David Zwirner is pleased to support the Rema Hort Mann Foundation in presenting The Voting Booth Project. The Rema Hort Mann Foundation commissioned five artists to create work using original voting booths from the 2000 presidential election in Florida. The voting machines from West Palm Beach County retain remnants of original voter materials, including the "hanging chads" and "butterfly ballots" now shorthand for the historical events of the confused ballot count. In anticipation of the 2008 election, assume vivid astro focus, Sandford Biggers, Marcel Dzama, Mickalene Thomas, and Fred Tomaselli have created distinct projects that confront issues of power, memory, and political consequence.
"The booths are relics of a controversy,” said Foundation Director Quang Bao. “They look like a Get Smart contraption. If you think about each of the artist's five booths carefully–respectively destroyed, encased, wrapped, embattled, and held accountable–you see how the political materials are made so descriptive of and consequential to the present."
The original booths were donated to the Rema Hort Mann Foundation by Jamie and Peter Hort. Sale of the works through the RHM Foundation will benefit the Foundation's grant programs in support of cancer patients and visual artists. The Voting Booth Project is sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, September 11th Fund, and private donors. The exhibition will travel to Lehmann Maupin and be on view November 7-8.