THE MOSS ROOM

CURATED BY KATE ORNE + co-organized by kasmin gallery

SEPT 13 – nov 18, 2024

On view September 13 through November 18, 2024 with Tour Participation and during special programs and events.

Manitoga / The Russel Wright Design Center and Upstate Diary are pleased to announce THE MOSS ROOM, a two-person exhibition of outdoor sculpture by Alma Allen (b. 1970, Utah) and Bosco Sodi (b. 1970, Mexico City) situated in the quarry landscape of the National Landmark Manitoga (Garrison, New York) from September 13 through November 18, 2024. THE MOSS ROOM observes the connections to this unique property and links these artists’ distinctive practices, highlighting Allen and Sodi’s experimental approach to form and material that engages a dynamic history of the natural world and draws especially from the landscape of the Americas. The exhibition was curated by Kate Orne, founder of Upstate Diary, and co-organized by Kasmin Gallery.

ABOUT ALMA ALLEN

Allen’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Palm Springs Art Museum in California, and his first monograph was published by Rizzoli Electa in 2020. The artist participated in the 2014 Whitney Biennial where he gained recognition and a wider discovery of his work. In 2018, the Palm Springs Art Museum in California opened the two-person exhibition In Conversation: Alma Allen & JB Blunk, which traveled to the Nevada Museum of Art in 2019. In 2021, Kasmin staged an exhibition of Allen’s sculpture, encompassing both an indoor exhibition space and the Kasmin Sculpture Garden on the gallery’s rooftop in New York. Allen’s first exhibition in Europe was mounted by Mendes Wood DM in the same year, installed in the gallery’s Brussels venue as well as that city’s Van Buuren Museum & Gardens, and remained on view through early 2022. Later in 2022, Allen’s work was installed in the iconic central plaza at Rockefeller Center, New York. Allen’s solo exhibition entitled Nunca Solo opened in February 2023 at Museo Anahuacalli in Mexico City. Staged in the museum founded by Diego Rivera to house his collection of pre-Columbian art, the exhibition brought together new works across the museum’s garden and gallery spaces, recently renovated to realize Rivera’s vision of establishing a contemporary arts center integrated into its natural surroundings. Read more in Upstate Diary.

ABOUT BOSCO SODI

Bosco Sodi has exhibited his work internationally and throughout the United States. In 2022, the Fondazione dell’Albero d’Oro organized the solo exhibition What Goes Around Comes Around at the Palazzo Vendramin Grimani in Venice, Italy. The University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum in Tampa staged the solo exhibition Básico in the same year. In 2021, Sodi opened a major sculpture show in the garden at Dallas Museum of Art, and completed his second public installation, Tabula Rasa, in Washington Square Park. Other notable institutional exhibitions include ergo sum, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Spain (2020); Por los siglos de los siglos, Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City (2017); Museum of Stones, the Noguchi Museum, New York (2015); and Pangea, Bronx Museum, New York (2010). His work is in significant public and private collections worldwide including the JUMEX Collection, Mexico; the Contemporary Art Foundation, Japan; the Harvard Art Museum, Massachusetts; the Nasher Sculpture Center, Texas; the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; the Walker Art Center, Minnesota; the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Connecticut; the New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, among others. Read more in Upstate Diary.

KATE ORNE + UPSTATE DIARY
A photographer and former editor at Interview magazine, Kate Orne is the founder and editor of Upstate Diary, a biannual international publication created in 2015, which features artists who live and work close to nature. Past curations include RENEW in Hudson, NY (2023), an exhibition that invited artists to investigate renewable materials in the world around them with artists Sam Falls, Kat Howard, Kieran Kinsella, Kiva Motnyk, and Dana Sherwood; and In 3s at Blue Barn, Stone Ridge, NY (2022), including ten rurally based artists working primarily in natural materials – Jeremy Anderson, Irja Bodén, Neal Hollinger, Kat Howard, Christopher Kurtz, Jason Middlebrook, Peter Speliopoulos, Kentaro Takashina, Joshua Vogel, Nadia Yaron. Orne has lived in the Hudson Valley since 2009.

ABOUT KASMIN
Kasmin was founded in New York in 1989 and today represents over forty internationally renowned artists and estates. Placing the work of leading contemporary artists in dialogue with that of historic 20th-century figures, its program reveals throughlines between practices that span multiple generations and disciplines. Kasmin has built a reputation for unwavering support of its artists’ visions, nurturing the careers of eminent contemporary artists and advocating for the enduring relevance of historical work through the representation of their Estates and Foundations. Kasmin’s two primary gallery spaces are situated in the heart of Chelsea. Additionally, on the building’s rooftop, the Kasmin Sculpture Garden program is visible from The High Line, furthering the gallery’s history of presenting large-scale sculpture and engaging in varied public art projects.

The 2024 Art + Design Residency installation THE MOSS ROOM, is made possible, in part, through support from the Sara Little Turnbull Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Manitoga’s Board of Directors & Leadership Council, and the 2024 Art & Design Host Committee.