Jayson Musson
Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, 1216 Arch Street, 5A, Philadelphia, PA 19107
Until May 28, 2016
Knowledge God, 2016.
About:
In their ability to communicate a cultural narrative, Musson’s Coogis are related to the faux-batik Dutch textiles favored by Yinka Shonibare, which encode the history of colonialism in Africa. But it was their visual complexity and not their conceptual richness that drew Musson to Coogis in the first place. The knits possess an extravagant tactility that in Musson’s view mimics the figure/ground relationships of traditional painting. Too, the patterns remind him of Jackson Pollock, as he has said in interviews.
The Truth in the Song, 2015.
After separating Coogi sweaters into pieces, Musson arranges his components into compositions that he stitches together by machine and stretches tautly. This piecing technique resembles Lucas Samaras’s vibrant “Reconstructions” of the ’70s, made of cloth patterned with Op and Ab-Ex-like designs. Musson’s new work nods appreciatively at feminist precursors such as Miriam Schapiro, who “collaborated” with those who crafted the fabrics she recontextualized in her art.(quotes from article on Art in America site, March 2013)
Two Pillars of Ivory, 2015.
Mass, Shadow, Generator, 2016.
Jayson Musson (1977, lives and works in Brooklyn) has had solo exhibitions at Salon 94, New York; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Marginal Utility, and Space 1026, all in Philadelphia; and Dazed & Confused Magazine Gallery, London. He has been featured in numerous group exhibitions at venues including Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Postmasters, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; West Galeria, Den Haag, The Netherlands; Grimmuseum, Berlin, Germany; Fleisher/Ollman, Philadelphia; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; and Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center, Ohio, among others. Musson received his BFA from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia in 2002 and his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2011. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2011.