The Jenni Crain Foundation

Jenni Crain (1991–2021) was an esteemed artist and curator who passed away suddenly due to complications related to Covid-19. She was widely recognized for her original minimalist sculpture and curatorial projects that championed under-recognized women artists as well as for her rigorous scholarship and writing. Crain was a passionate and tireless advocate of artists and art. Throughout her life, she built a vast community of friends, collaborators, and colleagues whose work she drove forward with generosity, sensitivity, and the deep probing intelligence with which she considered the world.

The Foundation preserves her legacy by supporting transformative projects by artists, curators, and writers of any age at early or pivotal stages of their career.

In honor of her memory, The Jenni Crain Foundation provides grants in two areas:
1. Finishing funds toward the completion of a significant project ranging from an exhibition, arts publication, or work of art across disciplines and forms.
2. Support for original research which may include travel, accommodation, and any funds required for accessing or studying materials.

Donations may be mailed to the address below or made online by clicking here.

A fundraising bandana featuring Crain’s work may be purchased by clicking here. An image of the bandana can be viewed by clicking here.

The Jenni Crain Foundation
130 Third Avenue, Brentwood, NY 11717
info@jennicrainfoundation.org

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Jenni Crain

Scenes From A Pause
321 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
May 26 – July 9, 2017

321 Gallery presents Scenes From A Pause, a solo exhibition by Jenni Crain. Drawing from architecture, Crain’s work negotiates the conditions of a given or perceived space, often referring to the environment of the exhibition itself, as well as to the emotional associations to moments and memories of elapsed experience. Crain’s allusions to time reflect upon and trace our intersecting and evolving relationships with place, perspective, and personal histories.

A pause, a momentary cessation of activation, becomes the site of presentation and observation in Crain’s works. This fleeting moment is memorialized by virtue of the physicality of its representations and the effectual environmental shifts of their presence. These expressions, here and now, offer one particular experience, yet the imprints of inevitable, circumstantial flux will beckon another collection of impressions and interpretations. Their stagnation in a constant state of evolution.

The exhibition is comprised of four works. Three of these are untitled, with their definitions to be determined over the course of their comprehensive contexts. Two of these, sculptural works, Untitled (1) and Untitled (2), occupy opposite lateral planes that meet – the wall and the floor; the ground from which we gaze. Their forms mirror the spatial qualities of their surroundings and supports. Untitled (3), a framed, found photograph, depicts an unknown relative of the artist. The subject sits in a sling chair in a perceivably enclosed, outdoor environment. The chair’s form, its mobile design and details, such as its awning, attribute to layered allusions of exterior versus interior spaces. The relationships between these simultaneously polar yet mutually definitive perceptions of place echo the various ways in which we are shaped by our surroundings. These capacities are made palpable in If and When. The object rests, shifting between an abstraction of a moment that has existed, and the potential of its impending application.

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Untitled (1), 2017. Cement board, baltic birch plywood, hardware. 62 1/4” x 112 1/4” x 6”

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If and When, 2017. Cotton canvas, baltic birch plywood, hardware. 54 1/4” x 23 1/4” x 1 1/2”

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Untitled (3), 2017. Silver gelatin print. 9 1/2” x 11 7/8” x 1” (framed)

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Untitled (2), 2017. Cotton canvas, baltic birch plywood, bass wood, hardware. 4 1/4” x 38 3/4” x 38 3/4”

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