SWOON

Pseudonym of the American artist Caledonia Dance Curry (b. New London 1978). One of the most established American artists on the international urban art scene, she has lived and worked in the Brooklyn district of New York since the age of nineteen. The images created by Swoon are hand-engraved on wood or linoleum and printed with black ink on recycled printing paper or on a special waxed paper resistant to atmospheric agents, to then be shaped and installed on the wall. In some cases the print leaves room for delicate and ornamental paper cutouts. Her works, aimed at transmitting multiple directions of dialogue and connection with the space and the surrounding public, find their most typical conformation in the portrait of ordinary people, captured as bearers of essential emotions, outlined by a graphic style that recalls that of Indonesian prints. In 2005 her work came to international attention after the exhibition held in Jeffrey Deitch's New York space, which later in 2011 invited her as one of the protagonists of the Art in the streets exhibition at the Moca in Los Angeles. Starting from the same year, S.'s artistic research turned to a more pronounced performative, installation and design activity, with characteristics of participation and collective activism, highlighting in this phase social and humanitarian interests. This matrix includes projects such as "Swimming Cities", which includes Swimming cities of Serenissima, a large performance that reflects on the themes of reuse and sharing and which in 2009 saw boats built with waste materials land in the Gulf of Venice, on the occasion of the 53rd Biennale, inhabited by a collective composed of artists from different backgrounds. The predilection for recycled and natural materials, as well as the collaborative attitude, is also found in the initiative “Konbit Shelter”, a sustainable architecture intervention carried out in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake with the external support of a team of architects and engineers. The notoriety and recognition acquired by the American artist are demonstrated on the institutional front by personal exhibitions promoted by accredited institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum, where in 2014 she staged Submerged motherlands, and by the presence of her works in the collections of some of the most important American and international contemporary art museums, such as the Moma in New York and the Tate in London