Lenka Clayton | Tragically, The World's Oldest Person Keeps Dying

Lenka Clayton

Tragically, The World's Oldest Person Keeps Dying

Sackville, Canada: Struts Gallery, 2021

18 x 24"

Edition of 500

The second in a series of eight artist posters published by Struts Gallery in Sackville, New Brunswick. Other artists in the series include Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber (see previous post), Séamus Gallagher, Melanie Colosimo, Celine Huyghebaert, and Raymond Boisjoly. 

Statement: 

1. The oldest person in the world is immortal.

2. In the time it takes to read this poster eighteen people were born, and seven people died.

3. My paternal grandmother Hilda Clayton lived to be one hundred years old. In her last few months of life, as her body slowly unravelled, my dad would ask her how she was. "Getting better every day, David!”, she always replied. 

4. For a fraction of a second, each one of us has held the title of being the world’s youngest person. 

Bio:

Lenka Clayton is an interdisciplinary artist. Recent exhibitions include How We Thought It Would Be and How It Was, Catharine Clark Gallery, SF (2020), Fruit and Other Things (2019) at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Object Temporarily Removed (2017) at The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, Talking Pictures (2017) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Artist Residency in Motherhood (2018) at Blanton Museum in Austin, TX. Clayton is the founder of "An Artist Residency in Motherhood", a self-directed, open-source artist residency program that takes place inside the homes and lives of artists who are also parents. There are currently over 1,000 artists-in-residence in 65 countries. In 2017, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York commissioned a major new work by Clayton and collaborator Jon Rubin, entitled A talking parrot, a high school drama class, a Punjabi TV show, the oldest song in the world, a museum artwork, and a congregation’s call to action circle through New York. With the participation of six diverse venues around New York City, the artists arranged for an essential element from each site—referenced in the project’s title—to circulate from one place to the next, creating a six-month network of social and material exchange. Clayton’s work has been supported by The Warhol Foundation and The National Endowment for the Arts amongst others. She has received an Art Matters Award, a Carol R. Brown Award for Creative Achievement, and a Creative Development Grant from Heinz/Pittsburgh Foundation. She has been artist-in-residence at The Fabric Workshop and Museum, PA and Headlands Center for the Arts, CA. Clayton’s work is held in collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, SFMoMA, The Carnegie Museum of Art and The Philadelphia Museum of Art. She is currently a Black Cube Nomadic Museum fellow.