Valeska Soares, On/Off

Valeska Soares
On/Off
2010
Marble with brass pull chain
AP 1 of 1; Edition of 10
Marble piece: 5-1/4 x 4-5/8 x 4-5/8 inches (13.34 x 11.75 x 11.75 cm)
Chain: 111 inches (281.94 cm)

Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist by APT

About the Artwork

Created in 2010, On/Off consists of a singular marble fixture and light bulb with a beaded chain that extends from it. The work is exemplary of Soares’ practice in which the Brazilian artist alters the nature of found objects and domestic items in order to subvert their original function. Informed by Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades, the present work addresses the question of how an ordinary object and its representation can be elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere intervention of the artist. In doing this, Soares advocates for open works that allow a variety of interpretations and that must be completed by the audience. As the artist herself has stated, “Each piece has multiple readings depending upon who is seeing it, or the context in which they are seeing it. There is no fixed meaning. What I want my pieces to be are triggers.”

About the Artist

Valeska Soares (b. 1957, Belo Horizonte) is a contemporary artist who currently lives and works in New York City. Soares received her Bachelor of Architecture from the Universidad Santa Úrsula, Rio de Janeiro, and a postgraduate diploma in the History of Art and Architecture from the Pontifical Universidad Católica.

Soares will be the subject of a major traveling museum survey in 2017, curated by Julie Joyce and debuting at The Santa Barbara Museum of Art as part of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time initiative.  She has been the subject of solo exhibitions a selection of which include Time Has No Shadows, The Jewish Museum, New York (2015); Follies, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, USA, travelled as Caprichos to Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO) Monterrey, Mexico (2003). Recent and forthcoming group exhibitions for the artist include Belle Haleine: The Scent of Art, Museum Tinguely, Basel (2015); Unbound: Contemporary Art After Frida Kahlo, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2014); Permission to be Global, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2013).

Soares’ works are included in important public collections around the world such as the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Fundació “la Caixa”, Barcelona; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.; Guggenheim Museum, NY; Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, PA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Tate Modern, London; Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporânea, Brumadinho, Brasil; Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; and The Progressive Art Collection, Mayfield Village, OH.