News
Exhibition at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum
July 2–September 10, 2023
Horizonte
Kartäusergasse 1, Nuremberg, Germany
Fellowship at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum
April 1–July 1, 2023
Three-month residency and fellowship at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum
Nuremberg, Germany
Solo Exhibition at Galerie Tator
June 10–July 27, 2022
To Leave is to Die a Little
36 rue d’Anvers, Lyon, France
In partnership with Moly-Sabata (Fondation Albert Gleizes, Sablons)
Opening reception: Thursday, June 9, 6-9pm
“To Leave is to Die a Little is a series of sculptures and drawings which use Ain river clay as their initial point of departure. The clay was bright blue and submerged in water when the artist chanced upon it on a day trip from Lyon, causing her to mistakenly believe it was vivianite, a semi-rare mineral known for its vivid blue appearance and its transitional nature. This confusion led her down a path into the rich poetics and history of vivianite. For example, the mineral is the result of what is left behind—’whether it be human or animal waste, decomposing organic matter, or human/animal bones and tissue.’ (Melonie Ancheta)…”
- from the exhibition text by Maggie Barrett, May 2022
Résidence à Moly-Sabata
March 28–April 28, 2022
One-month residency at Moly-Sabata, (Fondation Albert Gleizes); supported by Galerie Tator
Sablons, France
Résidence à LeGrandLarge
October 1, 2021–March 28, 2022
Six-month residency at LeGrandLarge, supported by Fondation Bullukian
Lyon, France
Online Exhibition at Chasm Journal
September 7, 2020–ongoing (physical exhibition TBD)
Shady Parts, curated by JC Holburn
“Shade as affordance—shade as respite—shade in contours—shade in excess—shade becoming and withdrawing—shade thrown—shade reaching into the recesses of our isolation and despair. This assemblage of imagery and verse is intended as a collective divination—a friendly reminder to our shadow selves as they hover within and beyond us—a reckoning between the corporeal and the transcendent.”
Exhibition at Galerie Tator
June 4–August 30, 2020
Confins, curated by Marie Bassano
36 rue d’Anvers, Lyon, France
Opening reception: Thursday, July 2, 6-9pm
Work featured in Chronique Curiosité
June 1, 2020
New work featured in the French blog and newsletter Chronique Curiosité, edition 2020 Semaine 23.
“Alisha Wessler (américaine née en 1983) s'inscrit dans un appétit ethnographique à détailler les indices, produisant elle-même les artefacts de la société qu'elle ausculte. Les dispositions muséales nourrissent ses arrangements, qui prennent plus de saveur encore lorsqu'ils retournent les choses.”
— Joël Riff, curator and founder of Chronique Curiosité
Résidence à la Factatory
May 11–September 6, 2020
Four-month residency at la Factatory
Lyon, France
Exhibition at Galerie Kashagan
January 9–February 29, 2020
Binarités, curated by Julie Escoffier
12 Rue des Capucins, Lyon, France
Opening reception: Thursday, January 9, 2020, 6-9pm
Exhibition at the Museum of Moscow
July 11–August 25, 2019
Cosmorama XVIII, curated by Sergey Khachaturov
Work included as part of an installation with the artist collective North-7.
The exhibition, "Cosmorama XVIII" is dedicated to the Russian writer, inventor and Illusionist Vladimir Odoyevsky, and contains 18th and 19th century artifacts from the museum’s collection, as well as works by contemporary artists, and performances by actors and musicians.
The Museum of Moscow, Zubovsky Boulevard, 2, Moscow, Russia
Solo Exhibition at Kunsthalle Nummer Sieben, St. Petersburg
July 2–5, 2019
The Spherical Book, curated by Anna Zavediy
Kunsthalle Nummer Sieben, Bolshaya Zelenina Ulitsa, 21, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Opening reception: Tuesday, July 2, 7–9pm
Residency at the National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) in Kronstadt, St. Petersburg, Russia
June 1–30, 2019
One-month residency at National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) Residency in Kronstadt
St. Petersburg, Russia
Artist Talk at Montserrat College of Art
Monday, October 1, 2018, 11:30 am–12:20 pm
Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA
Exhibition at Montserrat College of Art
October 1–November 20, 2018
Trace Matter, curated by Nathan Lewis, Director of Exhibitions and Programs
Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA
Opening reception: Thursday, October 11, 5–8 pm
Review in the Philadelphia Inquirer
August 10, 2018
”Matt Neff and Alisha Wessler make a sympathetic pairing in Legerdemain, an exhibition curated by Kayla Romberger for Tiger Strikes Asteroid...Wessler, of New York, transforms everyday found objects into uncanny ones. Both artists obfuscate the familiar through staging and trickery.”
— Edith Newhall, “Arts & Culture,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 10, 2018.
