Monica Majoli
04 May - 10 Jun 2006
MONICA MAJOLI
EXHIBITION: Rubbermen
DATE: May 4 - Jun 10, 2006
Opening reception for the artist: Thursday, May 4th, 6 - 8 pm
980 Madison Avenue
Gagosian Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Los Angeles based artist Monica Majoli. This is Majoli's second solo exhibition in New York, and her first at Gagosian. The exhibition will include works from her Rubbermen series, currently on view in the 2006 Whitney Biennial: Day for Night.
For the past fifteen years Majoli's work has engaged issues of identity, intimacy and mortality. While predominately sexually explicit, the primary focus of her work has consistently been on the psychological aspects of the physical experience.
In 1999 Majoli began an extensive project depicting men engaged in a fetish, which involves donning multi-layered rubber suits. She employed watercolor and gouache, as it best described a fluid, disembodied consciousness encased within a confining structure. The rubber suits act as a second skin, while the opaque shapes that surround the men describes both the isolation within the suit and a location or barrier around the men. The highly deliberate subtlety in value and form created by delicate washes, give a vaporous quality to the figures.
In its current form, the recent work involves life-size figures in rubber, suspended from trees in the woods. The woods in which the figures hang are blurred, muted and abstracted to create the muffled perception of the landscape as experienced from inside the rubber suit. The chalkiness of the surrounding landscape in combination with the luminous transparency of the figures acts as a disjunctive element between exterior and interior dimensions. Watercolors of individual, larger than life heads of Rubbermen are also included in the exhibition, where pumps and tubes emanating from anonymous heads highlight the psychological and physical aspect of suffocation and heighten awareness of both confinement and breathing that is essential to this activity. Landscape in these works is internalized, echoing or superimposing the landscape within the boundaries of the body and mind.
Monica Majoli was born in Los Angeles in 1963. She received both her BA and her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her works are in the permanent collections of major museums and private collections including The Peter Norton Family Foundation and The Museum of Modern Art, through a gift from The Judith Rothschild Foundation.
Please contact the gallery for further information.
for more information email info@gagosian.com
© MONICA MAJOLI
Head 4, 2005
Watercolor and gouache on paper
22-1/2 x 30 inches (57.2 x 76.2 cm)
Photo © Douglas M. Parker Studio
EXHIBITION: Rubbermen
DATE: May 4 - Jun 10, 2006
Opening reception for the artist: Thursday, May 4th, 6 - 8 pm
980 Madison Avenue
Gagosian Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Los Angeles based artist Monica Majoli. This is Majoli's second solo exhibition in New York, and her first at Gagosian. The exhibition will include works from her Rubbermen series, currently on view in the 2006 Whitney Biennial: Day for Night.
For the past fifteen years Majoli's work has engaged issues of identity, intimacy and mortality. While predominately sexually explicit, the primary focus of her work has consistently been on the psychological aspects of the physical experience.
In 1999 Majoli began an extensive project depicting men engaged in a fetish, which involves donning multi-layered rubber suits. She employed watercolor and gouache, as it best described a fluid, disembodied consciousness encased within a confining structure. The rubber suits act as a second skin, while the opaque shapes that surround the men describes both the isolation within the suit and a location or barrier around the men. The highly deliberate subtlety in value and form created by delicate washes, give a vaporous quality to the figures.
In its current form, the recent work involves life-size figures in rubber, suspended from trees in the woods. The woods in which the figures hang are blurred, muted and abstracted to create the muffled perception of the landscape as experienced from inside the rubber suit. The chalkiness of the surrounding landscape in combination with the luminous transparency of the figures acts as a disjunctive element between exterior and interior dimensions. Watercolors of individual, larger than life heads of Rubbermen are also included in the exhibition, where pumps and tubes emanating from anonymous heads highlight the psychological and physical aspect of suffocation and heighten awareness of both confinement and breathing that is essential to this activity. Landscape in these works is internalized, echoing or superimposing the landscape within the boundaries of the body and mind.
Monica Majoli was born in Los Angeles in 1963. She received both her BA and her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her works are in the permanent collections of major museums and private collections including The Peter Norton Family Foundation and The Museum of Modern Art, through a gift from The Judith Rothschild Foundation.
Please contact the gallery for further information.
for more information email info@gagosian.com
© MONICA MAJOLI
Head 4, 2005
Watercolor and gouache on paper
22-1/2 x 30 inches (57.2 x 76.2 cm)
Photo © Douglas M. Parker Studio