"Angela White: Garbology – Fiber, Fluff and Fuzz"
2003-02-21 until 2003-05-04
Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland
Cleveland, OH, USA United States of America

the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland presents Angela White, the fifth artist in the Wendy L. Moore Emerging Artist Series recognizing women artists under the age of thirty from the Northeast Ohio region. In her first solo museum show entitled, Angela White: Garbology – Fiber, Fluff and Fuzz, White transforms trash into treasure as she creates glamorous wearable garments and awesome architectural sculptures from the detritus of our consumer culture. Using blue plastic grocery bags, twisty ties, orange peel, cassette tape and umbrellas, she creates sculptural garments that evoke the haute couture of the Parisian runways. In this exhibition, White also features her architectural sculpture of a life-sized house comprised of nearly one thousand recycled telephone books she selected and collected.

Angela White has had a long and varied obsession with trash. In Garbology – Fiber, Fluff and Fuzz, White transforms trash into treasure and, in doing so, transforms herself, an artist, into a sort of anthropologist who examines our culture through its garbage. She converts mundane, discarded objects collected from sojourns into the bustling Palazzo San Marco in Italy and walks along Northeast Ohio’s Little Cuyahoga River, into imaginative sculptural works. Turning old umbrella into dresses, caution tape into a gentleman’s suit or yellow page phone books into sculptures, White subtly invites the museum-goer to rethink their preconceived distinctions between what is refuse and what is art.

ABOUT THE WENDY L. MOORE EMERGING ARTIST SERIES

To address the need for nurturing young, talented artists in the Northeast Ohio region, MOCA Cleveland produces an annual solo exhibition of an emerging female artist under the aegis of the Wendy L. Moore Emerging Artist Series. In addition to a professionally mounted exhibition, MOCA Cleveland also awards a stipend to the artist and produces a catalogue. Selection criteria stipulates that the recipient be any female artist with a developed body of work who resides in Northeast Ohio, is under thirty years old, is not currently an art student and has yet to have a one-person museum exhibition. Previous recipients have been Wendy L. Moore (1999); Christa Donner (2000); Tara Gianinni (2001); Lori Kella (2002).

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Angela White is a 2002 graduate of the Meyers School of Art at the University of Akron. She studied ceramic sculpture at an international symposium on this field in Poland during 2001. Following the award of her BFA from the University of Akron, White was an artist-in-residence with famed artist Pat Oleszko in New York City. She has been included in several shows since 1999 and was honored with the Outstanding Woman Student Award from the faculty of the Meyers School in 2002.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CLEVELAND

Since its inception in 1968 as The New Gallery, later known as the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, and now the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, MOCA has been reinventing the art experience. As Cleveland’s forum for interpreting culture through contemporary visual art, the museum connects visitors to the dynamic art and ideas of our time.

Angela White: Garbology – Fiber, Fluff and Fuzz is organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland and curated by Emily Hall Tremaine Curatorial Fellow, Frank G. Spicer III. The Wendy L. Moore Emerging Artist Series is underwritten annually by Mr. And Mrs. Dan T. Moore. All of MOCA’s exhibitions and programs are presented with major support from American Greetings, The Cleveland Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, The Ohio Arts Council and the continuing support of our patrons and members.

IMAGE:
Angela White
Fashion from Body Buildings
Exhibition at SPACES, 2002

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of Ohio

Other Important Exhibitions in Ohio