“It was branded in our heads, it was never verbalized. We just instinctually knew it. The only words that were exchanged were in connection with assigning labor, that this is what you have to do, this is what has to be done, and that working hard was the answer to life. The lesson was absorbed to the extent where I have to give myself talkings–to all the time, you know, that it’s not the hard work that does it. It’s the good ideas that does it. ”—Ursula von Rydingsvard
Von Rydingsvard’s latest exhibition, TORN, is at Galerie LeLong through June 23, 2018. She also is featured in two concurrent museum exhibitions The Contour of Feeling, at the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia and Now, She at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, opened on April 27, 2018. Here we take a look at Art21’s visit to her studio.
From Art 21:
Filmed at her Brooklyn studio, artist Ursula von Rydingsvard recounts her family’s journey from German refugee camps during WWII to their difficult early years in Connecticut. Accompanied by images from her personal archive, von Rydingsvard describes how her family’s struggles still influence her studio practice today.