (2006); and The Wrong Gallery, Tate Modern, London, England (2005). Iannone’s work has been included in group exhibitions at institutions such as MAMCO, Geneva, Switzerland (2017); Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), São Paulo, Brazil (2017); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); and Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany (2015). Her work has been featured in major international exhibitions including the 2nd Athens Biennal, Athens, Greece (2009); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2006); Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2005); Friends of Fluxus Exhibition, collateral event to the 48th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (1999); and Daniel Spoerri, Moulin des Jouissances, collateral event to the 37th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (1976).
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