ISHMAEL RANDALL-WEEKS

Ishmael Randall-Weeks’ work reflects on the relationship between architecture and its social context. His work ranges from complex, large-scale installations to more intimately sized objects, including site-specific installations, sculptures, and works on paper. By borrowing formal and material bases of everyday elements, his work initiates conversations about urbanism, education, and time. Construction materials used for centuries—from pre-Columbian cultures to the legacies of Modernism— are part of his interest in engaging in a dialogue about the collective through form and materiality. In essence, his overarching artistic inquiry revolves around the explorations of the characteristics and the notion of space, whether it be the psychology of space or its limitations and potential expandability.  

Ishmael Randall-Weeks (b. 1976, Peru) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Lima, Peru. He graduated from Bard College in 2000 and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2007. His work has been exhibited extensively internationally, including at MoMA P.S.1, New York; The Drawing Center, New York; Bronx Museum, New York; The Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Contemporary Art, Lima, Peru; Museum of Art of Lima (MALI), Lima, Peru;  National Museum, Lima, Peru; Middlesbrough Institute of Modern of Art, England, UK; The Drawing Room, London, UK; Macro Museum | Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Rome, Italy; Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, Bologna, Italy; Museum of the Bank of the Republic, Bogotá, Colombia; Spanish Cultural Center of Buenos Aires (CCBBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Museum of Fine Arts, Mexico City, Mexico. His work has been included in the Havana Biennial, the IX and the XIV Bienial de Cuenca, the 6th edition of (S) Files Biennial in El Museo del Barrio, New York and 2010 Greater New York and MomaP.S.1, amongst others. He has received numerous grants and awards, including from the Rockefeller Foundation, the MACRO Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome, Italy; Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York; NYFA, New York; Art Matters, New York; Kiosko, Santa Cruz, Bolivia; and La Curtiduria art center in Oaxaca, Mexico.