2015
SELECTIONS FROM JUMPSTART
November 14, 2015 – January 9, 2016
This year's Jumpstart fashion show challenged students to create a monochromatic garment within the first few weeks of the fall semester; they were charged with finding their design voices through their own inspiration or in combination with that avant-garde designers such as Alexander McQueen and Issey Miyake.
STRANGE CURRENCIES: ART & ACTION IN MEXICO CITY, 1990-2000
September 19 - December 12, 2015
Strange Currencies explores the emergence and development of experimental artistic practices and alternative art spaces in Mexico City in the 1990s; a decade defined by a catastrophic economic crisis, enormous social upheaval and poverty, political corruption, a chronic rise in violence, and continuous instability due to the effects of neoliberalism and rapid, rampant globalization.The exhibition will present approximately eighty works by twenty-eight artists in a broad range of media, including sculpture, photography, video, painting, installation, performance and sound.
Major support for Strange Currencies: Art & Action in Mexico City, 1990-2000 has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
Strange Currencies explores the emergence and development of experimental artistic practices in Mexico City in the 1990s, a decade defined by a catastrophic economic crisis, enormous social upheaval and poverty, political corruption, a chronic rise in violence, and continuous instability due to the effects of rapid globalization. In a time defined by hopelessness and pessimism, artists rejected traditional art forms in favor of radical, ephemeral, action-based, and socially-engaged practices that were often cynical, risky and irreverent, linked art and everyday life, and critically reflected the momentous and troubling events that were unfolding around them.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
The Galleries at Moore presented Strange Currencies: Art & Action in Mexico City, 1990-2000 (September 19 – December 12, 2015), a major exhibition that explores what artists were making – and making happen – in the megalopolis during this fraught and formative decade.
Strange Currencies examines the emergence and development of experimental artistic practices in Mexico City in the 1990s, a decade defined by a catastrophic economic crisis, enormous social upheaval and poverty, widespread political corruption, a chronic rise in violence, and continuous instability due to the destabilizing effects of rapid globalization.
In this singular, decisive moment in the city’s cultural history, artists were uniquely able to experiment with new forms and take artistic risks that resulted in the creation of works and development of new practices that radically altered the dynamics of the local art scene and profoundly transformed the city’s artistic landscape. In a time informed by hopelessness and pessimism, artists rejected traditional art forms in favor of unorthodox, ephemeral, action-based and socially-engaged practices that were often cynical, subversive and irreverent, linked art and everyday life, and critically reflected the momentous events that were unfolding around them.
The exhibition brings together a group of twenty-eight artists who were living and working in Mexico City in the 1990s and whose divergent practices and perspectives reflect the multiplicity of themes, approaches and perspectives that developed and emerged during this pivotal decade, and will include approximately eighty artworks in a broad range of media, including sculpture, photography, video, painting, installation, performance and sound. All of the works were carefully chosen for their ability to function as points of departure for a deeper investigation and understanding of key issues and ideas that artists were exploring at the time, including gender, class, the flow of economic and symbolic capital, social inequity and struggle, violence, urbanism, youth culture and the realities of everyday life in a city permanently in crisis.
Strange Currencies will present an alternative, lesser-known history of 1990s Mexico City that has not been presented in previous exhibitions and will recapture the funkiness and dynamic spirit that defined the decade’s diffuse and vibrant cultural scene. In order to place the artworks on view into context, the exhibition will also include archival materials and documents, including photographs, video footage and printed media, a range of underground and artist-produced publications and a listening station featuring an artist-curated mix of music from the 1990s. It will bring together iconic and lesser-known works – many never exhibited outside of Mexico – that are both artifacts from a pivotal moment in the Mexico City art world and key markers in the cultural history of the city.
The exhibition is curated by Kaytie Johnson, the Rochelle F. Levy Director and Chief Curator of The Galleries at Moore, and will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue. It will be complemented by a series of public programs and events; a symposium; and a curated film series at International House Philadelphia that excavates the media landscape that significantly shaped urban cinema culture in 1990s Mexico.
Participating artists:
Eduardo Abaroa, Francis Alÿs, Marco Arce, Gustavo Artigas, Iñaki Bonillas, Miguel Calderón, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Minerva Cuevas, Claudia Fernández, Thomas Glassford, Silvia Gruner, Daniel Guzmán, Jonathan Hernández, Gabriel Kuri, Teresa Margolles, Taniel Morales, Yoshua Okón, Fernando Ortega, Luis Felipe Ortega, Vicente Razo, Daniela Rossell, SEMEFO, Santiago Sierra, Melanie Smith, Sofía Táboas, Laureana Toledo, Pablo Vargas Lugo and Lorena Wolffer.
