Petah Coyne: Everything That Rises Must Converge
through April 11, 2011
Building 4, First Floor
Building 4, First Floor
Download the exhibition guide.
Sebastian Smee from The Globe loved the show saying, "MASS MoCA, the most consistently stimulating museum devoted to contemporary art in New England, has space to burn, making it the ideal place to show this kind of work. I admired the fearlessness of her aesthetic, which is the absolute antithesis of minimalist cool." Readthe rest of the review.
Unlike many contemporary artists who focus on social or media-related issues, Petah Coyne imbues her work with a magical quality to evoke intensely personal associations. Her sculptures convey an inherent tension between vulnerability and aggression, innocence and seduction, beauty and decadence, and, ultimately, life and death. Coyne's work seems Victorian in its combination of an overloaded refinement with a distinctly decadent and morbid undercurrent. Her innovative use of materials includes dead fish, mud, sticks, black sand, old car parts, wax, satin ribbons, artificial flowers and birds, birdcages, and most recently, taxidermy animals, Madonna statues, and horsehair.
A selection of Coyne's recent work along with two new works are on view at MASS MoCA. Viewers are transported when entering the galleries, baroque works delicately combining taxidermy birds and dripping with wax rise up from the floor and chandelier-type sculptures descend from the ceiling, taking full advantage of the multiple vantage point of MASS MoCA's triple height gallery space. This exhibition particularly focuses on works from the last 10 years including selections from Coyne's series based on Dante's Inferno, such as Untitled #1180 (Beatrice) which transforms Dante's love into a monumental sculpture of black wax covered flowers with the most subtle color breaking through, velvet and various taxidermy birds diving in and out of the towering form. Galleries filled with white wax sculptures are adjacent to the black works -- these pale, ghostly images call forth Victorian lace and at the same time the frailty of life. Some of Coyne's ghostly photographs featuring blurred figures of children and Buddhist monks are also on view.
Petah Coyne was born in Oklahoma City in 1953. She lives and works in New York and New Jersey.
