Semblances
October 21, 2011, through January 1, 2012
MAEP exhibition features site-specific works by
Jennifer Danos, Natasha Pestich, and Marcus Young
Minneapolis, MN, October 13, 2011—Local artists Jennifer Danos, Natasha Pestich, and Marcus Young collaborate for the first time in an ambitious new Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program (MAEP) show at the MIA. Investigating the concept of semblance (guise) in the context of the museum, the artists contrive three different site-specific installations that examine museum authority, public behavior, and display practices in the MAEP Galleries and throughout the museum.
Working closely with the MIA’s Department of Prints & Drawings and Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Danos creates a semblance of the museum’s contemporary prints and drawings exhibition in the adjacent gallery. She re-imagines the gallery next door by carefully accentuating the layout and the artworks in order to critique the display and mediation of art, and reveal the viewers’ experience.
Pestich tracks the tumultuous exhibition career of a fictional artist she named Jan Xylander through a series of screen-printed posters and other printed matter. A combination of printmaking and social engagement, Pestich’s semblance of an exhibition questions how museums participate in the identity formation and legacy of an artist through one-person and retrospective exhibitions.
Trained in theater and music, Young’s work relies on the participation of others to create what he calls “behavioral art.” During “Semblances,” he will be on site for a period of time, collaborating with MIA staff to create a situation in which he temporarily becomes part of the museum’s galleries and collection, including the procedures an object goes through to be placed on display, maintained, and protected.
An opening reception for “Semblances” will be held Thursday, October 20, from 7 to 9 P.M. in the MAEP Galleries.
Generous support for MAEP is provided by The McKnight Foundation and Jerome Foundation.
About the Minneapolis Institute of Art
The Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA), home to one of the finest encyclopedic art collections in the country, houses more than 80,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history. Highlights of the permanent collection include European masterworks by Rembrandt, Poussin, and van Gogh; modern and contemporary painting and sculpture by Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian, Stella, and Close; as well as internationally significant collections of prints and drawings, decorative arts, Modernist design, photographs, textiles, and Asian, African, and Native American art. General admission is always free. Some special exhibitions have a nominal admission fee. Museum hours: Sunday, 11 A.M.–5 P.M.; Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, 10 A.M.–5 p.m.; Thursday, 10 A.M.–9 P.M.; closed Monday. For more information, call (612) 870-3131 or visit www.artsmia.org.
Press Contacts: Tammy Pleshek, Public Relations Specialist
(612) 870-3171; tpleshek@artsmia.org
Anne-Marie Wagener, Director of Public Relations
(612) 870-3280; awagener@artsmia.org