Victoria Manganiello: Altimeters Amanda Martinez: Point of Reflection

Art-in-Buildings is pleased to announce two new exhibitions opening in the atrium and lobby of 125 Maiden Lane, Victoria Manganiello: Altimeters and Amanda Martinez: Point of Reflection.

Working predominantly in textiles, Victoria Manganiello’s work considers materiality, space, technology, and history. In her labor-intensive practice, Manganiello hand-spins yarn, hand-mixes natural and synthetic dyes, and uses a floor loom to create intricate woven sculptural installations and wall hangings. Her work reveals a meticulous process that echoes histories of textiles and weaving found in cultures around the world combined with contemporary technologies. Manganiello merges historical and modern influences, including the history of computer coding and the jacquard loom, and covert communications found in knitting patterns or underground railroad quilts to examine weaving as a form of communication.

In her exhibition Altimeters, Manganiello brings her woven works to the lobby of 125 Maiden Lane. On one end hangs Terminus (2017), a row of delicately connected black and yellow panels that cascade from the ceiling, strung together by a web of yellow yarn that dances across each sheet and enlivens the space. Installed alongside Manganiello’s woven paintings Gondwana and Laurasia, named after the prehistoric Pangaea supercontinents, the installation takes on ancient connotations, evoking spatial relationships of the earth, sunlight, and the craftsmanship of early cultures brought into the present. On the other side of the lobby, Manganiello combines hanging wall works and free-standing, semi-opaque sculptural pieces. Staggered throughout the space, the sculptures invite the viewer to gaze through and walk around the work, seeing new patterns and layers when viewed from different vantage points. Manganiello’s soft fabrics and warm colors contrast with the cold, hard marble of the lobby walls at Maiden Lane, drawing attention to the artist’s methodical craftsmanship.

Amanda Martinez’s sculptural work explores the intersection of perception and reality, and our own desire to classify the objects that surround us. Martinez carves and assembles textured surfaces and sculptures from Styrofoam, a nontraditional art material, creating works that at first glance appear to be made from more traditional mediums like stone or wood. She treats the repetitive, monochromatic surfaces of each piece with different finishes, resulting in a complex tromp l’oeil effect that actively engages the viewer.

At 125 Maiden Lane, Martinez responds to the soaring marble walls and high ceiling of the atrium, strategically placing six large sculptures across the central platform and back wall to engage with the many vantage points visitors experience as they move through the space. With each changing perspective, a new composition is formed. When viewed from outside, the installation is flattened as the sculptures stack front to back, resting on the marble wall backdrop, which is dotted with a pair of orange looped frames. From the inside, the dimensionality of the installation becomes instantly recognizable. The space appears to have been stretched forward, showing the interplay of the sculptures behind the window. As visitors enter and exit the building, the sculptures skew and transform, pulling apart the many layers of Martinez’s work. The sculpture Dentro fuera is a deceptively narrow piece when seen in profile, but as the viewer approaches, it opens into the perfect frame to capture the distant triangular peak of Mirame.

Each element in Point of Reflection functions independently and in tandem with the other sculptures, taking on new forms and revealing surprising relationships when viewed from different angles. As Martinez explains, “These individual sculptural elements form a collective landscape reminiscent of architectural ruins, with the experience of the installation changing from each prospective vantage point and like us, changing in relation to each other.”

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Victoria Manganiello is a textile artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Named as one of Forbes Magazine’s 30 under 30 for 2019, Victoria has received multiple international recognized grants and residency appointments and has exhibited her work throughout the USA and internationally including in Romania, Bulgaria, Taiwan, Croatia, and Italy. She is also an adjunct professor of Textiles at NYU and Parson’s the New School. Exploring the intersections between materiality, technology, geography and storytelling, Victoria’s installation work, abstract paintings and kinetic sculptures are made meticulously with hand-woven textiles using hand-spun yarn and hand-mixed natural and synthetic color dyes alongside mechanical alternatives and modern technologies.

Amanda Martinez lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from Greenville, South Carolina, Martinez received her BFA from Kansas City Art Institute in 2010 where she studied both sculpture and painting. In 2019 Martinez had a solo exhibition at Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art in Nagoya, Japan as part of Aichi Triennale. Her work was recently shown at Egg Collective in New York, NY, Juxtapoz Showcase in Miami South Beach, FL, Underdonk, in Brooklyn, NY, Vacation in New York, NY, Spring/Break in New York, NY, Garis & Hahn in Los Angeles, CA, Dateline in Denver, CO, VICTORI + MO Gallery in New York, NY, N.A.D.A. NY with yours mine & ours Gallery, Redline Contemporary Art Center in Denver, CO and elsewhere. Martinez’s work has received recent press in Surface Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Maake Magazine among other outlets. In 2019 she curated “Object of Desire” at Tiger Strikes Asteroid New York and lectured as a visiting artist at Pratt Institute. She has been awarded residencies in Wassaic, NY, Kansas City, MO and Truth or Consequences, NM. Martinez has forthcoming exhibitions and commissions in 2020.

For press inquiries contact: QUINN | TEI@quinn.pr | 212.868.1900

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Image on the left: Victoria Manganiello, Altimeters, 2020. Courtesy the artist. Photo by Ethan Browning.
Image on the right: Amanda Martinez, Point of Reflection, 2020.. Courtesy the artist. Photo by Ethan Browning.

Victoria Manganiello: Altimeters and Amanda Martinez: Point of Reflection is curated by Tessa Ferreyros and Eliana Blechman and sponsored by the Time Equities Inc. (TEI) Art-in-Buildings. TEI is committed to enriching the experience of our properties through the Art-in-Buildings Program, an innovative approach that brings contemporary art by emerging and mid-career artists to non-traditional exhibition spaces in the interest of promoting artists, expanding the audience for art, and creating a more interesting environment for our building occupants, residents, and guests.