Courtney M. Leonard featured in THE NEW TRANSCENDENCE. at Friedman Benda
January 11 – February 24, 2024
Exhibition at | Friedman Benda
515 West 26th ST | New York, NY 10001
The New Transcendence, the last in a series of three pace-setting exhibitions curated by Glenn Adamson for Friedman Benda, will explore the place of the spiritual in contemporary design today. The works on view are infused with profound significance, whether as relics, ritual tools, or representations. The New Transcendence is not an exhibition about religion in the organized, traditional, or dogmatic sense. Rather, it aims to discover how design can serve as a vehicle for personal and societal transcendence.
The exhibition includes work by six designers: Ini Archibong, Andrea Branzi, Stephen Burks, Najla El Zein, Courtney M. Leonard, and Samuel Ross. Each of the participants has their own perspective, yet one thing unites them: the impetus to provide an objective, material anchor for the subjective and ultimately private nature of spiritual belief. The immaterial means something different, today, in our digital age – perhaps making physical artifacts more crucial as anchors for transcendent experience.