Montclair Art Museum Collects Metal Flatware for Contemporary Art Exhibition

Nov. 13, 2012 - PRLog -- Montclair Art Museum (MAM) is now collecting metal flatware to be incorporated in the Fall 2013 New Directions contemporary art exhibition. The third exhibition in this series will feature acclaimed artist Jean Shin, who creates sculptures and installations using materials gathered from the communities in which she works. Starting this past October and running through early spring 2013, MAM invites visitors, art school students, guests, friends, and all other members of the community to be a part of the creative process and donate metal flatware (forks, knives, spoons, serving utensils, and other cutlery) to her project and, next fall, see their donations incorporated into Shin’s exciting new work, created especially for MAM. Collection bins are currently located at both of MAM’s entrances. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to become part of the creative process, and help create a new work of contemporary art!

Jean Shin
Jean Shin is nationally recognized for her monumental installations that transform everyday objects into elegant expressions of identity and community. For each project, she amasses vast collections of a particular object—prescription pill bottles, sports trophies, sweaters—which are often sourced through donations from individuals in a participating community. These intimate objects then become the materials for her conceptually rich sculptures, videos, and site-specific installations. Distinguished by her meticulous, labor-intensive process, and her engagement of community, Shin’s arresting installations reflect individuals’ personal lives as well as collective issues that we face as a society.

Her work has been widely exhibited in major national and international museums, including in solo exhibitions at the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA (2012), Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona (2010), Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC (2009), the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia (2006), and Projects at The Museum of Modern Art in New York (2004).

Other venues have been the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Art and Design, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Asia Society and Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, Sculpture Center, Socrates Sculpture Park, and Frederieke Taylor Gallery in New York City. Site-specific permanent installations have been commissioned by the US General Services Administration Art in Architecture Award, New York City’s Percent for the Arts, and MTA Art for Transit. She has received numerous awards, including the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Architecture/Environmental Structures (2008) and Sculpture (2003), Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Art Award. Her works have been featured in many publications, including Frieze Art, Flash Art, Tema Celeste, Art in America, Sculpture Magazine, Artnews, and The New York Times.

Born in Seoul, South Korea and raised in the United States, Shin attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1999 and received a BFA and MS from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She lives and works in New York City.

New Directions
New Directions, Montclair Art Museum’s contemporary art exhibition series, spotlights emerging and mid-career artists working in all media, including painting, sculpture, installation, photography, video, sound, digital, and performance art. Marking the launch of MAM’s new contemporary art program, New Directions debuted in Fall 2011 with Marina Zurkow: Friends, Enemies, and Others; working primarily in digital animation, Zurkow makes videos, prints, and objects exploring environmental themes. September 2012 saw the opening of Saya Woolfalk: The Empathics; Woolfalk examines issues of ethnic and gender identity through installations, textile-based sculptures, painting, video, and performance. Looking forward to Fall 2013, New Directions will feature the art of Jean Shin, who works with communities to gather everyday personal objects, which she uses as the basis for installations, sculptures, drawings, photographs, and videos. Reflecting MAM’s educational mission, the featured artists are united by a commitment to community engagement and education through art.

About the Montclair Art Museum
The Montclair Art Museum, a notable, community-based institution with an international reputation, boasts a renowned collection of American and Native American art that uniquely highlights art making in the United States over the last three hundred years. The collection includes more than 12,000 objects: paintings, prints, original works on paper, photographs, and sculpture by American artists from the 18th century to the present, as well as traditional and contemporary Native American art and artifacts representing the cultural developments of peoples from all of the major American Indian regions. The Museum’s education programs serve a wide public and bring artists, performers, and scholars to the Museum on a regular basis.

MAM’s Yard School of Art is the leading regional art school, offering a multitude of comprehensive courses for children, teens, adults, seniors, and professional artists.

The Montclair Art Museum is located at 3 South Mountain Avenue in Montclair, N.J. Information and directions are available on the Museum website, montclairartmuseum.org, or by calling 973-746-5555. MAM is open Wednesdays through Sundays, Noon – 5 p.m., and on the first Thursday of every month (October – June), 5 p.m.–9 p.m. It is closed on Mondays, Tuesdays, and major holidays. Museum admission is $12 for nonmember adults, $10 for senior citizens and students with I.D., and free for members and children under 12. Thursday nights, starting October 4, are free for everyone. The Store at MAM is open Tuesdays through Sundays, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. and has extended hours until 9 p.m. on First Thursdays.

All Museum programs are made possible, in part, by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and by funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Vance Wall Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and Museum Members.