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Lucy Raven

Lucy Raven’s distinct and methodical practice combines an extended and interdisciplinary enquiry into the form, function and apparatus of the moving image – whether animated, digital, mechanical or cinematic – with an ongoing appreciation for the landscapes, labours and myths surrounding the American West. Previous films China Town (2009, actually a photographic stop-motion feature) and Ready Mix (2020, a major installation premiered at Dia Chelsea) reappraise the empty, heroic deserts of Nevada and Idaho as heartlands of industry and technology, focussing on the rhythmic and fluctuating removal of materials and minerals undergoing alchemical processing, for her contemporary takes on the grandiloquent western epic. Raven reveals the art and artifice taking place within and behind the camera’s act of documentation, in works such as Curtains (2014) and The Deccan Trap (2015) focussing on the mechanics of movement between 2D and stereoscopic 3D projection in addition to the painstakingly hand-wrought and hidden nature of Hollywood visual effects. Spectators become participants in Raven’s mises-en-scènes (or even her mises-en-abîmes), whether as objects of surveillance in Casters (2016), under the gaze of gyroscopic robotic arms performing a synchronised, balletic illumination, or while perambulating her coloured light cells for a recent architectural commission, Lichtspielhaus (2019) at the new Bauhaus Museum in Dessau, Germany. Whether through audiovisual collage or phenomenological experience, Raven’s important deep-dives into systems of power, image-making and filmic history are reflected back upon by the viewer as self-generating narratives forged by their means and manner of production.

Lucy Raven (born 1977) is originally from Tucson, Arizona. She lives and works in New York City. She received a BFA in studio art and a BA in art history from the University of Arizona, Tucson, in 2000, and an MFA from Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in 2008. Her work has been exhibited in solo presentations at Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany (2024); Remai Modern, Canada (2023-24); Wiels, Brussels, Belgium (2022); Dia Chelsea, New York, USA (2021); Serpentine Galleries, London, UK (2016–17); Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, USA (2016); VOX centre de l’image contemporaine, Montreal, Canada (2015); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, USA (2014); Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany (2014); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA (2012); and Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, USA (2010). Select group shows include those at Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA (2024); Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, USA (2024); Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, New York, USA (2024); The Momentary, Bentonville, USA (2022); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, USA (2018–19); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA (2013); Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus, USA (2010); Mass MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, USA (2008–09). Her work was featured in the 2022 iteration of the Whitney Biennial, curated by David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards. Raven’s work appears in public collections around the world, including Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Tate Britain, London; DIA Foundation, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Whitney Museum, New York. Demolition of a Wall (Album 2) was featured in a group exhibition entitled A Divided Landscape curated by Neville Wakefield at The Momentary, Bentonville, Arkansas. Additionally, Raven’s work was included in the 2022 and 2012 Whitney Biennial, New York; 2016 Montreal Biennial; and 2018 Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh. With Vic Brooks and Evan Calder Williams, she is a founding member of 13BC, a moving-image research and production collective. Raven teaches at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York.

 

Recent Projects

'Lucy Raven', Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany, 10 February - 21 April 2024.

'The Lay of the Land', Tinworks, Bozeman, USA, 15 June = 19 October 2024

'Widening the Lens: Photography, Ecology, and the Contemporary Landscape', Carnegie Museum of Art, Pitssburgh, USA, 11 May 2024 - 12 January 2025

'Cowboy', MCA Denver, Denver, USA, 29 September 2023 - 18 February 2024. Traveling to Amon Carter, Fort Worth, USA, 29 September 2024 - 16 March 2025

Ready Mix

Lucy Raven
Ready Mix

2021
Black-and-white video, quadraphonic sound, aluminum and plywood screen, and aluminum seating structure
45 minutes

Installation view of Ready Mix (2021) at Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany, 10 February – 21 April 2024 © Lucy Raven. Photography by Andrea Rossetti, courtesy Neue Nationgalerie, Berlin, Germany.

Ready Mix

Lucy Raven
Ready Mix

2021
Black-and-white video, quadraphonic sound, aluminum and plywood screen, and aluminum seating structure
45 minutes

Installation view of Ready Mix (2021) at Dia Chelsea, New York, 16 April – 30 December 2021 © Lucy Raven. Photo- Bill Jacobson Studio, New York, courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York.

Casters X-2 + X-3

Lucy Raven
Casters X-2 + X-3

2021
Galvanized steel frames, stage lights, motors, and control system

Installation view of Casters X-2 + X-3 (2021) at Dia Chelsea, New York, 16 April – 30 December 2021 © Lucy Raven. Photo- Bill Jacobson Studio, New York, courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York.

Demolition of a Wall (Album 1)

Lucy Raven
Demolition of a Wall (Album 1)

2022

Color video, quadrophonic sound
20 minutes 58 seconds

 

Installation view of Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It’s Kept (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, April 6-September 5, 2022). Lucy Raven, Demolition of a Wall (Album 1), 2022. Photograph by Ron Amstutz.

Demolition of a Wall (Album 1)

Lucy Raven
Demolition of a Wall (Album 1)

2022
Color video, quadrophonic sound, wood and aluminum screen, and aluminum seating structure
20 minutes 58 seconds

Demolition of a Wall (Album 2)

Lucy Raven
Demolition of a Wall (Album 2)

2022

Color video, quadrophonic sound, freestanding LED wall, aluminum seating structure
15 minutes 31 seconds

 

Installation view of Demolition of a Wall (Album 2) at WIELS Centre for Contemporary Art, Forest, Belgium, 26 April – 8 August © Lucy Raven, courtesy WIELS Centre for Contemporary Art.

Demolition of a Wall (Album 2)

Lucy Raven
Demolition of a Wall (Album 2)

2022

Color video, quadrophonic sound, freestanding LED wall, aluminum seating structure
15 minutes 31 seconds

 

Installation view of Demolition of a Wall (Album 2) at WIELS Centre for Contemporary Art, Forest, Belgium, 26 April – 8 August © Lucy Raven, courtesy WIELS Centre for Contemporary Art.

Untitled

Lucy Raven
Untitled

2021
Framed shadowgram; silver gelatin contact print

Untitled

Lucy Raven
Untitled

2021
Framed shadowgram; silver gelatin direct print
 

RP31

Lucy Raven
RP31

2012
35mm film installation, color
31 film projection test patterns and calibration charts

4 minutes 48 seconds

Installation view of RP31 (2017) at Serpentine Gallery, London, UK, 8 December 2016 – 12 February 2017 © Lucy Raven, courtesy Serpentine Gallery.

China Town

Lucy Raven
China Town

2009
Photographic animation with sound
51 minutes 30 seconds

Curtains

Lucy Raven
Curtains

2014
Anaglyph video installation 5.1 sound

50 minutes

Shape Notes

Lucy Raven
Shape Notes

2016
Photographic animation, color, sound
3 minutes 9 seconds

Museum Exhibitions

Exhibitions

  1. Matter as Actor - past exhibition

    Matter as Actor

    3 May – 24 June 2023

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