29 Jun Daniel Agdag Wins New York City Public Art Commission

(L to R) Daniel Agdag, The Storm House, 2019, cardboard, trace paper, mounted on timber base with hand-blown glass dome, 58.5 x 30.5 x 30.5 cm. Daniel Agdag, The Southeasterly, 2019, cardboard, trace paper, mounted on timber base with hand-blown glass dome, 58.5 x 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Artist and filmmaker Daniel Agdag, who creates works from his studio in South Yarra has been awarded a public art commission for a New York City public school opening in September 2022. He will be creating a new, permanent site-specific artwork for the school’s lobby. The commission is in collaboration with the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Percent for Art program for the New York City Department of Education.

Agdag will also exhibit new cardboard sculptures in the Biennial Exhibition of Paper Art at theCODA Museum in the Netherlands from 10 June to 27 October 2019. Paper Art at Coda will mark the first time that Agdag has exhibited his work in the Netherlands, after exhibiting his work in a solo exhibition with MARS at VOLTA 14 art fair in Basel, Switzerland last June.

Continuing his international reach, Agdag will also be showing in back-to-back solo exhibitions at one of Britain’s leading contemporary art galleries Messums in both their Wilshire and London gallery spaces. The exhibitions of new sculpture by Agdag are titled ‘States’. Agdag’s practice sits at the nexus of sculpture and motionography. He creates highly detailed sculptural pieces that have been described as architectural in form, whimsical and antiquated in nature and inconceivably intricate.

Director of MARS Gallery Andy Dinan is excited to announce Agdag’s latest international exhibitions and says there is more to come, “Director of MARS Gallery Andy Dinan is excited to announce Agdag’s latest international exhibitions and says there is more to come “on the back of exhibiting at Volta Basel, and his recent solo exhibition at Galerie Youn, Montreal Daniel is proving that his works stands on the international stage. I am so proud of his achievements and for an artist that works so meticulous yet slowly his career has gained such velocity in the past 18 months.”

Cardboard is his primary medium. Drawn to its utilitarian origins and monochromatic presentation, he creates a paradox of fragility and strength with structures that resemble architectural forms and machines by utilising a medium that is essentially paper and preserving them under glass vitrines or bell jars.

The son of Armenian immigrants, Agdag studied fine art before his interest in the moving image drew him to filmmaking. He received a master’s in film and Television from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2007 and is represented by MARS Art Gallery in Melbourne. He has exhibited solo shows in Melbourne and New York and been presented at several international art fairs: Melbourne Art Fair; Sydney Contemporary; Art Central Hong Kong; VOLTA Basel; Art Fair Tokyo. His work is held in private collections in the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia and Europe. 

He has completed several private commissions, notably for Hermès Paris, and in 2014 completed a large-scale public commission – a steel installation, ‘The Inspector’ in Abbotsford, Melbourne.

His work has been published in New York-based curator and author Lori Zimmer’s The Art of Cardboard (USA, 2015) and features in Designer Books’ Paradise of Paper Art 2 – The World of Dance Paper (China, 2015).

He is a triple Sydney Film Festival Dendy Award winner, as well as two time nominated and 2017 winner of the prestigious AFI / AACTA Award. His lm Lost Property Of ce (2017) was shortlisted for the 2018 Academy Award for Best Short Animation and has screened globally.

CODA Paper Art 2019 | A Biennial Exhibition of Paper Art
June 10 – 27 October 2019
coda-apeldoorn.nl/nl/agenda/coda-paper-art-2019

States | Messums Wiltshire
15 June – 23 June 2019
messums.com/contact

States | Messums London
3 July – 21 July 2019
messums.com/about

Aloft | Gallerie Youn
4 -30 June 2019
galerieyoun.com/en/exhibitions/2019/daniel-agdag