Press Release
Artist Bio
Sponsorship
Location
Publication

mixed media installation

December 1, 2001 -
January 13, 2002

Brooklyn Front (126A Front Street)

Josiah McElheny's The Metal Party was a re-creation of a party organized in 1929 by students of the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany. Taking the original "Party" as a point of departure, McElheny produced a hyper-reflective environment of metallic surfaces complete with mirrored and clear glass spheres that alternated on the ceiling above an aluminum floor. Each viewer, upon entry to The Metal Party was encouraged to see themselves as part of this installation and requested to put on a silver Mylar costume, specially designed by McElheny. Viewers were also encouraged to document their experience with a Polaroid self portrait, many of which were also incorporated into the installation. A sound composition produced by electronic media artists Beth Coleman and Howard Goldkrand of Soundlab Cultural Alchemy, filled The Metal Party with an infusion of period jazz music, Bauhaus-inspired experimental instrumentation and contemporary dance rhythms.

Artist Bio
Josiah McElheny has had solo exhibitions at the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Spain; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; Art Institute of Chicago; Brent Sikkema, New York; Donald Young Gallery, Chicago; and many other museums and galleries. His work has been included in group exhibitions including Site Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico; 2000 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Young Americans, Part II, The Saatchi Gallery, London; and Patentia, Nordic Institute of Contemporary Art. He received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and studied for several years with Swedish glassmaster Jan-Erik Ritzman. McElheny lives and works in New York.

Sponsorship
The Metal Party is a project of the Public Art Fund, commissioned through In the Public Realm, a program of site specific proposals and projects by New York artists.

In the Public Realm is supported with public funds by The National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President, and with generous support from, The Greenwall Foundation, The Silverweed Foundation, The JPMorgan Chase Foundation, and friends of the Public Art Fund.

The Metal Party is sponsored by Banana Republic.

The Metal Party was produced with the assistance of Brooklyn Front and Superfine, and is a joint presentation with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, where the project was on view November 17, 2001-January 27 2002.

Location
The Metal Party was located at Brooklyn Front (126A Front Street), an exhibition space in DUMBO, Brooklyn.