Lauren Ewing

Ewing's work has frequently considered the relationship between individuals and institutions and the ways in which objects, architecture, technology, and built environments shape cultural memory. Her work addresses the relationship between the individual and institutions, the interaction of nature and culture, and material culture in relation to memory and desire. Her installations often combine objects, images, figures and electronic texts that are thematically provocative and richly poetic. A recurring feature of her work has been the transformation of recognizable objects or architectural forms into structures with altered meanings. Her early sculptures drew on industrial and architectural imagery, while later works increasingly incorporated digital processes, text, and references to historical images and objects. Everybody’s Nicholas Brown (1991), a plywood simulation of the most valued piece of American furniture, is now in the collection of the San Diego Contemporary Museum. Her 2006 work For Magritte exemplifies this approach. The digital print repeats a floating architectural silhouette (The Powerhouse) over an early 19 th century photograph of the boulevard ending at the Paris Opera House. The silhouette derives from Ewing's 1981 sculpture The Powerhouse: A Device for Gaining Heart. The title refers to the Belgian Surrealist artist René Magritte. The work is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Princeton University Art Museum, MoMA, and other collections.

Ewing has also produced site-specific public sculpture, including A Powerhouse for Adam Smith (Bennington College campus), QUANTA (Baltimore Harbor), The Library (Skidmore College library), Subject/Object Memory (Penrose Plaza, Philadelphia), The Endless Gate (Seattle Center Entrance), and Traveler’s History Arch (Lyons, NJ). In 2007 she created Composite House for Terre Haute, a limestone sculpture installed in Gilbert Park in Terre Haute, Indiana. The work, made of Indiana oolitic limestone, was inspired by the forms of common house types found in Terre Haute's older neighborhoods and in small towns from the Atlantic seaboard to the Mississippi Valley. Ewing’s use of Indiana limestone connects the sculpture's material to the region's architectural and industrial history. It measures approximately four feet high, five feet wide, and seven feet deep. The sculpture was particularly connected to Ewing's ties to the region. Her family had farmed land in Southern Indiana since the early 19th century, and she later designed a house on the family property as a retreat from New York. The project and her return to Indiana were featured in Dwell magazine in 2010.

Alongside her studio practice, Ewing pursued an academic career in art and sculpture. She was an Assistant Professor at Williams College 1973-77, where she also served as a guest curator at the Williams College Museum of Art. She taught at the Rhode Island School of Design 1977-78, where she became the first woman to head its sculpture department. She later joined Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts, where she was a professor in the Department of Visual Arts and taught sculpture and artists' writing 1978-2007. She also served as director of the graduate program at Mason Gross School of the Arts. Rutgers later identified her among its distinguished graduate faculty who had retired after many years of teaching. Her influence as an educator extended to artists who later became established practitioners. Australian artist Brad Buckley, for example, recalled studying with Ewing at the Rhode Island School of Design and identified her as an important part of the faculty environment during his graduate studies there. As Visiting Critic in Graduate Sculpture at Yale (1988, 1989), she worked with Ann Hamilton, Roni Horn, and Michael Rees, among others.

One of Ewing's most prominent later public works is the Provincetown AIDS Memorial at Town Hall in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The project originated with a 2013 design competition organized to create a permanent memorial to people affected by the AIDS epidemic in the community. Ewing's proposal was selected, and the memorial was unveiled in 2018. The memorial consists of two large pieces of carbon-gray quartzite, each weighing approximately eight and a half tons. Their sides are smooth while their upper surfaces are sculpted with undulating forms resembling the surface of the ocean. It is one moment of ocean time that is beautiful, temporal and unique like every individual. The word "Remembering" is carved into two sides, while another side carries an inscription describing the memorial's purpose and Provincetown's response to the AIDS crisis. The opposite side quotes fragments of poems of Provincetown poets. The memorial was commissioned by the Provincetown Cultural Council. The memorial has also been the subject of critical discussion. Writing in The New Yorker in 2018, Masha Gessen described Ewing's monument as a tribute to those who died of AIDS but argued that its presentation emphasized remembrance and compassion while leaving out some of the anger, political activism, stigma, and social conflict associated with the epidemic.

Ewing's work has been exhibited in museums, galleries, and art institutions in the United States and abroad. Documented venues include MoMA PS1, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Storm King Art Center, the deCordova Museum, and institutions and galleries in Germany, Austria, Denmark, Britain, Amsterdam, and Australia, including the Sydney Biennale. Her work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC, and Princeton University Art Museum. Her public sculptures are installed in several American communities.