Sara VanDerBeek was born in Baltimore and studied at The Cooper Union School of Art and Science in New York. she maintains a studio practice while simultaneously co-directing the gallery’s program
Sara VanDerBeek knocks together little sculptural armatures and then photographs them, creating modernist allegories. She uses string, thin rods and cut-out bits of wood and festoons them with small objects and widely available images, often cut from books or magazines.VanDerBeek's artistic DNA includes Max Ernst and Paul Outerbridge and contemporaries like Carol Bove, known for shelf sculptures that assemble meaning from carefully selected books and objects. Ms. VanDerBeek nails down her fragile ensembles with the camera, converting postmodern assemblage into an illusionistic fusion of collage and photomontage. Like Mr. Robleto's, her art has a commemorative quality. It looks back to Modernism and finds it to be diminished, a miniaturized world but not an exhausted one.
Whether by plan or accident, these side-by-side gallery debuts form a spirited seminar about different approaches to art-making. Subjects of debate include truth to materials, appropriation of images and other detritus, and the challenge of imbuing an artwork with meaning. Sara VanDerBeek's adventures in set-up photography and appropriation embrace transparency and disclosure. Her works have mysteries, but their effects seem constructed before our eyes and are easily disassembled; the elements remain discreet.She uses string, thin rods and cut-out bits of wood and festoons them with small objects and widely available images, often cut from books or magazines. The images used in the photographs here include a Warhol Elvis, a Stella black painting and a bit of Brancusi's ''Endless Column''; these dangle from thread, as do clusters of buttons or strands of glass beads