Major support for Strange Currencies: Art & Action in Mexico City, 1990-2000 has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
VISIONARY WOMAN: ALEXA HAMPTON
September 12 – October 10, 2015
Focusing on the work of Moore's Visionary Woman Award recipients for 2015, this exhibition provides insight into the career of interior designer Alexa Hampton.
VISIONARY WOMAN: PAT STEIR
September 12 – November 7, 2015
Focusing on the work of Moore's Visionary Woman Award recipients for 2015, this exhibition features three large-scale works by Pat Steir.
MFA SNEAK PEEK
August 13-30, 2015
This exhibition is the first opportunity for the public to see works by candidates in Moore's MFA in Studio Art program. Having just completed an intensive studio residency in Burren, Ireland this summer, they return to show completed works and works-in-progress for their mid-program review.
GRADUATE THESIS EXHIBITIONS
August 8-30, 2015
Featuring final thesis work by candidates in Moore's graduate programs: MA in Art Education with an Emphasis in Special Populations, MFA in Interior Design and MFA in Studio Art.
NADIA HIRONAKA & MATTHEW SUIB: ASCENSION (WITH CAT)
June 27 - August 29, 2015
Philadelphia artists Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib explore the gestural possibilities of an abstract expressionist, all-overness within moving images. Ascension (with Cat) utilizes generic stock footage and objects from the artists' studio, including their cat, to create a collage that is simultaneously filmic and animated.
ANNUAL ALUMNI EXHIBITION
May 30 - August 8, 2015
Featuring recent works by Moore alumni spanning all degree programs.
FIVE INTO ONE
May 30 - July 25, 2015
Hosted annually by Moore and organized by Philadelphia Sculptors, 5 Into 1 features work by recent graduates from BFA and MFA programs at five Philadelphia art & design schools. Participating schools include Moore College of Art & Design, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Tyler School of Art, University of Pennsylvania and The University of the Arts.
DATABODY
May 30 - July 25, 2015
Featuring work by recent graduates of Moore's MFA in Studio Art program. Participating artists: Laura Petrovich-Cheney '11, Dawn Kramlich '13 and Gina Demilio '13.
GIBBS CONNORS: WALL PATTERN NUMBER 2 FOR GLASS (#MYSHRINKINGHEAD)
On view through June 2015 | Window on Race
A site-specific installation on The Galleries' store-front window, this work addresses the overwhelming importance of money, status and social media in today's society and pays homage to the endless appetite for distraction and the perpetual entertainment that is offered by our ever-evolving portable technologies. Drawing inspiration from domestic objects, precious metals, symbols of wealth, and goods sold to tourists, Connors’ work symbolizes the grotesque and often horrifying nature of ego, status, self-involvement, wealth and narcissism as it manifests itself in social media.
We encourage you to visit and take selfies using #myshrinkinghead on Instagram.
2015 SENIOR SHOW
April 22 - May 16, 2015
An annual exhibition featuring work created by graduating seniors in Moore’s BFA programs.
STUDENT & FELLOWSHIP EXHIBITION
March 28 - April 11, 2015
An exhibition featuring work by third-year students competing for highly coveted travel fellowships, as well as work created by first, second and third-year students from all of Moore’s BFA programs.
THE SKY'S GONE OUT
January 24 – March 14, 2015
Taking Freud’s concept of the uncanny as a starting point, The Sky’s Gone Out explores displacement, horror and anxiety in contemporary visual art, literature, popular culture and design.
MARK C. MARTINEZ: ARENA
January 24 – March 14, 2015
Informed by the urban vernacular of Northeast Philadelphia, Mark C. Martinez’s installation environment is a metafictional space where the constructs of cultural and personal identity are mined and challenged, and the politics of public and private space are played out.
CINDY STOCKTON MOORE: CONSCIOUSNESS AND REVOLT
January 24 – March 14, 2015
A temporary monument to ongoing struggle, Cindy Stockton Moore's large-scale, site-specific wall drawing offers a glimpse into the tenuous relationship between the figure and its environment.
SARAH GAMBLE: YOUR LIFE IS HAPPENING NOW
January 24 – March 14, 2015
Your Life is Happening Now is an exhibition of one hundred of Gamble's small ink-on-paper works that explore themes of displacement, anxiety, happiness and introspection