Curator's Office to Present the Debut Solo Exhibition of Jonathan Monaghan

Written by Iain Blackmore Friday, 13 January 2012 00:22

Washington, D.C.- Curator's Office is delighted to present "Johnathan Monaghan: Sacrifice of the Mushroom Kings", on view from January 14th through February 18th 2012, with an opening reception on Saturday, January 14th from 6:30 to 8 pm. This is the the first debut solo exhibition of Jonathan Monaghan, a young and innovative artist working at the cutting edge of animation. The exhibition includes an 8 minute computer animated film and two prints derived from the CGI film. The artist is a self-avowed video game fanatic and was highly influenced by video games from his youth, such as Super Mario Brothers and Street Fighter. Monaghan plucks and alters the characters and environments from these games to create a new narrative. Succinctly describing the film, the artist says, "Sacrifice of the Mushroom Kings depicts a lamb and bull's journey through my own version of Super Mario's Mushroom Kingdom. The film combines elements from iconic video games with a myriad of references, such as Wall Street, the Metropolitan Club, Bizet's Carmen, and hair products. Taking a comparative mythology approach to certain aspects of contemporary culture, the film aims to mediate basic oppositions such as good and evil, life and death, and reality and fantasy."

Although only 25, Jonathan Monaghan has already been recognized internationally for his accomplishments in digital animation. This past summer, The US State Department invited him to discuss his work and CGI in Bahrain. He has been invited to lecture at Ravensbourne College, London, College Art Association, New York, and Tsinghua University, Beijing. He has presented his work internationally at Atopio, Oslo, onedotzero_adventures in motion, BFI Southbank, London, GIRAF Animation Festival, Calgary, International Rotterdam Film Festival, Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki, and the Today Art Museum, Beijing & Shanghai, Doulon Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai. A recent graduate of the University of Maryland and a former Hamiltonian fellow, he has also presented his work in screenings and exhibitions nationally at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, MD; Curator's Office, Washington, DC; Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA; Hamiltonian Gallery, Washington, DC; Conner Contemporary, Washington, DC; 4Culture-e4c, Seattle, WA; The Frostic School of Art, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI; Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY; San Francisco International Animation Festival, San Francisco, CA; Boston Underground Film Festival, Boston, MA.

Curator's Office (CO) specializes in a variety of arts-related services to meet a broad spectrum of client needs. All of these services are provided in a welcoming micro-gallery setting. CO organizes all aspects of solo and group exhibitions of contemporary and modern art for museums, university galleries, non-profit galleries, commercial galleries, corporations and other institutions. CO develops educational publications and programs to complement these exhibitions. With clients, CO focuses the goals for the collection and purchase art through reputable sources. Additionally, we arrange for framing, lighting, installation, and conservation. Additionally, we write and oversee the production of educational catalogs and promotional brochures. CO works with all budgets. CO periodically invites a curator (museum curator, critic, artist, collector, educator, promising student, gallerist) to display a tightly focused presentation of an artist or art collective's work. The invited curator provides an explanation for the selection and defines the cultural significance of that particular artist to contemporary art practice. From time to time, artists are invited to interpret the "office/micro-gallery space." Gallery Director, Andrea Pollan has worked for over twenty-three years in the visual fine arts. Trained as an art historian at Yale University, she has organized over 125 exhibitions of contemporary art for museums and galleries regionally and nationally. She has written numerous catalogs and exhibition brochures. Pollan has juried scores of art exhibitions and art fairs in the region including an exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. She served as Exhibitions Director of the McLean Project for the Arts in Virginia and was curator at the Arlington Arts Center prior to that. She has worked for the Trust for Museum Exhibitions, the Yale University Art Gallery, and two regional commercial galleries. She managed several corporate art collections and has broadened that focus recently to include several private collections. Pollan received an Arts Administration Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1994. She has served on numerous boards and recently served on the board of the D.C. Chapter of ArtTable, a national association of women arts administrators. Visit the gallery's website at ... http://www.curatorsoffice.com

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