SAYA WOOLFALK CREATES
INSTITUTE OF EMPATHY AT REAL ART WAYS

Opening reception: Saturday, October 23, 2010
6-8 PM | FREE
Through March 20, 2011

Saya Woolfalk, Land of the Pleasure Machines, gouache on paper, 30"x40", 2010. Image courtesy of the artist.

Hartford, Connecticut – Using craft based installation, video, photography, drawing and live performance, artist Saya Woolfalk invites Real Art Ways visitors to re-imagine the world through her fictional creation, Institute of Empathy. The piece is an installment in Woolfalk's ongoing creation of another universe in which boundaries between man-woman, plant-animal, machine-human are blurred.

There will be a free opening reception Saturday, October 23 from 6-8 PM. Real Art Ways is located at 56 Arbor Street in Hartford's Parkville neighborhood. Institute of Empathy will come alive with a dance performance from Scapegoat Garden's Deborah Goffee at the opening reception and from University of Hartford dancers under the direction of Stephen Pier and Bonita Weisman during Creative Cocktail Hour on Thursday, March 17, 2011.

Woolfalk has used conversations with Hartford area doctors, political activists, dancers and others as a springboard for Institute of Empathy's subject matter: a group of "Empathics" who seek to understand truth through reason and mysticism, and to change themselves and their world. By blending fact and fiction, Woolfalk constructs playful narratives that immerse us in the logic of another place, ultimately exploring how ideas evolve in our own culture.

Woolfalk says, "Culture is not static. It is an ever-emerging phenomenon and I try to mirror this process in this body of work."

Institute of Empathy is running concurrently with Olu Oguibe, which evokes the natural and cultural history of New England through the installation of 40-foot long stone wall. Also at Real Art Ways, Cary Smith, best known for his geometric abstract paintings, shows a new body of work entitled We Are the Dollars and Cents. All three exhibitions open Saturday, October 23. The openings are part of Real Art Ways' 35th Anniversary Kickoff Weekend.

ABOUT SAYA WOOLFALK
Artist Saya Woolfalk re-imagines the world in multiple dimensions (sculpture, installation, and painting to performance and video). She was an Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, completed the Whitney Independent Study Program in Studio, and holds an MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA from Brown University. She has exhibited at PS1/MoMA; Deitch Projects; Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Studio Museum in Harlem; Momenta Art; Performa09; and many others. She has received an Art Matters grant to Japan, a NYFA grant, a Fulbright Fellowship to Brazil, and a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA grant.

This exhibition was made possible with the support of our members, National Endowment for the Arts, The Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation, Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Greater Hartford Arts Council's United Arts Campaign, Travelers, Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, Sandy and Howard Fromson, The Wallace Foundation, Lincoln Financial Group, Maximilian E. & Marion O. Hoffman Foundation, and The Nimoy Foundation.

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