Alix Pearlstein (born 1962) is an American

visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts a ...

, who is particularly well known for her work in

video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. ...

and

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

. Currently, Pearlstein is on the faculty of the M.F.A Program at

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

"Alix Pearlstein CV"
Alix Pearlstein, Retrieved 28 February 2015. and serves on the Board of Governors of The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

Early life and education

Alix Pearlstein was born in 1962 in

. In 1983 she attained a Bachelor of Science degree from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to ...

. In 1988 she attained a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture from the

State University of New York at Purchase The State University of New York at Purchase (commonly Purchase College or SUNY Purchase) is a public liberal arts college in Purchase, New York. It is one of 13 comprehensive colleges in the State University of New York (SUNY) system. It was ...

Purchase, New York Purchase is a hamlet in the town and village of Harrison, in Westchester County, New York, United States. One myth explains that its name is derived from Harrison's purchase, where John Harrison was to be granted as much land as he could ride in ...

Career

Pearlstein creates work that can oftentimes combine elements of performance, video art, sculpture and conceptual art. Having exhibited in New York since 1988, Beginning her career as a sculptor, Pearlstein has exhibited in New York since 1988, and started producing video in 1992. Her work often features elements of comedy and dead-pan humor. She has stated that she consciously evades genre. Pearlstein's art draws inspiration from Post-Minimal, structuralist film,

postmodern dance Postmodern dance is a 20th century concert dance form that came into popularity in the early 1960s. While the term "postmodern" took on a different meaning when used to describe dance, the dance form did take inspiration from the ideologies of t ...

, and

Conceptual Conceptual may refer to: Philosophy and Humanities *Concept *Conceptualism *Philosophical analysis (Conceptual analysis) *Theoretical definition (Conceptual definition) * Thinking about Consciousness (Conceptual dualism) *Pragmatism (Conceptual p ...

artists such as

Dan Graham Daniel Graham (March 31, 1942 – February 19, 2022) was an American visual artist, writer, and curator in the writer-artist tradition. In addition to his visual works, he published a large array of critical and speculative writing that spanned ...

, particularly looking at the use of space in film and video. In many of her works, Pearlstein gives unscripted,

mise-en-scène ''Mise-en-scène'' (; en, "placing on stage" or "what is put into the scene") is the stage design and arrangement of actors in scenes for a theatre or film production, both in visual arts through storyboarding, visual theme, and cinematography, ...

instructions to performers, resulting in long, suspenseful shots. She received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (2011).

Select solo exhibitions

*''The King, the Mice and the Cheese'',

List Visual Arts Center Established in 1950, the List Visual Arts Center (LVAC) is the contemporary art museum of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is known for temporary exhibitions in its galleries located in the MIT Media Lab building, as well as its admini ...

(2006) *''After the Fall,''

The Kitchen The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was foun ...

(2007-2008) *''One Side of Two Women 2'',

(2007-2008) *''Goldrush'',

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is an art museum for contemporary art, located in St. Louis, Missouri. Known informally as the CAM St. Louis, the museum is located at 3750 Washington Boulevard in the Grand Center Arts District. The buildin ...

(2009) * ''The Park'',

DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is a 30-acre sculpture park and contemporary art museum on the shore of Flint's Pond in Lincoln, Massachusetts, 20 miles northwest of Boston. It was established in 1950. It is the largest park of its kind ...

(2014) * ''The Shining,

Art Basel Miami Beach Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel, Switzerland; Miami Beach; Hong Kong and from 2022, Paris. Art Basel works in collaboration with the host city's local institutions to help ...

(2014)'' * ''GRASS'',

University of Kentucky Art Museum The University of Kentucky Art Museum is an art museum in Lexington, Kentucky, located in the Singletary Center for the Arts building. The collection includes European and American artwork ranging from Old Masters to contemporary, as well as a sele ...

(2018)

Select group exhibitions

*''Mediated Presence: 3 Decades of Video from EAI'',

Dia Art Foundation Dia Art Foundation is a nonprofit organization that initiates, supports, presents, and preserves art projects. It was established in 1974 by Philippa de Menil, the daughter of Houston arts patron Dominique de Menil and an heiress to the Schlum ...

(1997) *''Regarding Beauty'',

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was desi ...

(1999) *''Drama Queens: Women Behind the Camera'',

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

(2001) * ''Artists' Film International'',

Whitechapel Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the f ...

(2013) * ''Histories of Sexuality'',

The New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Scho ...

(2015) * ''Front International'', Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art (2018) * ''Louder than Words,'' Zuckerman Museum of Art (2019)

Public collections

Pearlstein's work can be found in a number of public institutions, including: *

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pearlstein, Alix Living people 1962 births American women video artists American video artists Cornell University alumni State University of New York at Purchase alumni 21st-century American women