Museum of Contemporary art, Chicago
Paul Pfeiffer’s work extracts visual elements from recent popular culture to present psychologically and aesthetically evocative images, objects, and experiences. The exhibition by Currin comprises 40 paintings from 1991 to the present.
Two exhibitions
Paul Pfeiffer
May 3 - August 31, 2003
Image:
Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse (7), 2002. Collection of the artist.
Paul Pfeiffer’s work extracts visual elements from recent popular culture to present psychologically and aesthetically evocative images, objects, and experiences. Recipient of the first Bucksbaum Award for the Whitney Biennial (2000), his work has been recognized for its ingenious use of computer and video technology. The MCA presentation will feature a selection of video and sculptural works from throughout Pfeiffer’s career, in which he has continually challenged the role of media images in defining community and identity. Pfeiffer uses photography, sculpture, video, computer photocollage, and digital technology in navigating the intersection of the body, the camera, and American culture. His works address the evolving effects of new digital technologies, which easily manipulate pre-existing images of the human being. Rather than masking the use of technology in his work, Pfeiffer calls full attention to its presence. This exhibition is co-organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge.
Support for this exhibition is provided by Andrea and James Gordon, Kenneth C. Griffin, Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy, Jennifer McSweeney, and The Orbit Fund. Additional support is provided by GUCCI and ArtPace/A Foundation for Contemporary Art, San Antonio.
________
John Currin
May 3 - August 24, 2003
One of the most important artists to emerge in the last decade and one of several figurative painters to receive attention in the 1990s, John Currin fuses historical and contemporary styles and source materials to create strange and challenging images that examine the tradition of painting and the meaning of representational painting today. His influences range from Italian and Northern Renaissance painters and the genre scenes of Courbet to popular illustrations from the first half of the 20th century and the pages of current fashion magazines. Difficult to pin down, Currin’s ambiguous works are as compelling as they are frustrating. His detached yet somewhat-sympathetic individual portrayals as well as his unsettling scenarios foster a psychological investigation of representation and desire. This survey, which will tour in the US and Europe, comprises 40 paintings from 1991 to the present and will be Currin’s first one-person museum exhibition in the United States. This exhibition is co-organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Serpentine Gallery, London.
Support for this exhibition has been provided by Donna and Howard Stone, Edwin C. Cohen and The Blessing Way Foundation, Andrea and James Gordon, and David Teiger. Additional support has been provided by Richard A. Lenon.
Image: John Currin, Heartless, 1997. Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York. Photograph by Fred Scruton
Museum of Contemporary Art
220 East Chicago Avenue, Chicago