Acclaimed for her unique blend of high and low-tech materials, artist Julianne Swartz often makes the ephemeral presence of the viewer fundamental to her work. Her art quietly celebrates contradictions and dichotomies that invite us to slow down and sharpen our senses. With lenses, she transforms mundane objects and hidden locations into magical moving pictures. Using mirrors, she disorients a viewer’s spatial perception and self-awareness. Drawing on walls with thin lines of vinyl, she guides viewers to secret architectural spaces. Carefully arranging PVC tubing and speakers, she allows buildings to seemingly communicate with their inhabitants. These sculptures and installations engage viewer participation with elegance, humor, and intelligence.

Swartz has exhibited widely, including site-specific commissions for the New Museum, Tate Liverpool, and the Tang Museum, and group shows at P.S. 1/MoMA, the Aldrich Museum, and Ballroom Marfa. She was included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial, and has had recent solo exhibitions at the Jewish Museum, the Colby College Museum and the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Julianne Swartz: How Deep Is Your presents the work of a rising international art star. Surveying the past decade of Swartz’s career in all media, the exhibition gathers together for the first time a significant selection of her large-scale installations that invite viewer engagement in both subtle and overt ways.

The exhibition is accompanied by the largest publication about the artist to date, featuring essays by show’s curator Rachael Arauz and former SMoCA curator Cassandra Coblentz, as well as texts by Janine Antoni, Sharon Corwin, Tim Davis, Bec Garland, Byron Kim, Stephen Lichty, Jenny Monick, Judy Pfaff, Barbara Smith, David Levi Strauss, Jonathan Van Dyke, and Emily Weiner.