Rosamond Purcell
dal 16/5/2003 al 9/8/2003
Segnalato da
16/5/2003
Rosamond Purcell
Santa Monica Museum of Art SMMoA, Santa Monica
Two Rooms. The intersection of art and science comprises Purcell's gesamtkunstwerk; 'Two Rooms' is the culmination of this life-long inquiry. Purcell's photographs and installations celebrate the beauty and recast the meaning of even the most mundane objects, creating lush visual tableaux and intricate microcosms out of everything from old books and scrap metal to teeth and stones.
Two Rooms
the Santa Monica Museum of Art will present 'Rosamond Purcell: Two Rooms.' The
intersection of art and science comprises Purcell's gesamtkunstwerk; 'Two
Rooms' is the culmination of this life-long inquiry. Purcell's photographs and
installations celebrate the beauty and recast the meaning of even the most
mundane objects, creating lush visual tableaux and intricate microcosms out of
everything from old books and scrap metal to teeth and stones. Though
Purcell's photographs have been widely exhibited internationally, this is the
first major installation of her work in the United States. 'Two Rooms' offers
a view of two collections, one historical (Olaus Worm's, 1588-1654) and one
contemporary (Purcell's). Though both were compiled by avid collectors, each
was amassed for different reasons-Worm to explain, define, and categorize the
world; Purcell to question those very classifications.
Purcell has investigated collections and collecting throughout her career. She
has plumbed the depths of museums-art and natural historical, historical and
contemporary-to isolate and examine objects and identify the reasons that they
hold value for an individual, a social group, or a culture. Her collaborations
with such partners as evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, historian of
science Katharine Park, pathologist Frank Gonzales-Crussi, and
writer/performer Ricky Jay have yielded in-depth examinations of anomalies and
cabinets of curiosity, and expanded the definitions of art across disciplines
and periods. Her book, Special Cases: Natural Anomalies and Historical
Monsters, made a significant contribution to scholarship in its reexamination
of the changing perception of curiosity, critical overview of collections, and
documentation of the crossover between biological truth and popular fiction.
'Two Rooms' distills these interests. Purcell's installation will fill the
space of the museum. One 'room' will be built and outfitted as the equivalent
of 17th-century Danish natural historian Olaus Worm's museum collection; the
other will be a partial reconstruction of Purcell's own Boston studio, in
which found objects and detritus are similarly compiled and arranged. A
professor of natural philosophy, Worm collected naturalia (stones, shells,
marine specimens, samples of earth) and artificialia (ethnic clothing,
weapons, ancient Roman and contemporary Laplander artifacts). His cabinet is,
like those of many of its contemporaries, encyclopedic in its propensity
toward inclusion. Rather than functioning as a site of wonder, it was compiled
to explain natural phenomena and to catalog historical anthropology.
The recreation of his cabinet-achieved with loans from natural history
museums, private lenders, and Purcell's own collection-is intended to remove
familiar specimens from present-day categories and recast them in accordance
with 17th-century scientific and philosophical impulses. The installation of
Purcell's studio, where natural and distressed manmade objects appear in a
taxonomic jumble, creates a similarly rich effect, but in a contemporary
context. Purcell amasses scrap metal, glass, junkyard detritus, farming
equipment, components from medical and industrial machinery, petrified books,
and natural objects. Preferring found objects at the edge of decay, she
capitalizes on their semi-readable state. Through her arrangements, Purcell
makes fascinating connections that give these ambiguous objects new
significance. Both rooms display systems of imperfect knowledge-Worm's because
of its scientific naivety, Purcell's because of its self-aware reshuffling of
content and context.
Purcell's sumptuous, layered assemblages engage the viewer because of their
beauty and their multiple points of entry. Much like early scientists, we
become detectives, trying to decode what we see, to make sense of it, and, at
the same time, to delight in its uncertainty. Her radical reordering of
objects refocuses the viewer's attention away from the commonplace
constructions of science and history and challenges us to consider the ways in
which we construct meaning.
The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalog, including a
selected bibliography and exhibition history. Catalog essayists include: Lisa
Melandri, Katharine Park, Robert M. Peck, and Purcell. Park is the Samuel
Zemurray, Jr. and Doris Zemurray Stone Radcliffe Professor in the Department
of the History of Science at Harvard University and author of such important
books as Doctors and Medicine in Early Renaissance Florence and, with Lorraine
J. Daston, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750. Naturalist Bob Peck,
Fellow of the Academy, Curator of Art and Artifacts, and Editor of Scientific
Publications at The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, has authored
such books as Headhunters and Hummingbirds: An Expedition in Ecuador, William
Bartram's Travels, and Land of the Eagle: A Natural History of North America.
He has also organized a number of important exhibitions. Melandri is Deputy
Director of Exhibitions and Programs at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. The
catalog will document and contextualize Purcell's oeuvre-the first scholarly
treatment of her of work-as well as add to scholarship on collections and
museology.
'Rosamond Purcell: Two Rooms' perfectly illustrates Purcell's particular brand
of cross-fertilization between the artistic and scientific communities, and
allows Purcell to creatively recontextualize historical work in a contemporary
framework. 'Two Rooms' underscores how slippery our notion of truth can be and
allows us the pleasure of looking-the enchantment of discovery.
'Rosamond Purcell: Two Rooms' will travel to the Tufts University Gallery,
Medford, MA (October 9-December 14, 2003) and the Mount Holyoke College Art
Museum, South Hadley, MA (January 29-March 12, 2004).
The exhibition and catalog have been generously funded by The American Center
Foundation, Claudette and Richard Carter, Victoria Dailey, Steve Martin, and
Errol Morris and Julia Sheehan.
The Santa Monica Museum of Art is grateful to the following foundations and
organizations for general operating and specific project support: the
California Community Foundation; the City of Santa Monica Cultural/Arts
Organizational Support Grant Program; the Los Angeles County Arts Commission;
the California Arts Council; the Getty Grant Program; the Irvine Foundation;
the City of Santa Monica Community Arts Grants Program, a project of the Santa
Monica Arts Commission; the Annenberg Foundation; the Nathan Cummings
Foundation; Good Works Foundation; the Entertainment Industry Foundation; and
the Buddy Taub Foundation. Special thanks to the Board of Trustees and the
Friends of the Santa Monica Museum of Art.
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