East Lansing, MI – The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University has acquired two works by multidisciplinary artist Andrew Kuo.
The works, “Self-Portrait (Rise and Shine),” 2009, and “The More You Know About Me, The More You'll Think Twice Before Calling/I'd Be More Tolerable If I Smoked Weed Because...,” 2011, are the first acquisitions for the new contemporary art museum, which will also assume care for the 7,500 object collection of the university’s former Kresge Art Museum. The Broad at MSU is scheduled to open in spring 2012.
The Broad at MSU is the first museum to acquire works by Andrew Kuo, who is known for his diaristic charts that meticulously document life experiences, including graphs mapping his reactions to music and concerts which are regularly featured on the New York Times’ ArtsBeat blog.
Kuo’s works bring together his experience as a painter, graphic designer, sculptor, musician and student of art history, referencing modern and post-modern artists including Joseph Albers and Sophie Calle, as well as contemporary culture embodied by pop music and social media. The New York-based artist was born in Queens, and received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1999. Past exhibitions of his work include “This is Killing Me” at Mass MOCA and solo exhibitions at Artists Space in New York and at Franklin Art Works in Minneapolis.
“For a university museum with an educational mission, Kuo’s work offers a fascinating point of entry for a discussion of art history, and insight into the multidisciplinary approach of today’s most original and engaging contemporary artists,” said Michael Rush, the museum’s founding director. “Kuo’s deeply personal storytelling will resonate with diverse audiences, and I’m thrilled that the Broad at MSU will be the first museum to include this exciting young artist in its permanent collection.”
The diptych “The More You Know About Me…” is an example of Kuo’s chart paintings documenting the artist’s personal life and emotional experiences in captivating “infographics” incorporating image and text. “Self-Portrait (Rise and Shine)” depicts the artist staring at himself in the mirror, with the commercial logo on his shirt reversed in the reflection. The humble, palette-knifed painting casts a long view back into the history of portraiture, and forward to emerging multivalent artistic practices. Both works were featured in Kuo’s solo exhibition “My List of Demands” at Taxter & Spengemann in spring 2011.
The Broad at MSU is named for Eli and Edythe Broad, longtime supporters of the university who provided the lead gift for the museum. The Broads’ gift of $28 million, with $21 million designated for construction of the building and $7 million to be used for acquisitions, exhibitions and operations, was the catalyst for the project. The museum, which broke ground in spring 2010, is expected to open in the spring of 2012 and will feature more than 70 percent gallery space and room for large art works to be displayed. The primary focus of the museum will be contemporary art.
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