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Indepth Arts News:
"To Know The Spiders by Julian Montague"
2008-06-05 until 2008-07-12
Black and White Gallery
New York, NY,
USA United States of America
BLACK & WHITE GALLERY // Chelsea is proud to present To Know The Spiders by Julian Montague. Investigations into overlooked realms of daily life, continues to be at the heart of Montague's art practice. In his highly acclaimed The Stray Shopping Cart Identification System project exhibited in the fall of 2006 at Black & White Gallery, Montague's method was to build a system of classification around a mundane object. In To Know the Spiders, Montague mounts a visual exploration of seemingly mundane animals – the spiders that occupy the peripheries of human architectural space. His process begins with the collection and killing of a spider. He then studies its face under a microscope and from the resulting drawings creates a portrait of the spider in the form of a fabric banner. The banner is then placed and photographed in the exact spot of collection. The banner illuminates the presence of a silent witness and sometime symbiotic partner while also serving as a memorial to the spider that had to die for that understanding to be gained.
Since his graduation from Hampshire College in 1996 with a BA in Media Studies, Julian Montague's photographs and other works have been exhibited in solo and group shows at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, NY, Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT, Spaces Gallery in Cleveland, OH, Art in General in NYC, Light Factory in Charlotte, NC and at the Collectors Gallery at Albright - Knox in Buffalo, NY. In 2005 Montague's work was included in the Albright - Knox Art Gallery Beyond/In Western New York biennial at the Castellani Art Museum in Niagara Falls, NY. In 2006 the book version of the Stray Shopping Cart Identification System project, The Stray Shopping Carts Of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification was published by Harry Abrams and is now widely available in bookstores and on most online book sellers. Julian Montague is the winner of the Diagram Prize for the Oddest Title of 2006. He lives and works in Buffalo, NY.
Recent acquisitions:
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (2008)
The Margulies Collection, Miami, FL (2006)
Currently on view:
Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY
To Know The Spiders is the final part of a three-part, spring’08 season-long multidisciplinary program The Proper Animal, comprised of three successive solo exhibitions. All three participating artists utilize highly original and sometimes disturbing animal iconography which inevitably brings ethical considerations into play. The program title addresses complex issues of animal propriety in the context of human-animal power relations. Whether each artist operates in an intuitive, sub-ethical way focusing on form rather than meaning remains an open question.
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