Figge Art Museum Hosts "A Retrospective of Paintings by Martin Mull?

Friday, 08 December 2006 21:13

Davenport, Iowa - The Figge Art Museum is pleased to present “Adventures in a Temperate Climate: A Retrospective of Paintings by Martin Mull” on view through January 21, 2007.  The exhibition will feature 40 paintings by Martin Mull, dating from 1984 to 2006, including oil paintings on linen and oil paintings on canvas.

The exhibition explores the artist’s recent work and his complex and ironic view of his Midwestern roots.  In the accompanying catalogue, Glen Helfand describes Mull’s new body of work as images that “tell the story of an American life, that of one child who was raised in a specific time and place… He lived in a Midwest informed by MGM’s fantastical Kansas, one of many Hollywood-created landscapes filled with iconic visual and narrative elements aimed to convince an entire country that there’s no place like a Caucasian middle class home. ”

The work is rendered in abstracted landscapes that contain realistic imagery of human figures and Americana motifs. Characters, often mimicking members of Mull’s family, are shown as cartoon figures interacting with human beings styled in 1950s attire.  The menacing figures are juxtaposed against suburban homes nestled among perfectly manicured greenery.  The tension between the objects is further accentuated by the use of a darker palette and a broader application of pigment for shadowing. 

“Mull’s works focus on a critique of Modern culture.  They have received substantial and positive attention from critics in recent years,” says Libby Lumpkin, director of the Las Vegas Art Museum.  “The exhibition also surveys the changes in style that have taken place in Mull’s work over a period of more than twenty years.”

Mull was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised on a farm in western Ohio.  He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at the Rhode Island School of Design in the late 1960s. His works are included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; The Total Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea; and other institutions in the United States and abroad. Mull lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

The exhibition is co-organized by Libby Lumpkin, Director, Las Vegas Art Museum and Director of Design Discourse, International Institute of Modern Letters, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Tina Yapelli, Director, The University Art Gallery at San Diego State University. Works in the exhibition are loaned from institutions, galleries, and private collections.  The exhibition is made possible by generous donations from The Joyce Mack Exhibitions Fund, The James and Michelle Zeiter Exhibitions Fund, the LVAM Members’ Fund, and anonymous donors.

The Figge Art Museum, formerly the Davenport Museum of Art, opened its new facility August 6, 2005.  The Figge Art Museum is on the riverfront in downtown Davenport at 225 West Second Street.  The museum draws upon the rich history of the DMA while setting new standards for cultural, social and economic development.  The Figge has a collection of approximately 3,500 works that reflect artistic styles and developments from the Renaissance to contemporary art, with particular strengths in American Regionalist, Mexican Colonial, and Haitian art.  The museum and its collections reflect a strong tradition of civic pride and philanthropy within the community.

For more information about the Figge Art Museum, please visit www.figgeartmuseum.org