Monthly Archives: December 2014

VICE Magazine recently released its “Best Short Films” of 2014, and gallery artist Allison Schulnik is included in its ranks! Focusing on her most recent video, “Eager” (2014), the publication declares:

Flowers and blades of grass dance a dark and twisted ballet in Eager, a short animated film where mutated horses and wispy ghost women join the plants. Watching these creatures transform, blossom, grow, die, and regenerate in clay is like sliding comfortably through an enlightening acid trip. Its morphing colors and choreographed clay shapes and figures are inexplicably beautiful and set to an excellent score by Aaron M. Olson. Artist and animator Allison Schulnik, perhaps best known for her ​Grizzly Bear music video, has created her most stunning and mature work yet.

We congratulate Allison on this distinction. For more information about the artist or available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

The gallery is pleased to share David Pagel’s LA Times review of Kris Kuksi‘s current solo exhibition, “Antiquity in the Faux.” Please find the article below in its entirety:

The insanely detailed sculptures in Kris Kuksi’s exhibition “Antiquity in the Faux” are 3-D versions of graphic novels whose imagery has taken up all the space and left no room for text. In Kuksi’s hands, that’s not a bad trade-off. It leaves viewers free to let our eyeballs race wildly, running every which way as stories get tangled up in Gordian knots of mind-blowing complexity.

If the devil is in the details, Kuksi’s sculptures are among today’s most devilish.

This exhibition remains on view through 6pm on Saturday, December 20th.

Born in 1973 in Springfield, Missouri, Kris Kuksi earned his BFA and MFA in painting at Fort Hays State University. He also studied internationally while enrolled in programs in Germany, Austria, and Italy. His work has been featured in over 100 exhibitions worldwide, including those at La Halle Satin Pierre Museum (Paris), Museum of the History of Science (Oxford), Williamsburg Art and Historial Society (New York), and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery (D.C.), as well as within numerous international art magazines and fictional book covers. Solo exhibitions of his work have been presented in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Basel, Toronto, Berlin, Washington D.C., and Kansas City. The artist lives and works in Lawrence, Kansas, and is also represented by Joshua Liner Gallery (NY).

In conjunction with Sans35, the gallery produced a video interview featuring Kuksi. For more information about the exhibition artists, or available work, please feel free to contact the gallery, and we will accommodate your needs.

The gallery is pleased to announce the Blanton Museum‘s acquisition of “Explosion #8” by gallery artist, Christopher Russell.

The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin is one of the foremost university art museums in the country, and has the largest and most comprehensive collection of art in Central Texas. The Blanton’s permanent collection of more than 17,000 works is recognized for its European paintings, an encyclopedic collection of prints and drawings, and modern and contemporary American and Latin American art.

The Blanton is considered one of the university’s many Gems along with The Harry Ransom Center, the Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas Press, UT Libraries, the Graduate School, and the Michener Center for Writers. Located at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Congress Avenue, the museum is across the street from the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum and is adjacent to downtown Austin.

We congratulate Christopher on this momentous occasion, and thank the Blanton for its continued support of his work. If you have questions about this artist or available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

Mark Moore Gallery is proud to announce the acquisition of Kris Kuksi’s “Churchtank Type 9” (2010) by the Crocker Art Museum. Joining their permanent collection of Californian and American Art, “Churchtank Type 9” will be included in a cohesive group of artists that spans from the 19th century to the present.

The first public art museum founded in the Western United States, the Crocker Art Museum was established in 1885 and is now one of the leading art museums in California. The Crocker serves as the primary regional resource for the study and appreciation of fine art. The Museum offers a diverse spectrum of special exhibitions and programs to complement its collections of Californian art, works on paper, European art, international ceramics, photography, Asian art, and African and Oceanic art.

The Crocker Art Museum is the only museum in the Sacramento region accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, a recognition given to less than 800 of the nation’s 17,500 museums. AAM accreditation certifies that a museum operates according to standards set forth by the museum profession, manages its collections responsibly and provides quality service to the public.

We congratulate Kris on this incredible milestone, and encourage you to visit his current solo exhibition at the gallery – “Antiquity in the Faux” – on view through Saturday, December 20th. For more information about the artist, or available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

Gallery artist Penelope Umbrico currently has work on view at the Photographer’s Gallery in London (UK). Titled “Sun/Screen” (2014), the new media project will remain on view through January 18, 2015. Says the gallery:

“Sun/Screen is a new project by award-winning New York based artist Penelope Umbrico, which continues her exploration of the ever increasing production and consumption of photographic images online. Umbrico used an iPhone to re-photograph images of the sun she cropped from thousands of sunset images shared on the web.  The process of capturing images directly from the computer screen creates a moiré pattern – an optical illusion, which is the consequence of the pixel grids, meshes or dot patterns being superimposed. As the images dissolve into one another, they draw attention to the materiality of the screen and further distances us from the natural sunlight source of the original images.” 

The project was recently reviewed by the New Yorker, which declared:

“In the group exhibition ‘Social Media,’ at the Pace/MacGill Gallery in 2011, one of the most arresting works on display was Penelope Umbrico’s project ‘Sunset Portraits from 9,623,557 Flickr Sunset Pictures on 8/22/11.’ Umbrico, a New York City-based photographer, had collected a thousand and fifty-eight Flickr photos of people posing in front of the sun, then mounted them in an abstract grid of black silhouettes against colorful backgrounds.

