CAMBRIDGE, MASS.- Katrín Sigurdardóttir’s sculptural practice examines the way physical structures and boundaries affect perception. Her works gesture towards real locations, employing shifts in scale and fragmentation to systematically question the veracity of memory and history. Sigurdardóttir’s exhibition at the MIT List Visual Arts Center consists of two bodies of work—Ellefu and Unbuilt Residences in Reykjavík, 1925-1930—both recently completed as part of the commission for this project. The works are executed according to an intensive set of processes that hinge on draftsmanship, each with a level of detail that is carefully removed, destroyed, or otherwise obscured.

The objects in the series Ellefu—Eleven in Icelandic—are abstracted, miniaturized constructions of interior segments of the artist's childhood home in Reykjavík. Sigurdardóttir methodically regenerates crosssections of rooms and passageways based on her on-site surveys of the built structure, which she develops into highly refined technical drawings. These drawings form the basis for constructing the individual works, from prototyping and mold making to casting, joining, and surface polishing. The finished objects are seemingly austere floor-bound sculptures that partially conceal signs of their making, their surfaces rendered without evidence of personal history.

For the series Unbuilt Residences in Reykjavík, 1925-1930, Sigurdardóttir selected a group of unrealized architectural plans of houses from the city’s archives that demonstrate changes in building methods and materials in Iceland during that period. Sigurdardóttir uses these basic architectural plans in a calculated procedure of redrafting to create models that are then destroyed by various means only to be reconstructed from the remains. The eroded structures evince a history imagined through a process as rehearsed and anticipated as it is left to chance.

Katrín Sigurdardóttir (born 1967, Reykjavík, Iceland) lives and works in New York City. She represented Iceland in the 55th Venice Biennial in 2013. Recent solo exhibitions include SculptureCenter, New York; Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Renaissance Society, Chicago; S.M.A.K. Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent, Belgium; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City; and FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, France.

Katrín Sigurdardóttir: Drawing Apart is curated by Jeffrey De Blois, Curatorial Fellow, and Paul C. Ha, Director, MIT List Visual Arts Center.