Joan Linder: Fulfillment

Cristin Tierney Gallery is pleased to present Fulfillment, a solo exhibition of new and recent work by Joan Linder. The exhibition opens Friday, June 21st with a reception from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, and will be on view through August 2nd. Fulfillment marks Linder’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. She will be present at the opening reception.

Fulfillment is a multimedia installation that examines aspects of the “hidden-in-plain-sight” landscapes of e-commerce, cloud computing, and crypto-mining, as well as the legal contracts that bind us to these technological systems. Both horrified and fascinated by the dematerialized digital systems of transaction and communication, Linder uses pen and paper to critically reconnect the digital world to one of tangible nature. Fulfillment includes the artist’s drawings, video and sculptures.

Linder largely draws from observation. For this exhibition, she visited e-commerce sites in Buffalo and Niagara, NY. On each of her trips, the artist drew the sites while sitting in her parked car outside the buildings. The resulting body of work consists of accordion books of drawings of crypto-mining warehouses, cloud computing server farms, fulfillment centers, and surrounding neighborhoods in Buffalo. The landscapes will be accompanied by a selection of hand-drawn text facsimiles of “terms of service” and “email communications” with ubiquitous digital platforms, such as Amazon and Meta.

Completing the exhibition are Linder’s handmade paper reproductions of discarded Amazon shipping boxes. Made from ink, paint and watercolor on archival cotton paper, the boxes are life-size and form near-perfect replicas of the actual objects. Each box carries marks that trace and reflect their material history, from supply chain to fulfillment center to user. In examining the multiple components of the e- commerce supply chain, Fulfillment highlights the heavy physical toll carried by our digital behaviors.

Joan Linder (b. 1970, Ossining, NY) is known for her labor-intensive drawings that contain thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of tiny lines. She has exhibited at Albright College, Faulconer Gallery at Grinnell College, Queens Museum of Art at Bulova Corporate Center, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Omi International Art Center, Institute of the Humanities at University of Michigan, Sun Valley Art Center, University of the Arts, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, Handwerker Gallery at Ithaca College and more.

Linder’s work is held in the collections of Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Davis Museum, Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, Progressive Corporation, The New York Department of Education, Ewing Gallery of Art at University of Tennessee, The West Collection, Orange County Museum of Art, The Gwangju Art Museum, and the Zabludowicz Collection. She studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from Tufts University. Among her many awards and fellowships are residencies at MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Smack Mellon, Ucross Foundation, Art Omi, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, plus a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant. The artist maintains a studio in Buffalo, NY.

Founded in 2010, Cristin Tierney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located on The Bowery with a deep commitment to the presentation, development, and support of a roster of both established and emerging artists. Its program emphasizes artists engaged with critical theory and art history, with an emphasis on conceptual, video, and performance art. Education and audience engagement is central to our mission. Cristin Tierney Gallery is a member of the ADAA (Art Dealers Association of America).

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