In a new solo exhibition, ‘Sun/Screen,’ at the Photographers’ Gallery, in London, Umbrico further explores her interest in sunset photographs and the ways in which they are shared on the Internet. She used an iPhone to re-photograph images of the sun she found online, and, in the exhibit, she displays them as a single slide show. The dissolve from one image into another enhances the moiré effect of the digital photos, creating what Umbrico calls ‘a virtual window onto a natural world made un-natural.'”

We congratulate Penelope on this wonderful development in her work, and encourage you to see this project – should you find yourself in London this winter. For more information about the artist, or available work, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

This Saturday, December 13th, 2014 (4-6pm), gallery artist Andrew Schoultz will open a solo show of installation and painting at Hosfelt Gallery (San Francisco). Titled “Blown the Bits,” the show debuts vibrant and ambitious new elements in his work that is sure to delight and amaze.

Says the gallery:

Andrew Schoultz’s first solo exhibition at Hosfelt Gallery transforms 7,000 square feet of gallery space with an installation of sculpture, paintings and works on paper that charts a new trajectory in his work.

In this new body of work, Schoultz combines familiar symbols with various conventions of formalism he’s taken from art history to express his dystopian vision. Borders of concentric lines frame these works, representing containment and control while also referring to the margins of Persian miniature paintings and illuminated manuscripts or to modern geometric abstraction. But the frenetic accumulation of lines that make up Schoultz’s narrative imagery explode outward, demolishing the order of the rectilinear composition and shattering the tradition of the picture plane. The title of the show, “Blown to Bits,” alludes to the paradox of positive change – that destruction must precede the creation of something better.

The exhibition will remain on view through January 24, 2015. For more information about the artist, or available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

Opening tonight (December 11, 2014) from 6-8pm at MCQ Fine Art (Las Vegas, NV) is a solo exhibition of new works by locally based, internationally-known artist David Ryan. This is David Ryan’s first solo exhibition in Las Vegas.

Ryan’s body of work typically produces slick and colorful wall constructions that challenge the way line, shape and shadow interact. With these never before seen works on paper, we will see the artist hand, that will continue to explore these concepts, but with a new technique and level of perception. In addition, several small sculptural stacks take the work off the wall and are the result of a more deconstructive exploration of his materials, allowing the artist to think in more 3-dimensional terms. The exhibition will remain on view through
January 30, 2015.

We congratulate David on this milestone, and urge you to visit this exhibition should you find yourself in the Las Vegas area. For information about available works or artist biography, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

Mark Moore Gallery is pleased to report a very successful second run with the Miami Project art fair thus far. Closing today (December 7, 2014) at 6pm, the fair has seen more than 25,000 guests (a 20% increase over last year’s attendance), and has been the subject of positive review by Art F City, T Magazine, Juxtapoz Magazine, ArtInfo, Introspective Magazine, WLRN Miami Herald News, and Hyperallergic.

Throughout the course of the fair, the gallery has sold works by Ben Weiner, Penelope Umbrico, Andrew Schoultz, Clayton Brothers, Christopher Russell, and Josh Azzarella, with several more confirmations pending. Should you be interested in visiting the fair on its final day, please download a complimentary pass by clicking HERE – Mark Moore Gallery may be found in Booth #203, at the front entrance of the fair. The fair is located approximately one block north of its 2013 location, at the intersection of NE 34th Street and NE 1st Ave (Midtown Blvd), near Art Miami and the Pinta Art Fair.

Inquiries about remaining works or event details may be sent to info@markmooregallery.com, or called into 714.783.8310. We look forward to seeing you!

The gallery is pleased to announce that artist Christopher Russell has had a work acquired by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (OR).

The only academic museum in Oregon accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the University of Oregon’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA) features engaging exhibitions, significant collections of historic and contemporary art, and exciting educational programs that support the university’s academic mission and the diverse interests of its off-campus communities.  The JSMA’s collections galleries present selections from its extensive holdings of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and American art.  Special exhibitions galleries display works from the collection and on loan, representing many cultures of the world, past and present. The JSMA continues a long tradition of bridging international cultures and offers a welcoming destination for discovery and education centered on artistic expression that deepens the appreciation and understanding of the human condition.

We congratulate Christopher on this wonderful milestone. The artist also has work on view with the gallery at Miami Project – Booth #203 – through December 7th. For information about the artist or available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

As debuted this week during Art Basel Miami Beach with the Aperture Foundation, Penelope Umbrico’s newest book, “Range,” was chosen by a-n online as one of the “Top 10 Photo Books of 2014.” Says the website:

Injecting a shot of energy into a selection of canonical photographers’ images of mountains – ‘the oldest subject and most immovable landmark’ – Penelope Umbrico rephotographs them using smartphone camera apps to disorienting effect. An explosion of colour and abstraction born of errors in grain, pixels and screen resolution all play their part to recaliberate our relationship with the analogue history of photography amidst the current digital onslaught. What we get is a fresh study of the authored versus the anonymous, the original and the copy, the fixed and transitory. This is collective pictorial memory skewed for the Internet age.

Photographs from this body of work are currently on view with Mark Moore Gallery at Miami Project through December 7th, in Booth #203. For additional information about the artist, or inquiries about available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com.