Sondra Perry

2020, inside her studio, a former barbershop in Newark, NJ, Sondra Perry, finishes new artworks in a state of anticipatory grief, and madness! She casts them out in the world like golems to fend for themselves, without guidance. Little did she know they would come back to haunt her dreams and seek vengeance. The works’ spirits returned — like Frankenstein’s monsters — floating down open roads in North Carolina and hijacking her unconscious, they demanded to be put to rest. Sculptures made as tributes bucked and twisted against their shackles, metamorphosing into existential, shimmering horror. The sculptures were possessed! They had no other choice. No longer able to ignore their calls, in 2023, Sondra remade them: Mycelium, clay, analysis, trap, foil, house, and AI, offering them attention, and veneration through touch - putting their bones back into rightful space - but will their souls rest? She gave them care so she could put them down.

Free publication takeaway: Sondra Perry: Lineage For A Phantom Zone developed to accompany the exhibition includes the voices of Black writers: psychotherapist Bola Shonubi, psychiatrist and sci-fi writer Tade Thompson, video artist and arts writer Kareem Reid, science fiction and fantasy writer N.K. Jemisin and the filmmaker and installation artist Isaac Julien CBE. The small book was developed by A Vibe Called Tech and designed by Fieldwork Facility, commissioned by Muse, the Rolls-Royce Arts Program’s Dream Commission, in partnership with Serpentine in London and Fondation Beyeler, Basel and with the support of Bridget Donahue, NYC.

Sondra Perry (b. 1986, Perth Amboy, NJ) lives and works in Newark, NJ. Recent solo exhibitions include: Lineage for a Phantom Zone created for Muse, the Rolls-Royce Art Programme's Dream Commission, Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland (2022); It’s in the Game ’17 or Mirror Gag for Vitrine and Projection, Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts (2021); Flesh Wall, Midnight Moment: Times Square Arts, New York, (2020); Off the Wall: Sondra Perry, The Raymond and Susan Brochstein Pavilion, Rice University, Houston, Texas, (2021); A Terrible Thing, Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark and Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio (2018); Typhoon coming on, originating at Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London, UK travelled to Luma Westbau, Zürich, Switzerland, Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Florida (2018); Chromatic Saturation, Disjecta, Portland, Oregon (2018); Sondra Perry: It’s in the Game ’17, Bridget Donahue, New York (2017); Eclogue for [In]Habitability, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle (2018); Sondra Perry: flesh out, Squeaky Wheel, Buffalo, New York (2016); Resident Evil, The Kitchen, New York, November (2015); Some Type of Way, Institute for New Connotative Action, Seattle, Washington (2015). Perry has taught at Rutgers University, Yale School of Art, Harvard University, Bard College and Columbia University. She participated in the 2022 Venice Biennale The Milk of Dreams. Perry’s work is in several international public collections including Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Mudam Luxembourg, Luxembourg; The Marieluise Hessel Foundation, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo, Finland.

This exhibition was made possible with the additional support of Muse, the Rolls-Royce Art Programme, as the inaugural Dream Commission.