Grant Recipients Grants to Artists Visual Arts 2009

Gedi Sibony

A close up image of Gedi Sibony against an overexposed bright background. He has short brown hair and wears circular tortoise shell glasses. He looks upwards and opens his mouth slightly.

Frankly the world as I came into an understanding of it has already changed, and it will be my responsibility to follow the cause of the Foundation and pass the opportunity to younger artists whose visions may not be entirely clear to me but whose commitment and perseverance will demonstrate the necessity to support its pursuance... I sincerely thank you for the honor, and that money really did save my ass.

- Gedi Sibony, January 2010

Biography

Gedi Sibony is a visual artist. His sculptural works are made with found materials, including plywood, cardboard, garbage bags, and vinyl. He confronts what the formal expectation of a gallery exhibition and explores the possibilities of what constitutes artwork. The works in each exhibition space are arranged sparingly, allowing the materials and forms to inhabit the space.

Prior to receiving his 2009 FCA grant, Sibony's work was included in the Whitney Biennial (2006); If Surrounded by Foxes (2007), Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Switzerland which traveled to FRAC, Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France (2008); and Unmonumental, New Museum (2007). Subsequent to his 2009 Grants to Artists award, Sibony's work has been the subject of solo institutional exhibitions including My Arms Are Tied Behind My Other Arms, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (2009) and In the Still Epiphany (2012), a curatorial project at The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis. His international solo exhibitions have been held at Culturgest, Lisbon (2011); Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna (2012); Galerie Neu, Berlin (2012); Gladstone Gallery, Brussels (2013); and Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin (2014).

Sibony's work was also featured in the group exhibitions The More Things Change, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2010-11); All of this and nothing, Hammer Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles (2012); The Language of Less (Then & Now), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2012); and Memories: Some Favorite Objects, Cincinnati Art Museum (2013). His work is now in the collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Since receiving his 2009 Grants to Artists award, Sibony was honored with a Tiffany Foundation Award (2009). Prior to his 2009 FCA grant, Sibony was part of the MoMA PS1 National Studio Program (2000-2001); he held a Creative Residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida (2002); and he received a Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant (2004) and a Metcalf Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters (2006).

Sibony graduated with a B.A. from Brown University in 1995. He studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1999 and earned an M.F.A. from Columbia University in 2000.

An installation image of an exhibition room with white walls and grey floors. On the left, there is a vertical, rectangular frame, painted white. On the bottom of the frame, there are thin curved white objects that look like clouds. On the back wall, there are two overlapping large pieces of paper with a thin sheet of tissue paper covered with bits of brown tape resting atop. On the right wall, a thin, long, beige sheet hangs from the wall.
Installation view, the language of less, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2011.
An installation image of a white shelf composed of numerous, differently sized, white boxes stacked atop each other. On one of the bottom boxes, there is a small horizontal sheet of a reflective, grey material. On another shelf, higher up, there is a grey and white marbled vase. On the top, there is a white stone rectangular sculpture surrounding by a thin golden rood which outlines the square and then continues upwards, ending in a leaf like topper.
Installation view, In the Still Epiphany, Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, 2012.
An installation image of a sqaure sheet of a dark blue, metallic material. Atop this sheet, an irregular shape of a darker blue is overlayed. The bottom of this sheet has four arches cut out of it. On the upper right of this sheet, a semicircle is outlines with numerous evenly spaced small white dots. On the bottom of this dark blue shape, there are two drawn figures on a white background. String comes from each of these figures and attaches each of the figures to copper plus signs on the wall beneath the art piece.
Held by Hands, 2012, acrylic paint, canvas, foam core, brass, plaster, 51 1/8" x 51 1/8".
An installation image of a white walled exhibition space with grey and light red tiled floor. On the right, a grey wall is partially painted with white. The bottom of the wall is more consistently painted but the top of the wall has only a few dots. On the right of this wall, there is a doorframe surrounded by two sheets of hanging beige cloth. In the background, there is a white column with a fluted top.
The Cutters, 2007/2010, sheetrock wall, paint, hollow core door fragment, vinyl, canvas drop cloth, metallic tape, 137" x 164" x 13."