FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 18, 2013

Fort Worth, TX

 

Kendal Smith Lake
Manager of Communications
817.738.9215 x167
817.735.1161 fax
www.themodern.org

 

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth Presents     

FOCUS: Fred Tomaselli

January 12-March 2, 2014

 

The FOCUS series is organized by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth for the Director's Council, a group that supports acquisitions at the Museum. The series features three solo exhibitions organized annually, with Assistant Curator Alison Hearst making her curatorial debut at the Modern with FOCUS: Fred Tomaselli. FOCUS exhibitions are open to the public and are included in general Museum admission: $10 for adults; $4 for seniors (60+) and students with identification; free for children 12 and under; free for Modern members.

 

The Modern's second Director's Council FOCUS exhibition for the 2013-2014 season features the work of New York-based artist Fred Tomaselli. The exhibition presents a selection of works that span the past 10 years of the artist's career, including his elaborately layered paintings and New York Times collages.  

 

Fred Tomaselli is known for his visually packed paintings that are hybrid in materials, subjects, and cultural references. A single piece may consist of brightly colored passages of paint, photo-collage, found images from field guides and magazines, and drugs such as aspirin, marijuana leaves, and ecstasy pills. These materials are layered onto wood panels and suspended in thick layers of slick epoxy resin. Tomaselli's stylized works range from psychedelic abstractions to idealized representations of allegorical figures, animals, nature, and the cosmos. In the fifteen-foot-wide painting Flipper, 2008, included in the exhibition, a web of abstract, rhythmic lines, each comprised of a variety of collaged elements, reverberate on a dark field. The complex pattern of energy resembles sound waves and was inspired by the music and history of New Orleans.

 

Tomaselli's mesmerizing scenes bend reality, illustrating the utopian and transcendental capabilities of art. His works also comment on the artifice of suburban America in the 1960s and 1970s and the subcultural quest for escapism-whether it be reached through hallucinatory experiences or trips to amusement parks such as Disneyland-realities that are particularly tied to the artist's upbringing in California during those decades. Of his work, Tomaselli says, "It is my ultimate aim to seduce and transport the viewer into the space of these pictures while simultaneously revealing the mechanics of that seduction."

 

Also featured in this exhibition is a selection of Tomaselli's New York Times collages, an ongoing series the artist began in 2005 in which he scans the front pages of the newspaper, prints them onto watercolor paper, and alters the central images. These works reflect the passing of time, while also emphasizing how the information presented to readers is highly subjective and often banal. Tomaselli states on the series,

"I'm a news junkie . . . I love watching the history of the world unfold on a daily basis.  I repurpose these cultural bits, which have been authored by others, into new artifacts. . . . Like the news itself, [these collages] present a 'now' as it immediately slips into the past."  

 

Fred Tomaselli was born in Santa Monica, California, and received his BA from California State University in Fullerton. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Tomaselli has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum; Aspen Art Museum; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Indianapolis Museum of Art; SITE Santa Fe; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Tomaselli was the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant in 1998 and New York's Public Design Commission Annual Award for Excellence in Design in 1992. His work is in the collections of many museums, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Art Institute of Chicago; and the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.

 

The Director's Council

The Director's Council was formed in 1985 to assist the Museum with acquisitions. The Director's Council supports the FOCUS series, which presents three solo exhibitions organized each year by the Museum. Each exhibition opens with an exclusive cocktail reception for Council members, an opportunity to meet the featured artist and discuss his or her work. One work by each artist is chosen by the Museum to be part of the final selection to be voted on at the Council's Purchase Meeting. This format provides members with an in-depth understanding of the Modern's acquisitions process and offers a spirited and popular series of events. The annual dues, $600, include all the benefits of a Family membership and invitations to exclusive Director's Council events.

 

Related Event

February 4, 7 pm 

Tuesday Evenings Lecture with artist Fred Tomaselli

LOCATION

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
3200 Darnell Street
Fort Worth, Texas 76107
Telephone 817.738.9215
Toll-Free 1.866.824.5566
Fax 817.735.1161
www.themodern.org
 
Museum Gallery Hours
Tue 10 am-7 pm (Sep-Nov, Feb-Apr)
Tue-Sun 10 am-5 pm
Fri 10 am-8 pm
 
General Admission Prices (includes special exhibition)
$4 for students with ID and seniors (60+)
$10 for adults (13+)
Free for children 12 and under
Free for Modern members
Free the first Sunday of every month and half-price every Wednesday.
 
CAFÉ MODERN
Lunch
Tue-Fri 11 am-2:30 pm
Brunch
Sat-Sun 10 am-3 pm
Dinner
Fri 5 pm-8:30 pm
Coffee, snacks, and dessert 10 am-4:30 pm

The Museum is closed Monday and holidays including New Year's Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas.    

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