 Mungo Thomson New York, New York, New York, New York John Connelly Presents is pleased to announce "New York, New York, New York, New York", a solo exhibition by Los Angeles artist Mungo Thomson. This will be Thomson's first solo exhibition at the gallery and will occupy both John Connelly Presents' main space in suite 1003 and the JCP annex in suite 1023. Thomson's work in a variety of media explores negative space and background information, phenomenological atmospherics and social context, and confusion and misinterpretation (the collision of illusion and reality, and the simple exchange of one for the other). This exhibition will consist of a new video installation and a new 35mm film, as well as several of Thomson's signature atmospheric sculptural works. In "New York, New York, New York, New York", Thomson projects four wall-size video images of empty New York City streetscapes. Shot by the artist, the projections have incongruous and disconcerting moments that slowly reveal themselves to be something more than simple "establishing shots" for various NYC locations. Thomson's 35mm film "The Swordsman" is an inversion of the famous moment in a movie sword fight when a character, finding himself unarmed is thrown a sword. When the actor catches it and resumes fighting, the sword seems to have come from another character (via editing), but it has in reality been tossed from a professional "Sword Master" standing off camera. Thomson's film is the humble rejoinder to decades of those scenes. It depicts legendary Hollywood "Sword Master" Bob Anderson, whose credits include "Barry Lyndon", "Star Wars", the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and "Pirates of the Caribbean", expertly throwing a prop sword to an off screen presence. Also on view will be a number of Thomson's sculptural works, including pendant lamps made of US coins and a hand-blown glass beer bottle bouquet. Mungo Thomson attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in 1994 and received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of California Los Angeles in 2000. He has exhibited his work in galleries and museums in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Geneva, Vienna, London, Copenhagen, Turin, Mexico City, and Cuenca, Ecuador. His work was recently included in the 2004 California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art and in the exhibition "100 Artists See God" at the Institute for Contemporary Art in London. Exhibition: April 1 - May 7, 2005 Gallery hours: Tue-Sat 11am - 6pm John Connelly Presents 526 West 26th Street, #1003 USA-New York, NY 10001 Telephone +1 212 337 9563 Fax +1 212 337 9613 Email info@johnconnellypresents.com www.johnconnellypresents.com |
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