11.29.18 - 01.20.19

Penelope Umbrico: MONUMENT

BRIC11-30-1839634_Jason-Wyche-scaled

Exhibition Info

Time

Tue - Sat, 10am-6pm
Sun, 12-6pm
Closed Mondays and , 23; as well as
Location
  • Gallery at BRIC House

EXHIBITION ON VIEW: Nov 29, 2018 – Jan 20, 2019

OPENING RECEPTION: Wed, Nov 28, 2018 | 7-9PM

CURATED BY: Elizabeth Ferrer

Penelope Umbrico‘sMONUMENT explores the monolithic state of current technologies in relation to their obsolescence. Umbrico begins with the idea that all technologies – including the electronics we use at home and in the workplace – are in effect “black boxes” whose contents are largely incomprehensible to end users. Although we tend to think of screens as invisible and we never see the workings of our technologies, almost everything we learn and know these days is mediated through the filters of technology. Umbrico aims to demystify the black-box device and to engage the public in creative modes of transforming and visualizing the electronic detritus that accumulates in our homes and in landfills.

MONUMENT is made up of several inter-related elements. At the heart of the exhibition is a wall of broken and semi-functional LCD TVs and computer monitors screening the news, underscoring that both current events and the screens are the result of something gone wrong. Behind this massive wall is what Umbrico refers to as a “knolling table,” where visitors are invited to bring their unwanted electronic screen-based devices to be disassembled and arranged for a photograph. Captured by an overhead camera, these arrangements will be shared with the visitor and on social media.

Umbrico has designed the exhibition as a hybrid residency / e-waste in-take center. She will often be on-site during the run of the exhibition, creating an evolving installation with the disassembled e-waste that comes in. All the sculptural installations and digital photographs in the gallery are drawn directly from these materials. Here the insides of obsolete LCD TVs, computer monitors, and personal communication devices, combine to invite viewers to think about the materiality and value of the devices we engage with daily.

READ THE FULL PRESS RELEASE (PDF) >>

Residency Hours:
FRI & SAT, 2-6PM
Drop by the Gallery, where Umbrico and others will assist you in the process of disassembling, demystifying, and transforming your old devices. You’ll walk away with an artistic photographic print of your deconstructed item.

E-Waste Drop-Off:
Dates TBA
Drop off your old devices (LCD TVs, iPods, Smartphones, Kindles) to be disassembled and creatively transformed.

BIO:
Penelope Umbrico is a prominent mid-career, Brooklyn-based artist. She has exhibited at such institutions as the International Center of Photography, the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA PS1, MassMoCA, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Le Mois de Photo a Montreal Photo Festival, The Photographers’ Gallery in London, and numerous others internationally. Her work is represented in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, Perez Art Museum Miami, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others. She is the recipient of a Smithsonian Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship; a John Gutmann Photography Fellowship Award, a Deutsche Bank Fellow/New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship, an Anonymous Was A Woman Award; a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship; and an Aaron Siskind Photographer’s Fellowship. Her publications include Penelope Umbrico (photographs) and Range, both published by Aperture, New York.