Patricia Cronin’s “Shrine for Girls” at The FLAG Art Foundation

The FLAG Art Foundation is pleased to present Patricia Cronin: Shrine for Girls, New York from June 9 – August 12, 2016, on FLAG’s 10th floor gallery. Originally presented as a Collateral Event for the 56th Venice Biennale, Shrine for Girls is a poetic sculptural installation and a meditation on the global plight of exploited girls and women who have been victimized, brutally silenced, and written out of history simply because of their gender. After its New York presentation, the project will travel in 2017-18 to India, Ireland, and Nigeria – the locations of the events that inspired the work.

Cronin gathered hundreds of articles of women’s and girls’ clothing from around the world to represent three specific tragedies: brightly-colored saris symbolize two Indian girls who were kidnapped, gang-raped, and lynched from a tree at the edge of their village; hijabs signify 276 Nigerian Chibok schoolgirls who were kidnapped by the terrorist group Boko Haram in 2014 – over 200 of whom still remain missing; and gray and white aprons & uniforms symbolize those worn by “fallen women,” in forced labor at the Magdalene Asylums and Laundries in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the U.S.

A fully illustrated catalogue for Shrine for Girls, Venice is available, including essays by Phong Bui, Ludovico Pratesi, and Maura Reilly, published by Silvana Editoriale (Milan). Shrine for Girls, Venice was curated by Ludovico Pratesi and presented by The Brooklyn Rail Curatorial Projects, with lead support provided by The Fuhrman Family Foundation and The FLAG Art Foundation.