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Alexandra Mir - First Woman on the MoonTom Friedman - Untitled
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This allusion to an implied area or site beyond the realm of perception suggests another type of space commonly explored by artists, the invented or imagined space.

Yuken Teruya's delicately cut paper sculptures of trees transform the interior of commercial shopping bags into tiny landscapes. Tom Friedman's small, untitled sculpture of 2001 of chicken wire and Styrofoam balls is both macrocosm and microcosm, simultaneously evoking the invisible space of the molecular world and the unfathomably vast expanse of the interstellar world.

On a wholly different scale, and engaging performative strategies, in 1999 Aleksandra Mir recruited a team of bulldozers to temporarily transform a Dutch beach into a lunar landscape where she then staged the fictional landing of the first woman on the moon. The beach has long since returned to its former use, but the moonscape and the landing have an afterlife in the form of video, photographs, and relics such as flag she planted into the sandy crater.

ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT:
Yuken Teruya, Notice Forest, 2005 (detail, McDonald's Happy Meal bag). Five paper bags, (McDonald's Happy Meal, Godvia Chocolatier, Tiffany & Co., Banana Republic, Christie's), installation dimensions variable. Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York, Purchased with funds contributed by the Young Collectors Council 2005.31 © Yuken Teruya

Aleksandra Mir, Publicity still for First Woman on the Moon, 1999– Video (00:12:00), flag, publicity stills, and open-ended archive originating from the live event on August 28, 1999, produced by Casco Projects, Utrecht, on location in Wijk aan Zee, NL. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Purchased with funds contributed by the International Director's Council and Executive Committee Members: Tiqui Atencio, Ruth Baum, Edythe Broad, Dimitris Daskalopoulos, Elaine Terner Cooper, Harry David, Gail May Engelberg, Shirley Fiterman, Laurence Graff, Nicki Harris, Dakis Joannou, Rachel Lehmann, Linda Macklowe, Peter Norton, Tonino Perna, Mortimer D.A. Sackler, Simonetta Seragnoli, Cathie Shriro, David Teiger, Ginny Williams, and Elliot K. Wolk, and Sustaining Members: Linda Fischbach, Beatrice Habermann, and Cargill and Donna MacMillan 2005.62 © Aleksandra Mir

Tom Friedman, Untitled, 2001. Chicken wire and painted Styrofoam balls, 38.1 x 38.1 x 40.6 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchased with funds contributed by the International Director's Council and Executive Committee Members: Ann Ames, Edythe Broad, Elaine Terner Cooper, Dimitris Daskalopoulos, Harry David, Ulla Dreyfus-Best, Gail May Engelberg, Nicky Harris, Ronnie Heyman, Dakis Joannou, Cindy Johnson, Barbara Lane, Linda Macklowe, Peter Norton, Willem Peppler, Denise Rich, Elizabeth Richebourg Rea, Simonetta Seragnoli, David Teiger and Elliot K. Wolk, 2001.24 © Tom Friedman