New Museum unveils summer exhibitions: Lynn Hershman Leeson, Wong Ping, and Ed Atkins

The New Museum presents its summer exhibitions featuring the work of groundbreaking artists: Lynn Hershman Leeson, Wong Ping, and Ed Atkins. The three artists are multi-faceted artists all working within various forms of media.

Learn more about the summer exhibitions and plan your visit here: newmuseum.org
New Museum
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002

Lynn Hershman Leeson

Multi-media artist Lynn Hershman Leeson (b. 1941, Cleveland, OH) is shown on the ground and second floors of the museum. Her work is an extensive and exhaustive study into notions of the self and technology long before it became reality with the advent of social media.

Her later work, “The Infinity Engine (2014– present),” similar to her earlier cyborg work, “Cyborg” (1996– 2006), investigates the relationship between the real (in the later case, genetics) and technology (gene editing). This ultimately led her to code and store all of her work into DNA – the vial becomes a work prominently displayed behind a sealed laboratory door in the exhibit.

Code

She also, in collaboration with a Swiss scientist, created her own antibody aptly named the HERSHMANLEESON antibody which was genetically constructed from her name. Incredibly, it had a functional role in cell health just as an artist does against toxins in a social environment. As Hershman Leeson posited in 1998:

“Imagine a world in which there is a blurring between the soul and the chip, a world in which artificially implanted DNA is genetically bred to create an enlightened and self-replicating intelligent machine, which perhaps uses a human body as a vehicle for mobility.”

Lynn Hershman Leeson

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The Infinity Engine: Glo Cat, 2013
Digital print
40 x 30 in (101.6 x 76.2 cm)
Courtesy the artist; Bridget Donahue, New York; and Altman Siegel, San Francisco

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CybeRoberta, 1996
Custom-made doll, clothing, glasses, webcam, surveillance camera, mirror, original programming, and telerobotic head-rotating system
Aprox. 17 3⁄4 x 17 3⁄4 x 8 in (45 x 45 x 20 cm) Courtesy the artist; Bridget Donahue, New York; and Altman Siegel, San Francisco

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Roberta’s Construction Chart 1, 1975
Archival digital print and dye transfer
35 3⁄4 x 23 3⁄4 in (90.5 x 60 cm)
Frame: 41 3⁄4 x 29 1⁄2 in (106 x 74.9 cm)
Courtesy the artist; Bridget Donahue, New York; and Altman Siegel, San Francisco

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Seduction of a Cyborg, 1994
Video, color, sound; 5:52 min
Courtesy the artist; Bridget Donahue, New York; and Altman Siegel, San Francisco

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Seduction, 1985
Gelatin silver print
16 x 23 in (40.6 x 58.4 cm)
Frame: 25 1⁄4 x 32 1⁄4 in (64.1 x 81.9 cm) Courtesy the artist; Bridget Donahue, New York; and Altman Siegel, San Francisco

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Synthia Stock Ticker, 2000
Network-based multimedia artwork
15 x 11 1⁄4 x 11 1⁄4 in (38 x 28.6 x 28.6 cm) Courtesy the artist; Bridget Donahue, New York; and Altman Siegel, San Francisco

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X-Ray Man, 1970
Acrylic, graphite, Letraset, and Plexiglas on wood
41 1⁄2 x 29 1⁄2 in (105.5 x 75 cm)
Private collection, The Netherlands. Courtesy Paul Van Esch and Partners, Amsterdam

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The Electronic Diaries, 1984–2019

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Giggling Machine, Self-Portrait as Blonde,
1968
Wax, wig, makeup, feathers, Plexiglas, wood, and sound
16 1⁄2 x 16 1⁄2 x 13 in (41.9 x 41.9 x 33 cm) Courtesy the artist; Bridget Donahue, New York; and Altman Siegel, San Francisco

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The Infinity Engine: Lynn Hershman DNA,
2018
Digital Print
10 1⁄2 x 7 in (26.7 x 17.8 cm)
Framed: 12 x 8 in (30.5 x 20.3 cm)
Courtesy the artist; Bridget Donahue, New York; and Altman Siegel, San Francisco

Ed Atkins‘ (b. 1982, Oxford, United Kingdom) work explores the relationship between the “corporeal and the digital, the ordinary and the uncanny” by way of CGI, writings, and sound montages. He reconsiders what human communication looks like behind the everyday curtain of technology that we are bound by. Installed on the Fourth Floor gallery, “The Worm (2021)” is a CGI film created during the pandemic that questions the limits of representation and human relationships.

“I think of it as augmented and simulated sentiment, comparing and supplementing it with those objects and materials we might more familiarly expect to surrogate our love.”

Ed Atkins

Ed Atkins

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