Two-Person Exhibition at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Philadelphia
July 20–September 8, 2018
Legerdemain: Matt Neff & Alisha Wessler, organized by Kayla Romberger
Tiger Strikes Asteroid (TSA) Gallery, Crane Arts Building, 1400 N. American Street, Philadelphia, PA
Opening reception: Thursday, August 9, 6–9pm
Viewing hours: Friday 12pm–4pm and Saturday 2pm–6pm and by appointment
Exhibition at Hercules Art/Studio Program, Tribeca NYC
June 6–28, 2018
Asterisms, a collaborative exhibition and research site by the artists of Sprechgesang Institute; Organized by Christopher Lin and Sarah K Williams
25 Park Place, New York, NY
Opening reception: Wednesday, June 6, 6–9pm
Tribeca Art + Culture Night: Thursday, June 21, 7–9pm
A continuation of Extended Techniques, an experimental lecture by Sprechgesang Institute focusing on nontraditional uses of conventional objects or tools, Asterisms will be the active site for unexpected hybridizations of categorical knowledge, a break from normalized interpretations of experience.
Exhibition at BIGGERCODE Gallery, SoHo NYC
May 17–June 6, 2018
Fugitive Designs, organized by Residency Unlimited (RU) and curated by Anna Tome
472 Broome Street, New York, NY
Opening reception: Thursday, May 17, 6–8pm
Viewing hours: Monday - Saturday 11am–7pm and Sunday 12–6pm
Residency Unlimited (RU), Brooklyn
February–April 2018
Three-month residency
Brooklyn, NY
Exhibition at Guttenberg Arts
December 2017–January 2018
6903 Jackson St, Guttenberg, NJ
Opening reception: Friday, December 8, 6–9pm
Art in Odd Places (AiOP): SENSE
October 12–15, 2017
Art in Odd Places is a public art project based on 14th Street in Manhattan, exploring connections between public spaces, pedestrian traffic, and ephemeral transient interventions. The 2017 project is curated by independent curator Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful with Rocío Aranda-Alvarado from El Museo del Barrio and Jodi Waynberg from Artists Alliance Inc.
Space and Time Artist Residency at Guttenberg Arts
September–December 2017
Three-month residency
Guttenberg, NJ
AIM Biennial, The Bronx Museum of the Arts
July 22–October 22, 2017
Bronx Calling: The Fourth AIM Biennial
1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx, NY
Opening reception: Thursday, July 27, 6–8pm
Exhibition at inCube Arts Space, NYC
October 13–November 2, 2016
Source Material, curated by Eriola Pira
314 W 52nd Street, New York, NY
Opening reception: Thursday, October 13, 6–8pm
Governors Island Art Fair, NYC
September 3–25, 2016
After the Soldiers and Shrikes, an installation housed inside a casemate in Castle Williams on Governors Island, New York, NY
Open through September 25, 11am–5pm daily
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
“Through experimentation, Alisha Wessler creates alchemy between opposing parts. Her detailed objects are made from various materials and often inspired by small readymades she collects. Based on personal and collective memory Wessler investigates intimate features in the evolution of humankind – either of what they have left behind, or what they might leave behind. Stimulated by superstition and ceremony, these delicately executed artifacts connect the physical, the emotional, and the devotional.”
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
NARS International Artist Residency Program, Brooklyn, NY
April 1–June 25, 2016
Three-month residency
Brooklyn, NY
AIM Fellowship Program, The Bronx Museum of the Arts
January–April 2016
”Since 1980, the Bronx Museum of the Arts has supported New York’s artist community through the AIM Fellowship, the museum’s flagship artist development program offering career management resources to guide emerging artists through the opaque professional practices of the art world.”
Artist and Curator Talk at Smack Mellon
July 25, 2015 from 4–6pm
Storytelling Through Objects: Eduardo Gil, Alisha Wessler and Brett Day Windham in conversation with Shlomit Dror
Featured in Art F City's “This Week’s Must-see Art Events" section
"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."
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.
Exhibition at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY
June 13–July 26, 2015
Story of a Story, curated by Shlomit Dror
Opening reception: Saturday, June 13, 5–8pm
Interview on Wave Hill Blog
January 30, 2015
Interview with David Xu Borgonjon, Curatorial Fellow at Wave Hill: “Wondering, Not Knowing: An Interview with Alisha Wessler”
Wave Hill Winter Workspace Residency, Bronx, NY
January–February 2015
Selected for ArtPrize 2014 Jurors’ Shortlist
September 2014
Finalist in Three-Dimensional Work category; selected by juror Shamim Momin, Director of Los Angeles Nomadic Division
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..."
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
Curiovan, Traveling Exhibition in England
January 2014–March 2015
Work displayed in a mobile museum housed inside a 1922 Thomson caravan
Publication: 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
The publication is currently 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
Solo exhibition at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology
March 15–June 16, 2013
From Afar It Is an Island, a solo exhibition at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, Ann Arbor, MI
Monster Drawing Rally, MOCAD, Detroit, MI
December 7, 2012
Monster Drawing Rally, a live drawing event, and fundraiser for MOCAD
Interview on the OtherPeoplesPixels Blog
October 4, 2012
Interview with Stacia Yeapanis on the OtherPeoplesPixels Blog
Rackham International Research Award
May 2012
Rackham International Research Award (RIRA) from the University of Michigan to fund research in former Yugoslavia
Curatorial Project: 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).
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 generous funding provided by the University of Michigan
Prague, Czech Republic