Jennifer + Kevin McCoy: Index exhibition at EMPAC

Jennifer + Kevin McCoy: Index exhibition
On view through Saturday, October 13, 2012

Index is an EMPAC-commissioned public art installation by Rensselaer Arts alumni Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, which consists of multiple sculptures filmed via small, live cameras. The resulting video projection, as well as the models, will appear throughout our public spaces during an extended residency with the artists.

Inspired by a J.G. Ballard short story called The Index, in which an alphabetized list of people and places are turned into an implied, overarching narrative, the McCoys’ list spans the 1960s to today, referencing globalization, technology, mass migrations, and war. Corporate campuses, film sets, Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, and factories all collide in a globalized mediated framework that exists to support utopian goals, even as it rests upon resource depletion, financial instabilities, and entropic decay. These problems of environmental and economic collapse persist in the face of the never-changing rhetoric of the assumed benefits of the technological future.

Jennifer and Kevin McCoy's multimedia artworks examine the genres and conventions of filmmaking, memory, and language. They are known for constructing subjective databases of existing material and making fragmentary miniature film sets with lights, video cameras, and moving sculptural elements to create live cinematic events. Recent projects extend this work to autobiographical and political themes. They are the 2011 recipients of a Guggenheim Fellowship and were the 2005 recipients of the Wired Rave Award for Art. The McCoys’ work has been widely exhibited in the US and internationally—their most recent shows include z33 in Hasselt, Belgium, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the British Film Institute Southbank in London, Hannover Kunstverein, the Beall Center in Irvine, CA, PKM Gallery in Beijing, the San Jose Museum of Art, Palazzo delle Papesse, the Addison Gallery of American Art, the Nevada Museum of Art, and Artists Space in New York. Their work can be seen in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and the 12c Museum in Louisville, KY. They live in New York City.

The exhibition is free and open to the public Monday – Saturday from 12 PM – 6 PM. Free two hour parking is available adjacent to EMPAC on College Avenue and 8th Street.