The Montclair Art Museum Presents Marina Zurkow's Animation & Works on Paper

Written by Donna Dunlop Sunday, 11 September 2011 22:46

Montclair, NJ.- The Montclair Art Museum is proud to present "Marina Zurkow: Friends, Enemies, And Others" on view at the museum from September 17th through January 8th 2012. Marina Zurkow’s art examines our complicated and often perilous relationship to the natural environment. Working primarily in digital animation, she draws upon both new media and traditional fine arts techniques to create videos and works on paper that are at once lyrical and discomfiting, whimsical and profound. This exhibition will mark the launch of New Directions, a series of solo exhibitions of contemporary artists inaugurated by MAM’s new curator of contemporary art, Alexandra Schwartz.

The exhibition presents the world premiere of Zurkow’s “Friends and Enemies,” and will include five digital animation videos, two of which will be screened on the Museum’s grounds, and 16 works on paper. Zurkow makes psychological narratives about humans and their relationship to animals, plants, and the weather. These take the form of multichannel videos, customized multiscreen computer pieces, animated cartoons, interactive mobile works, and pop objects. The first portion of the exhibition showcases the series “Crossing the Waters” (2006–09), digital animations that explore oceanic environments and climate change. The four-part video "Elixir" (2007–09), parts III and IV of which will be screened on the Museum’s grounds, shows figures trapped in floating bottles, highlighting the paradoxical violence and tranquility of the oceans. "Weights and Measures" (2007) examines how animals, plants, and machines play radically different ecological roles. "Slurb" (2009), commissioned by the city of Tampa, imagines that city as an underwater, post-apocalyptic world. The centerpiece of the exhibition, from the series “Friends and Enemies,” comprises a 146-hour-long video and related prints.

The digital animation "Mesocosm (Northumberland UK)" chronicles the changes that occur over a year on the moors of Northumberland, England; one minute of screen time equals one hour of real time. Seasons unfold, snows fall, days pass, moons rise, and animals come and go around the omnipresent man in the garden, which is based on a painting by Lucian Freud of the British fashion designer and performer Leigh Bowery. The action in the landscape is determined by computer code, which randomly generates its order and frequency; no cycle is identical to the last. "Heraldic Crests for Invasive Species" (2011) comprises 12 letterpress prints describing some of the major invasive (non-native) species of Northern England, several of which appear in the video. Based on traditional crests, each imaginary coat of arms reveals information about the animal’s country of origin; its introduction into England; and its victories, allies, and enemies. With these works, Zurkow seeks to spur a conversation around the relationship between nativist views toward invasives and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Since 2000, Marina Zurkow has exhibited at The Sundance Film Festival, The Rotterdam Film Festival, Res Fest, Ars Electronica, Creative Time, The Kitchen, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Walker Art Center, The Brooklyn Museum, The National Museum for Women in the Arts, and Eyebeam, among other venues. Her videos have been broadcast on MTV, FujiTV, and PBS. She is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2005 NYFA Fellow, a 2003 Rockefeller New Media Fellow, and a 2001 Creative Capital grantee. She teaches at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), and lives in Brooklyn.

The Montclair Art Museum (MAM), a notable, community-based institution with an international reputation, boasts a renowned collection of American and Native American art that uniquely highlights art making in the United States over the last three hundred years. The collection includes more than 12,000 objects: paintings, prints, original works on paper, photographs, and sculpture by American artists from the 18th century to the present, as well as traditional and contemporary Native American art and artifacts representing the cultural developments of peoples from all of the major American Indian regions. The American collection comprises paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, and sculpture dating from the 18th century to the present. The museum has the only gallery in the world dedicated solely to the work of the acclaimed 19th-century American painter George Inness, who lived in Montclair from 1885 to 1894 and painted in the area. Artists in the collection include Tony Abeyta, Josef Albers, Milton Avery, Will Barnet, Romare Bearden, Thomas Hart Benton, Carl Borg, Margaret Bourke-White, Alexander Calder, Thomas Cole, Willie Cole, Stuart Davis, Willem de Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Elsie Driggs, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Eakins, Lee Friedlander, Arshile Gorky, Marsden Hartley, Robert Henri, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, George Inness, Ben Jones, Donald Judd, Helen Levitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Longo, Whitfield Lovell, Man Ray, Thomas Manley, Knox Martin, Ma-Pe-Wi, Robert Motherwell, Dan Namingha, Alice Neel, Louise Nevelson, Georgia O'Keeffe, Sarah Miriam Peale, Rembrandt Peale, Charles Willson Peale, Philip Pearlstein, Maurice Prendergast, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, Morgan Russell, John Singer Sargent, George Segal, Ben Shahn, Lorna Simpson, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, Joseph Stella, Kay WalkingStick, Andy Warhol, Max Weber, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. The museum opened its doors in 1914, thanks to the donations of artwork and funding of its two founders, Montclair residents William T. Evans, civic leader and art collector, and heiress Florence Osgood Rand Lang. William T. Evans also donated works that helped seed the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. During the late 19th century, the bucolic town of Montclair evolved into a lively community of artists and collectors. Architect Albert R. Ross, who designed many Carnegie libraries, the Pueblo County Courthouse in Colorado, and contributed to the design of McKim, Mead & White's Milwaukee County Courthouse, was hired by museum trustee Michel Le Brun to design the Beaux Arts building. As the collection has grown, so too has the building housing it. The museum underwent renovations in 1924, 1931 and 2000-2001. The recent renovation doubled the museum's square footage, with architectural firm Beyer Blinder Belle at the helm. Visit the museum's website at  ... http://www.montclairartmuseum.org/

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