Two artists were commissioned to create participatory objects to be experienced in the Museum’s newly renovated Sculpture Garden
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is pleased to present the 2025 Aldrich Box. Inaugurated in 2021, the Aldrich Box is an ongoing annual series featuring a year-long traveling exhibition housed in a box, available for loan to the public free of charge. For this series, the Museum commissioned artists to create participatory objects meant to be handled and to travel beyond the boundaries of its walls. This year’s edition will feature two artists: Mongolia-based artist Jantsankhorol Erdenebayer, which will debut in July, followed by Kingston, NY-based artist Koyolzintli in September. Their contributions will be on view for an entire year.
In past years, the public has been invited to take the Aldrich Box home to engage with the contents in varied environments. This year, for the first time, the Aldrich Box will be sited on the Museum’s campus for the public to interact with en plein air. Visitors will access the Aldrich Box by checking in at the Museum’s Front Desk during open hours to obtain a key and instruction guide.
Jantsankhorol Erdenebayar has created Channeling our human energy for the journey ahead, 2025, an object he describes as a “travel kit,” featuring a copper outer shell adorned with imagery of human ears and an interior outfitted with faux fur, a mirror, and goat horns. Erdenebayar’s practice spans sculpture, video and performance, drawing from Mongolian mythology and exploring themes of resistance, protection, and survival. For the Aldrich Box, Erdenebayar focused on the concept of nomadism—a foundation of Mongolian culture and ancestral traditions—symbolizing a profound connection to the natural world. By transforming the museum visitor into a traveler, Erdenebayar’s object has been reimagined as a “treasure purse,” shrine, or shamanistic tool. Equipped with a handle to suggest its portability, its reflective copper surface alludes to Mongolia’s significant copper industry. The goat horns inside evoke movement, strength, and protection, while the mirror serves not only as a tool for self-reflection, but also as a symbolic portal to the spirit realm.
Jantsankhorol Erdenebayar (b. 1992, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia) earned a BA from City University of New York, Hunter College in 2015 and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2019. His works have been shown in numerous locations globally including BLUM, Los Angeles in 2020; Frieze, New York in 2020; Half Gallery, New York in 2021; Art Basel Miami Beach in 2021; Red Ger Creative Space, Arts Council of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia in 2022; Art Basel Hong Kong in 2024; Lkham Gallery, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia in 2024. In 2019, Erdenebayar represented Mongolia at the 58th Venice Biennale.
Koyolzintli (b. 1983, New York, NY) lives and works in Ulster County, New York. Nominated for the Prix Pictet in 2019 and 2023, her work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.; the United Nations, New York, NY; the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY; Princeton University, Princeton, NJ; Aperture Foundation, New York, NY; and Paris Photo, France. She has had two solo exhibitions at Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery, New York, NY; a solo exhibition at Leila Greiche, New York, NY; and was included in Flow States – LA TRIENAL 2024 at El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY. Koyolzintli has performed at venues including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Wave Hill, Bronx, NY; Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY; the Brooklyn Museum, New York, the Queens Museum, New York; Performance Space, New York, NY; Dia Chelsea, New York, NY; and Ann Street Gallery, Newburgh, NY. Koyoltzintli has taught at California Institute of the Arts, School of Visual Arts, International Center of Photography, and the City University of New York. She has received multiple awards and fellowships including at the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris; New York Foundation for the Arts; We Women; the Latinx Artist Fellowship by the US Latinx Art Forum (USLAF); and most recently the Anonymous Was a Woman award. Her first monograph, Other Stories, was published in 2017 by Autograph ABP.
Aldrich Box is organized by Director of Education Namulen Bayarsaihan and Diana Bowes Chief Curator Amy Smith-Stewart.