Curated by
Akiko Busch
August 31 – December 11, 2016
Sara Bedrick Gallery
Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Clove Oval, 2010, copper, brass, courtesy the artist
In/Animate surveys the past decade of work by Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, internationally renowned metalsmith and head of the Metal Program at SUNY New Paltz. Curated by author Akiko Busch, the exhibition explores a variety of artistic processes using iron, copper, brass, silver, and enameled steel. Mimlitsch-Gray’s domestic artifacts suggest a coalescence of body and thing, conveying the mutability of the animate and inanimate and reflecting the intimacy between people and the objects they use. A spoon could be a lip, or a dangling twist of fabric, a vein. Over 40 meticulously crafted works contribute to the contemporary conversation about how household objects express ideas about presentation, utility, and class.
Mimlitsch-Gray’s works all possess a deep sense of materiality. She was trained in the craft tradition, and describes her intention as “acquiring mastery while deconstructing the model.” Her works are distinguished by the physical processes of their making—hand wrought, hand shaped, hand hammered, hand finished. Elegantly conceived and immaculately crafted, these pieces advance ideas about form and utility to a new level. Mimlitsch-Gray’s domestic artifacts suggest a coalescence of body and thing, conveying the mutability of the animate and inanimate and reflecting the intimacy between people and the objects they use. A spoon can be a lip, or a dangling twist of fabric, a vein.
Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Pair of Spoons, 1991, silver, copper, found objects, collection of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art
A Professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, Mimlitsch-Gray received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1998. She is the recipient of the 2016 American Craft Council Award and has been inducted into its College of Fellows. Mimlitsch-Gray has also received numerous additional awards, including a 2014 New York Foundation for the arts Individual Artist Fellowship in Crafts/Sculpture and a 2012 United States Artists Glasgow Fellowship in Craft and Traditional Arts.
Funding for In/Animate is provided by the Friends of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art Contemporary Art Fund, and SUNY New Paltz.
Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Something for the Table, 2013, silver, courtesy the artist
Catalogue
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated, 72-page catalogue featuring texts by Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, exhibition curator Akiko Busch, and Daniel Belasco, the curator of exhibitions and programs of The Dorsky Museum. The catalogue is designed by Group C, Inc., New Haven, and will available in September 2016 at the museum or online at SUNY Press. (www.sunypress.edu).
Exhibition-related Programs
Saturday, October 22, 2–5 pm
Gallery talk and special tour of the SUNY New Paltz Metal program lead by Myra Mimlitsch-Gray and Akiko Busch
Save
