Chandra Cerrito
Napa, CA

Global Reading: The World on the NY Times Front Page, August 2011

$750

To purchase this work please contact Laura at 23 Sandy Gallery.

My view of the world is greatly shaped by current events as reported in the daily news.  Global Reading: The World on the NY Times Front Page, August 2011 is an attempt to make more tangible the far-off places I encounter everyday when reading the newspaper.

For the month of August, I noted the countries in the front-page stories of the New York Times every day.  At the end of the month, I tabulated the number of times each of these countries was featured.  After tracing the countries on a map, I reproduced them and cut them out of felt in different sizes, according to their frequency of appearance.  For instance, the United States was mentioned all 31 days and Libya was mentioned on 10 days, while India was featured on only one day.  Using a scale of approximately 1 inch = 1 day, the United States is 31 times as large and Libya is 10 times as large as India.  The resulting distorted and incomplete map presents the world as it was in my consciousness during the month of August 2011.

Wall hung felt construction, 31 x 63 inches, 2011.

Artist Biography

Chandra Cerrito (b. 1969) grew up in Rhode Island, where she attended art classes at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and visited museums in nearby Boston and New York.  In 1991, she graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History with a concentration in modern and contemporary art and completed a Certificate of Visual Art in printmaking.  In 1994, she earned a Master of Fine Arts with an emphasis in sculpture from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA, where she created installations that incorporated cast concrete and fiber sculptures.  She has since exhibited in galleries in San Francisco, New York, Colorado, Illinois, Maine and Oregon.  She has completed several sculpture commissions as well as a temporary public art project sponsored by the San Francisco Arts Commission, and she has received approval for a monumental public artwork for a private development in South San Francisco.  Her studio work has recently focused on pastel drawings and embroidery.  Her drawings are represented by Pierogi in Brooklyn, New York.