Park McArthur, How to get a wheelchair over sand, 2013; courtesy the artist and Essex Street, New York
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (February 23, 2017) — The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will present two solo exhibitions this year through its New Work series, an integral part of the museum’s commitment to debuting work by living artists. This spring, New Work: Park McArthur will be Park McArthur’s first solo museum presentation. This fall, New Work: Kerry Tribe will premiere an SFMOMA commission by Kerry Tribe in her first solo exhibition at a major U.S. museum.
New Work: Park McArthur
On view April 1–August 27, 2017
New Work: Park McArthur, the artist’s first solo museum presentation, will examine the materials and processes frequently associated with monuments, memorials and museums, and explore personal and social relationships with a building or place of congregation. The exhibition will feature new and existing work that draws from the granite and wood of SFMOMA’s building, and includes photographs of informal gathering sites such as picnic tables in a public park. The marks and signs used at these spaces question the connections — casual, recreational, ceremonial — that bind stone and wood to site, and people and locations to time.
“McArthur works with and through the social conditions of dependency, often in relation to care and access. In this exhibition, she considers the relationships among sites of commemoration and the materials associated with them,” said Jenny Gheith, assistant curator of painting and sculpture at SFMOMA. “By exposing and subverting the frameworks of control and power in the built environment, McArthur questions a system that conflates signage with remembrance.”
Major support for New Work: Park McArthur is provided by SFMOMA’s Contemporaries. Generous support for the New Work series is provided by Alka and Ravin Agrawal, Adriane Iann and Christian Stolz and Robin Wright and Ian Reeves.
About Park McArthur
Park McArthur was born in 1984 in Raleigh, North Carolina, and currently lives and works in New York. She holds a BA from Davidson College and an MFA from the University of Miami. She attended the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art and studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. McArthur has had solo exhibitions at Chisenhale Gallery, London; Lars Friedrich, Berlin; Yale Union, Portland, Oregon; ESSEX STREET, New York; and Galerie Catherine Bastide, Brussels. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions at institutions including the Walker Art Center, The Jewish Museum and MoMA PS1, and her work will be on view in the 2017 Whitney Biennial. She recently co-curated Beverly Buchanan — Ruins and Rituals at the Brooklyn Museum with Jennifer Burris.
Kerry Tribe, Untitled (detail), 2017 (production photograph from Standardized Patient); courtesy the artist and 1301PE, Los Angeles; © Kerry Tribe
New Work: Kerry Tribe
On view October 7, 2017–February 25, 2018
New Work: Kerry Tribe will premiere a new commission by the Los Angeles–based artist and filmmaker through SFMOMA’s art commissioning program, an essential part of the museum’s goal to share the art for our time with the Bay Area and beyond. Foregrounding questions of empathy, communication and performance, this solo presentation will center on a video installation offering insight into the world of Standardized Patients — professional actors trained to portray real patients in a simulated clinical environment as part of medical training. Working closely with professional clinicians, communication experts and Standardized Patients in California, Tribe’s project will build upon central themes of her artistic practice including language, consciousness and the willing suspension of disbelief.
“Following her recent work engaging with individuals with the communication disorder aphasia, Tribe’s new project turns the focus on communication toward medical professionals and the vital role that empathy and interpersonal skills can play in patient outcomes,” said Tanya Zimbardo, assistant curator of media arts at SFMOMA.
Generous support for the New Work series is provided by Alka and Ravin Agrawal, Adriane Iann and Christian Stolz and Robin Wright and Ian Reeves.
Major support for Commissioned Art at SFMOMA is provided by Roberta and Steve Denning. Generous support is provided by illy coffee and Diana Nelson and John Atwater.
About Kerry Tribe
Kerry Tribe was born in 1973 in Boston, Massachusetts. She was a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, received her MFA from UCLA and BA from Brown University and attended the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Tribe has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; The Power Plant, Toronto; and Camden Arts Centre, London, among other venues. Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, film festivals and performance series at such institutions as the Hammer Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, among others.
About New Work
Since 1987, SFMOMA’s New Work series has provided a platform for experimentation: a space for artists to develop or premiere a body of work or present existing work in a new context. Through New Work, SFMOMA has organized early exhibitions with artists such as Matthew Barney, Marilyn Minter, Kara Walker and Christopher Wool, all of whom received their first solo museum shows through the series. The inaugural New Work exhibition in the newly expanded SFMOMA — presented in a gallery dedicated to the series — featured Portuguese artist Leonor Antunes, followed by an exhibition of work by Japanese photographer Sohei Nishino. Each New Work exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated brochure.