Princeton NJ Museums and Galleries Press Releases

The Arts Council of Princeton Presents Consumed: An Exhibition about Art, Money and Consumption

What do artists talk about? Money. What do bankers talk about? Art.  

Artists, collectors, galleries and museums have developed a complicated and interconnected relationship that makes it almost impossible for a contemporary artist to create completely free from economic realities. Consumed: An Exhibition about Art, Money and Consumption is a project for our times.

During this recent period of economic crisis there is virtually no one unaffected by the financial challenges we face in the United States and throughout the world. The artists in Consumed, who include Gregory Perkel, Mollie Murphy, Jules Schaeffer, Joe Scanlan, Andy Warhol, Rachel Perry Welty and Andrew Wilkinson, all have a unique take on the subject, offering a broad range of perspectives on the intricate balance that exists between art, money and the consumer mentality.

Without a doubt, Andy Warhol epitomizes the artist as manipulator of marketing, creator of products and famous personality. The Warhol pieces come to us from Princeton resident Gregory McCoy, an advertising executive whose contribution adds an intriguing dimension from a collector’s point of view.  In fact, we are currently experiencing a remarkable flood of Warhol related products and multiples in the marketplace and the greatest surge in the value of Warhol’s work, since his death in 1987.

As a distinct counterpoint to the fame and ultimate marketability of Warhol is the work of Mollie Murphy, who has made a series of “Dollar Store” works. She has consciously steered clear of the art market and gallery system and has created works that she either gives away, sells for just a dollar or does not offer for sale.

Funding for Arts Council of Princeton Exhibitions is provided in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and Arts Council members. Artworks by Andy Warhol are lent courtesy of the Collection of Gregory McCoy.

ABOUT THE ARTSTS:

Mollie Murphy is a mixed media and conceptual artist who has been creating art inspired by and about consumer society for over ten years. A resident of Princeton, Mollie is an art teacher at Princeton High School. She received her MFA from Tufts University.

Gregory Perkel has taught painting for the Arts Council of Princeton for almost ten years. He has exhibited his work internationally and is represented by OK Harris Gallery in New York. Gregory Perkel is a graduate of the prestigious Moscow Institute of Fine Art. He lives and works in North Brunswick, NJ.

Joe Scanlan is the Director and a Professor of Visual Arts for the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. Scanlan previously was on faculty at Yale, and served as assistant director of the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, specializing in radical, conceptual and installation-based artworks.

Jules Schaeffer has been making mixed media works and monotypes for more than fifty years, largely inspired by Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism. A graduate of the Philadelphia University of the Arts, Schaeffer lives and works in Belle Meade, NJ.

Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987), was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art.

Rachel Perry Welty studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts,

Connecticut College, New London, Connecticut, and the Université de Paris (La Sorbonne), Paris, France. Represented by Yancey Richardson Gallery, she creates meticulously arranged, often language-based sculpture informed by food and culture.

Andrew Wilkinson is a Trenton based artist with a dual background in fine art and commercial art with an interest in marketing and media communications. He has developed a style that borrows from both popular culture and subcultures, combined with influences from Surrealism and Pop Art. His work explores the re-contextualization of ordinary objects.

The Arts Council of Princeton presents Consumed: An Exhibition about Art, Money and Consumption at the Paul Robeson Center for the Arts, Taplin Gallery, 102 Witherspoon Street, Princeton, NJ across from the Princeton Public Library. Exhibition Dates: January 9, 2010 – February 27, 2010. Opening Reception: January 9, 2010. Artists: Mollie Murphy, Gregory Perkel, Joe Scanlan, Jules Schaeffer, Andy Warhol, Rachel Perry Welty, Andrew Wilkinson. More information at www.artscouncilofprinceton.org or call 609-924-8777. Parking is available in the Spring and Hulfish Street Garages as well as metered parking along Witherspoon Street and Paul Robeson Place

For more information, or to schedule an interview, please contact:

Amy Brummer at The Arts Council of Princeton

abrummer@artscouncilofprinceton.org

Ph: 609-924-8777

Or visit www.artscouncilofprinceton.org