News

Exhibition at Slag Contemporary, Brooklyn, NY
June 3 – July 17, 2016
With Passion, curated by Naomi Lev and Jovana Stokic
Opening reception: Friday, June 3, 7–9pm

NARS International Artist Residency Program, Brooklyn, NY
April – June 2016

Exhibition at the NARS Foundation, Brooklyn, NY
May 13 – June 10, 2016
Converging Paths, Objects, and Selves, curated by Eriola Pira 
Opening reception: Friday, May 13, 6-8pm

Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) Program, The Bronx Museum of the Arts
January – April 2016

Review in Hyperallergic
July 23, 2015

"A similar spread of strange objects awaits in Alisha Wessler‘s two table-top installations, though of a distinctly more mystical sort. One includes seedpods, the remains of birds, wasps’ nests, and a squirrel tail, while the other, “After the Soldiers and Shrikes” (2015), consists of a quasi-modernist geometric arrangement of honey locust thorns. (If Walter De Maria hadn’t died, but had merely been miniaturized in a freak shrinking ray accident, he might have made something that looked like this.) Considering these artifacts feels like peering into some foreign culture’s Wunderkammer, or analyzing the evidence gathered at the site of a pagan ritual. The threat of violence lurking in the beautiful honey locust thorns is not merely a product of their incredible sharpness and presentation reminiscent of arrowheads in a history museum; the thorns were used by Confederate soldiers during the Civil War to pin together their tattered uniforms, and the small carnivorous birds called shrikes are known to impale their prey on them. These stories might be impossible to discern without the helpful wall text provided, but the elegance and simplicity of “After the Soldiers and Shrikes” is deeply satisfying as its own formal end."

— Benjamin Sutton, "Dissecting and Detecting Stories in Found Objects and Remnants," Hyperallergic, July 23, 2015.

After the Soldiers and Shrikes, Honey locust thorns, 2015

Exhibition at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY 
June 13 – July 26, 2015
Story of a Story, curated by Shlomit Dror

Opening Reception at Smack Mellon
Saturday, June 13, 5 – 8pm

Artist and Curator Talk
Saturday, July 25, 4 – 6pm
Storytelling Through Objects: Eduardo Gil, Alisha Wessler and Brett Day Windham in conversation with Shlomit Dror

"As a closing event for the group exhibition Story of a Story, this conversation will highlight the artworks of three artists, who use found objects in their installation as a way of communicating different stories and events. Working with a range of everyday materials and excluding texts, plots or characters, the arrangement and manipulation of these items function as literary devices and suggest fragmented narratives, sharpening and deepening the viewers’ act of looking and 'reading into things.' The story behind each object either documents a specific moment or is suggestive of fictitious scenarios, challenging both the object’s and the narrative’s origin and authenticity."

Wave Hill Winter Workspace Residency, Bronx, NY 
January – February 2015

Open Studios at Wave Hill
Saturday, February 21, 2015

Interview with David Xu Borgonjon, Curatorial Fellow at Wave Hill: “Wondering, Not Knowing: An Interview with Alisha Wessler”

Exhibition at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, MI 
September 19, 2014 – January 4, 2015
Highly Recommended: Emerging Sculptors

"This exhibition surveys the complexities and diversity of sculpture today through the innovative efforts of developing sculptors. Sixteen artists from Europe, the United States and the Middle East have been carefully selected to showcase work in a wide variety of material, from the traditions of bronze and steel, to the innovative use of light and copper wire."

Group exhibition at Gowanus Studio Space, Brooklyn, NY 
March 20 – 23, 2014
Discrete Geometry, Curated by Maggie Barrett and Jody Joyner
166 7th Street, Brooklyn, NY

"Discrete Geometry presents the work of nine artists working across sculpture, video, installation, and painting. The works in the exhibition converse and converge around qualities of color, pattern, and material."

Curiovan, traveling exhibition
January 2014
Work displayed in a mobile museum and wunderkammer housed inside a 1922 Thomson caravan in England

Pictures on Surrounding Objects
October 2013
Pictures on Surrounding Objects is an offset-printed book of drawings and collages based on the 19th century pseudo-science of psychometry.
It is now available in the following places: 

Artexte (Montreal)
Quimby’s (Chicago)
City Lights (San Francisco)
Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, SAIC (Chicago)
Virginia Commonwealth University Book Art Collection (Richmond)

RE: Day Job (Don’t Quit Your?)
May 17 - June 29, 2013
Group exhibition at Work Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI
The show features the work of 11 recent graduates from the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design and Cranbrook Academy of Art

From Afar It Is an Island
Solo exhibition at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, Ann Arbor, MI
March 15 - June 16, 2013

MOCAD, Detroit, MI
December 7, 2012
Monster Drawing Rally, a live drawing event and fundraiser for MOCAD

Interview with Stacia Yeapanis on the OtherPeoplesPixels Blog
October 4, 2012

May 1 - July 30, 2012
I am pleased to announce that I have received a Rackham International Research Award and a Smucker-Wagstaff Creative Work Research Grant to fund my project, "(Re)collection and Representation in Yugoslav History Museums,” which focuses on museums and other sites of memory pertaining to former Yugoslavia and its socialist past.

Topophilia
September 9 - October 7, 2011
Co-curated with Kayla Romberger at Work Gallery in Detroit, MI

This exhibition proposes explorations on the theme of Topophilia, a term coined by geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, defined as the “emotional connections between physical environment and human beings.”
Topophilia showcases work by both national and international artists, including Richard Mosse (New York/Ireland), Soo Shin (Chicago), Philip Topolovac (Berlin), Yumiko Ono (Tokyo/Prague), Ajit Chauhan and Val Britton (San Francisco).

Philip Topolovac, Berge, 2008

NÁVŠTEVNÍCI / THE VISITORS
June 6 - August 7, 2011
Group exhibition at MeetFactory Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic

Residency at MeetFactory International Centre of Contemporary Art, Prague, Czech Republic
May - July 2011
Two-month residency thanks to the generous funding provided by the University of Michigan

Solo Exhibition at Container Corps, Portland, OR
July 8th, 2010
Exhibition and book release for Der Struwwelpeter at Container Corps

Yeti Magazine
August 2010
Drawings and interview with Mike McGonigal featured in Yeti Magazine, Issues #8 and #9
Available online and through book and record shops nationwide

Back Channels
July 3 - August 1, 2009
Two-person show with Evan B. Harris at Johansson Projects, Oakland, CA