Princeton University Art Museum Launches the Sarah Lee Elson International Artist in Residence Program with Turkish Artist Emre Hüner

PROGRAM SIGNALS COMMITMENT TO GLOBAL ISSUES, CONTEMPORARY PRACTICE

PRINCETON, N.J. --The Princeton University Art Museum announces the establishment of the Sarah Lee Elson, Class of 1984, International Artist in Residence Program, an important cultural and artistic addition to Princeton University’s Global Initiative. Made possible through the generosity of collector and art advisor Sarah Lee Elson, the residency is the latest in a series of important new investments in contemporary art by the Museum, made possible by the support of distinguished Princeton alumni.

“Princeton’s twin goals of fostering internationalization and the creative and performing arts of our time will be greatly advanced by this program,” said James Steward, Director of the Princeton University Art Museum. “By bringing some of today’s most compelling artists from around the world to our campus and community, the Museum will play a central role in creating opportunities for collaboration across disciplines, cultures and global communities.” 

The Elson international artist-in-residence program will consist of three main components: workshops or classes with students; an installation of the artist’s work; and a public talk, lecture or panel discussion. Funds from the program will also make it possible to acquire his or her work for the museum’s collection. 

Emre Hüner, a Turkish artist currently based at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, has been selected as Princeton’s first Elson artist in residence. Hüner’s residency, scheduled for late October 2010, will coincide with the opening of Nobody’s Property: Land, Space, Territory, 2000–2010, an exhibition featuring his important new video, Juggernaut. Hüner works across a wide range of media, including drawing, painting, video, photography, animation and site-specific installations. He weaves together imagery drawn from diverse sources, including found films and photographs as well as archival material, to create narratives that explore our relationship to the natural and built environment, the larger social and economic systems in which we exist, the history of technology and theories of modernity. Juggernaut, for instance, narrates a future in which utopian dreams and technologically assisted self-destruction seem equally possible. 

“Emre Hüner’s vision of the doubled-edged nature of many so-called advances of modern industrial civilization and their impact on the planet is incredibly timely,” said Kelly Baum, who was recently appointed the first Haskell Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Princeton University Art Museum. “His engagement with the ways in which human beings act on their surroundings, and the risky, often doomed nature of the ideals that drive them, will resonate with Princeton students,” she added. “They are keenly aware of the importance of these issues as they enter adulthood and share a greater burden of responsibility for the decisions that will shape our future.” 

Hüner was one of 50 artists selected to participate in the New Museum’s 2009 exhibition Generational: Younger than Jesus, the first in a series of international exhibitions that explore the work of influential artists born after 1976.