Kurt Lightner

Kurt Lightner was born in Troy, Ohio. He received his BFA from Columbus College of Art & Design in Columbus, Ohio, and his MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Lightner's works have been included in many significant group and solo exhibitions; Greater New York 2005, PS1 MOMA, Kurt Lightner: Five Acres, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Queens International, Queens Museum, Other Worlds, Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, and A View almost Picturesque and Slow Dissolve, Clementine Gallery.  Lightner's works have been reviewed in Artforum, Art in America, Artnews, Freize, Beautiful Decay, Brooklyn Rail, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Sculpture, and the Village Voice, among others.

He has been a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and The Headlands Center for the Arts Project Studio Residency in San Francisco. Lightner's works are included in many private and public collections both nationally and internationally. He lives and works in New York City.

On the work featured in this exhibition:

This project titled Work began when I read the journals of my Great-great-grandfather Samuel Ulery. He was a farmer born in 1852 and he kept a record of his daily activities working on his farm in northern Indiana. The entries are full of continuous labor, a repetitive theme throughout his journals. For Work, I have taken one journal, the year 1898, and carved every entry for that year into a tree harvested from my grandparents’ farm in Ohio. The piece is exhibited lying on it's side much like how it looked after it was cut down. It is roughly 40 feet long by 30 feet wide.

Image:

Kurt Lightner, Work, 2006–2016
Carved Box Elder tree

38' x 28' x 18'
Courtesy of the artist