Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington announces fall 2023 Exhibitions
The fall exhibitions include a thematic group exhibition exploring corporeal breakdown and instability, two solo exhibitions as part of the ongoing SOLOS series, a solo exhibition by an Arlington-based mixed media artist, and a solo exhibition by one of the Museum’s resident artists.
ARLINGTON, VA., August 29, 2023 – Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington is proud to announce its fall exhibitions, opening on September 9, 2023. Art After Hours, an opening celebration, will take place on Saturday, September 9 from 5pm-8pm.
Throughout the fall, the Museum will present a group exhibition and four solo exhibitions, as well as the public sculpture Reclining Liberty which is on view outside the Museum through July of 2024.
The group exhibition, An Adventure of Being, includes sculpture and painting by Vincent Cy Chen, Nicki Cherry, Jeremy Olson, and Stephanie J. Williams. Reflecting visual influences from surrealism, science fiction, technology, and popular culture, An Adventure of Being explores blurred boundaries, physical breakdown, and states of in-between-ness in relation to bodies (both human and otherwise). The exhibition is curated by Blair Murphy, MoCA Arlington’s Curator of Exhibitions.
The solo exhibitions include Andrew Barco: Understory and Elliot Doughtie: Tomato, two solo projects that take place as part of SOLOS 23-24. The exhibitions in SOLOS 23-24 were selected from an open call by a jury that included artist Nekisha Durrett, Betsy Johnson, assistant curator, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and Jova Lynne, director, Temple Contemporary, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University.
Layering objects and text, fact and fiction, history and the present moment, artist Andrew Barco’s Understory explores the possibilities and difficulties of understanding across culture and time. Understory incorporates sculpture, projection, and hand-drawn texts to tell the fictional story of a Chicago theater group creating a live-performance version of The Cave (2019), a real-life documentary about a subterranean hospital during the Syrian civil war.
Elliot Doughtie’s sculptures and installations transform industrial materials into metaphors for the human body and the experience of inhabiting one. In Tomato, Doughtie playfully manipulates materials like steel, epoxy, copper, plaster, and concrete, transforming the hard-edged materiality of these substances to evoke the soft vulnerability of the human form.
Two additional solo exhibitions on view this fall reaffirm MoCA Arlington’s dedication to supporting and exhibiting artists who live and work in Arlington and the surrounding region.
The work in Judith Stone: Constructing Constructions demonstrates Stone’s commitment to drawing but also incorporates photography, found objects, and other nontraditional materials. Currently based in Arlington, Stone has been influenced and shaped by her experiences living and working across the United States and around the world. Whether depicting the overlooked form of an earth mover or the grandeur of the Elgin Marbles, Stone’s deft hand brings an elegance to both the mundane and the spectacular.
Marissa Long: Blister Pearl is Long’s second solo exhibition as a resident artist and features a new installation. Centered around a stalagmite-encrusted figure enshrined within a gauzy pink enclosure, Blister Pearl is filled with objects that seduce and repulse: delicate lilies that grow out of oozing human organs and a large cavity in the belly of the figure that is filled with sparkling geodes. Through these objects, Long reflects on the roles that time and decay play in the act of creation; the oppositional forces that cause one thing to perish so that another may thrive.
Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington Fall Exhibitions
On View September 9 – December 17, 2023
An Adventure of Being
Meyer and Smith Galleries, Main Level
Curated by Blair Murphy, MoCA Arlington Curator of Exhibitions
Featured artists: Vincent Cy Chen, Nicki Cherry, Jeremy Olson, and Stephanie J. Williams
Elliot Doughtie: Tomato
Experimental Gallery, Lower Level
Andrew Barco: Understory
Truland Gallery, Lower Level
Judith Stone: Constructing Constructions
Chairmen’s Gallery, Main Level
closes November 19
Marissa Long: Blister Pearl
Wyatt Resident Artists Gallery, Upper Level
Curated by Amanda Jirón-Murphy, MoCA Arlington Curator & Resident Artist Liaison
Zaq Landsberg: Reclining Liberty
Front Lawn
On view through July 28, 2024
Art After Hours: Saturday, September 9, 5pm-8pm
MoCA Arlington celebrates the opening of our fall exhibitions. Exhibiting artists will be in attendance and MoCA Arlington Resident Artists will also open their studios to the public. The event is free and open to the public and coincides with an opening reception at the neighboring Mason Exhibitions Arlington. Additional public programs taking place in conjunction with the exhibitions will be announced soon.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington offers free admission and is open Wednesday through Sunday, 12-5pm. Visit mocaarlington.org for a full schedule of activities.
