About the Artist Talk

About the artist:
MPA (b.1980) has explored a range of meditative, durational, theatrical, and actionist modes of performance to engage "the energetic" as a potential material in live work. Enriched with ritual, her performances and installations critically examine behaviors of power in individual and social spaces. She has proposed questions on the global arms race, patriarchy as governance, and the dysfunctional union of art with capitalist commodity. MPA's work has been exhibited at the Swiss Institute and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE); the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca, Mexico. Her dynamic body of work Directing Light onto Fist of Father (2011) at Leo Koenig Projekte in New York combined a looping 16mm film and a plaster cast of her father's fist in an installation that incited three durational performances. In Trilogy (o) (2012), presented at Human Resources in Los Angeles, NASA sound recordings of dying stars accompanied 31 photographs of Nike war missiles arranged as an orbiting moon calendar. A frequent collaborator, MPA is a visible muse for many contemporary photographers, painters, and performers. After receiving a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant in 2013, MPA relocated from New York City to 29 Palms, CA to continue her research on somatic practices.

About THE INTERVIEW: RED, RED FUTURE:
THE INTERVIEW: Red, Red Futureis a solo exhibition by the artist MPA that includes photography, sculpture, and performance, all commissioned for its presentation at CAMH. MPA has developed a series of exploratory topics—which she calls “landings”—drawn from the cultural imaginary surrounding the red planet. Consider, for example, the colonial implications of establishing communities on the planet that astrologers link to war and revolution, or why extraterrestrial encounters suggested in ancient mythologies are routinely dismissed as impossible. Visitors will encounter UV-sensitive sculpture in which aerial views of the Nasca Lines in Peru are alternately concealed and revealed by exposure to ultraviolet light in CAMH’s Zilkha Gallery. Combining advanced technology and Minimalist aesthetics, MPA’s work seeks to shed light on invisible forces and power.

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