Christofer Churchill
18 June – 25 September 2016
Long situated in New York where he exhibited at the Franklin Parrasch Gallery and Shoot the Lobster, and now living and working in Ojai, CA, Christofer Churchill stayed at MOCA Tucson as part of its residency program in the summer of 2015. Employing painting, drawing, and self-published zines, this exhibition will begin with MOCA’s corridor painted black as an “anti-art” artwork directly related to Steven Parrino’s undertakings in the adjoining gallery, a “room of production” in the Central Gallery with paintings and photocopied publications displayed in vitrines, a gallery of drawings depicting skulls and hands, and one with over painted vintage art books displayed in acrylic boxes. While the black wall directs the flow of moving viewers through the Neo-Brutalist architecture, a site-specific monochromatic painting in its own right, the zines and paintings it leads to are Churchill’s practice and presentation distilled. With the overlaid, montage-like palms and articulated digits and craniums what appears macabre at first is actually an observance of our shared carnal humanity, while the exquisitely vandalized monographs also speak to our collective consciousness and history.
Christofer Churchill Didactics & Map
Images by Maya Heilman-Hall