Penelope Umbrico Acquired by Pérez Art Museum Miami

The gallery is thrilled to announce the recent acquisition by Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) of Penelope Umbrico‘s large work, “Suns from Sunset from Flickr,” (2015) for its permanent collection.

Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is a modern and contemporary art museum dedicated to collecting and exhibiting international art of the 20th and 21st centuries. PAMM serves one of the most diverse populations in one of the fastest growing regions in the country, where a unique confluence of Caribbean, North and South American cultures adds vibrancy and texture to the civic landscape. The city’s thriving community of artists, designers and collectors and its avid and growing art-engaged public are driving Miami’s demand for a world-class museum and dynamic center of visual arts education. PAMM transformed Museum Park into a central destination on Miami’s cultural map, promotes progressive arts education, builds community cohesiveness and contributes substantially to downtown revitalization.

Penelope Umbrico offers a radical reinterpretation of everyday consumer and vernacular images. Umbrico works “within the virtual world of consumer marketing and social media, traveling through the relentless flow of seductive images, objects, and information that surrounds us, searching for decisive moments—but in these worlds, decisive moments are cultural absurdities.”
She finds these moments in the pages of consumer product mail-order catalogs, travel and leisure brochures; and websites like Craigslist, EBay, and Flickr. Identifying image typologies—candy-colored horizons and sunsets, books used as props—brings the farcical, surreal nature of consumerism to new light.

Penelope Umbrico (born in Philadelphia, 1957) graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, and received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York. She has participated extensively in solo and group exhibitions, including at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York. Umbrico is core faculty in the School of Visual Arts MFA Photography, Video, and Related Media Program. Selected public collections include the Guggenheim Museum (NY), International Center of Photography (NY), McNay Museum of Art (TX), Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), Museum of Contemporary Photography (IL), Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (CA), Museum of Modern Art (NY), and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (CA), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (CA), among others. She lives in New York City.