Opening Reception:
Thursday, March 17, 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Free for MOCA members, N. Miami residents and City employees; $10 non-members.
RSVP: 305.893.6211 or rsvp@mocanomi.org
Fifteen years ago, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) inaugurated its Joan Lehman building as a collecting institution. Thanks to the outstanding generosity of local and international collectors and patrons to MOCA’s acquisition fund, the current museum facility is “at capacity.” In addition to its growth in size — now over 600 works — the collection’s impressive monumental works and installations have become one of the museum’s hallmarks. MOCA will feature a selection of these works by John Baldessari, Dara Friedman, Thomas Hirschhorn, Jene Highstein, Edward and Nancy Kienholz, Louise Nevelson, Dennis Oppenheim, Jack Pierson, Ragnar Kjartansson, and others in the exhibition At Capacity: Large-Scale Works from the Permanent Collection, on view from March 18 – June 5, 2011. This selection is just a taste of the museum’s holdings, which will occupy the new 16,000 square-foot permanent collection galleries of MOCA’s expansion.
MOCA’s permanent collection is known internationally, with installations co-owned with the Tate Modern in London and works such as John Baldessari’s Three Red Paintings (1988, Gift of the Lannan Foundation), which has just returned from a world-wide retrospective with stops at Tate Modern in London, MACBA in Barcelona, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Diorama, 1997, (gift of the Martin Z. Margulies Foundation), a 60-foot multi-media installation by renowned Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn, resembles a didactic display case for a natural-history museum filled with widely disparate subjects from ancient and modern times and science fiction.
The major large-scale installation, Soup Course at the She-She Café, (1982, gift of Irma Braman), by California artists Ed and Nancy Kienholz, is an elaborate life-size tableau in which a couple and a young woman are dining at adjacent tables. The surreal scene depicts the reality of American life in full disclosure, as the husband surreptitiously flirts with the young woman. As viewers interact in the setting, they are drawn into the psychological drama. The work provides an important precedent for much of the installation and narrative works in MOCA’s collection.
Post-minimalist Jene Highstein is represented by his monumental sculpture Palm II, 1986, (gift of Joan and Roger Sonnabend), a monolithic sculpture form that shares an affinity with nature and architecture. This work was previously exhibited at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
Dennis Oppenheim, who died last month at age 72, is represented in the exhibition by his well-known kinetic work Attempt to Raise Hell, 1974, (partial gift of Oppenheim Foundation, museum purchase, and gift of Dennis and Debra Scholl), in which a seated figure that is an effigy of the late artist, repeatedly bangs its head on a large, cast-iron bell. The sudden impact creates a loud and surprising sound, catching the viewer’s attention. The work also functions as a self-portrait, suggesting the futility of the artistic practice.
Jason Rhoades’s More Moor Morals and Morass, 1994, (gift of Eileen and Peter Norton), brought the artist immediate recognition. This large-scale sculptural installation is composed of hookahs, sandals covered in sandpaper, Iraqi chewing gum, a Persian rug made of of laminated National Geographic images, plastic buckets made to look like Persian fez hats, soda cans, and a painter’s easel, among other objects. The work makes multiple references to the exchange of goods and social and political stereotypes, blending news items, celebrity and culture into a mix of objects, ideas, and experiences.
In his 2007 video installation,God, (museum purchase with funds provided by MOCA’s Pop Bollywood fundraiser), Rekjavik-based Ragnar Kjartansson plays with extremes of repetition and duration. In this work, Kjartansson performs as a cliché lounge singer with full orchestra in a room draped with pink curtains. He sings the same refrain, “sorrow conquers happiness,” over and over, creating an endless performance, questioning whether repetition brings him closer or further from the truth. This work was previously exhibited in MOCA’s 2009 exhibition, The Reach of Realism.
Dara Friedman’s film Bim Bam 1999, (museum purchase with funds provided by Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz), similarly uses repetition as a metaphor for action painting and serial images of contemporary art. This film installation was included in The Whitney Biennial.
One of the museum’s most iconic works in its collection is Jack Pierson’s Paradise Lights, 1996 , a large-scale sculpture comprised of the neon letters from Las Vegas marquees that spell out the word PARADISE. On view in MOCA’s outdoor courtyard, this was one of the first works acquired for MOCA’s permanent collection in 1996. (Gift of (P) Janet and Robert Liebowitz; (A) Janet and Robert Liebowitz; (R) Dr. Linda Kaplan for Rachel; (A) Dr. Jules Oaklander for Alexander and Eric; (D) Diane Sepler; (I) Jacquelyn and Bruce Brown, Michael and Jeanne Klein for Matthew and Mark; (S) Sara Gibbons and Natalie Ireland; (E) Leonard and Evelyn Lauder Fund, (Star) Chasen Family.)
The Museum of Contemporary Art is located at 770 NE 125th Street, North Miami, FL. For additional information, please visit www.mocanomi.org or call 305.893.6211.