Peggy Preheim: Little Black Book

Opening: Sunday, September 14, 2008. 3 to 5 pm

ALDRICH PRESENTS FIRST MUSEUM SURVEY OF PEGGY PREHEIM'S WORK

The Aldrich is pleased to present Peggy Preheim: Little Black Book, the first Museum exhibition to fully explore the wide range of Preheim's very delicate and intensely private work. The exhibition will remain on view through February 8, 2009.

The survey, curated by Aldrich director Harry Philbrick, includes about seventy-five drawings, paintings, sculptural objects, and photographs created between the years 1984 and 2007.

Best known for her exquisitely rendered pencil drawings on paper—and occasionally on various international bank notes—Peggy Preheim also creates figurative sculpture and photographs. Her meticulous sculptural assemblages often feature white clay figures and found objects, including furniture, doll's clothes, and Victorian glass. Her atmospheric black and white photographs are based on her sculptural work. At the core of Preheim's art is her drawing; small-scale, tightly rendered work that explores highly nuanced imagery related to memory, sexuality, aging, and the complex inner relationship of childhood to adulthood.

Of the title Preheim says, "I think Little Black Book can serve as a provocative and enigmatic summing up of the work in the exhibition. This concept can refer to many things: for me, it refers to the closing of one chapter and the opening of another; the acquisition of language; the 'book' which appears in some of my allegorical drawings points to the Book of Revelations."

The Aldrich will host a public reception on Sunday, September 14, 2008, from 3 to 5 pm to celebratePeggy Preheim: Little Black Book as well as five other new exhibitions, including Huma Bhabha: 2008 Emerging Artist Award Exhibition; Karin Davie: Symptomania; Lars Fisk: Trashbags; Paul Ramírez Jonas: ABRACADABRA—I Create as I Speak; Video A, Miguel Soares: Jumping Nauman—The Exhibitions of Bruce Nauman in 2006 and Letha Wilson: 16 Possibilities for an 8 Minute Car Drive (Shelburne, Nova Scotia). Elizabeth Peyton: Portrait of an Artist will also be on view. Refreshments will be served. Free round-trip transportation from New York City is available for members.

Following its Aldrich debut, Peggy Preheim: Little Black Book will travel to the Philbrook Museum, Tulsa, OK (May 17 to July 26, 2009), and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (October 31, 2009, to January 3, 2010).

Aldrich exhibitions are supported, in part, by the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Artist: Born in Yankton, South Dakota, Peggy Preheim now lives and works in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. She studied at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, 1981 to 1983. Preheim's work is included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, amongst others. Her recent solo exhibitions have been seen at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; g-module, Paris; and Works on Paper, Los Angeles. Recent group exhibitions include New Directions in American Drawing, The Columbus Museum, Georgia; traveling to Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, and Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee; Transitional Objects: Contemporary Still Life, Neuberger Museum, Purchase, New York; Does Size Matter?, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis; Through the looking glass, Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich; Configured, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery; Happy Birthday to Me, g-module; and Past Presence: Childhood and Memo ry, Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria. Preheim is represented by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.

Peggy Preheim
Little Black Book

Stationen:
14.09.08 - 08.02.09 Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
17.05.09 - 26.07.09 Philbrook Museum, Tulsa
31.10.09 - 03.01.10 Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Ithaca