NSE #475 | Wes Lang with Andrew Woolbright

Artist Wes Lang joins Rail contributor Andrew Woolbright for a conversation. We conclude with a poetry reading by Sarah Ruhl. Artist Wes Lang was born in Chatham, New Jersey in 1972. Many of the artist’s influences are a function of a distinct autobiographical experience with certain exceptions; the Indigenous American as well as other totems of the American West, and painters and sculptors from middle of last century such as Twombly, Guston, Kline, Mitchell, and Bacon dovetailing on up to the more contemporary such as Basquiat, Kippenberger, and Mike Kelley. In 2014, Lang made his institutional debut with “The Studio” @ aRoS Aarhus Museum of Art. His pieces are included in many notable international collections including MOMA and Murderme and is represented worldwide by Almine Rech. Lang currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Artist, curator, and critic Andrew Woolbright is based in Brooklyn, New York, and is an MFA graduate from RISD in painting. Woolbright is the founder and director of the gallery Below Grand located on the Lower East Side in New York. In addition to curating, he writes for Momus, E-Flux Art and Education, Two Coats of Paint, Whitehot Magazine, and the Brooklyn Rail. In 2021, Woolbright curated a survey show of the work of Kathy Goodell at the Dorsky Museum; the show Density Betrays Us with Angela Dufresne and Melissa Ragona at the Hole; and will be curating a version of that show with Dufresne and Ragona with Vacancy Gallery, Shanghai in 2022. He currently teaches at SUNY New Paltz and is a 2021-2022 resident at the Sharpe Walentas Studio Program in Dumbo. Learn more: https://brooklynrail.org/events/2022/... ~ ~ ~ The Rail has a tradition of ending our conversations with a poem, and on this day we were fortunate to have Sarah Ruhl reading. Playwright, essayist and poet Sarah Ruhl is a MacArthur “Genius” Award recipient, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and a Tony Award nominee. Her plays have been produced on and off Broadway, around the country, and internationally, where they’ve been translated into over fifteen languages. Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her MFA from Brown University where she studied with Paula Vogel. She has received the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Whiting Award, the Lilly Award, a PEN award for mid-career playwrights, the National Theater Conference’s Person of the Year Award, and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. She teaches at the Yale School of Drama, and lives in Brooklyn with her family. ~ ~ ~ Learn more about our conversations with artists at: https://brooklynrail.org/events Follow us on Instagram:   / brooklynrail