Dazzled: OMD, Memphis Design, and Beyond
In celebration of the advent of dazzle camouflage during World War I, MOCA Tucson presents an expansive, museum-wide exhibition exploring the influence dazzle camouflage has had over designers, artists, and musicians of the past one hundred years. Invented by British artist Norman Wilkinson in 1917, dazzle camouflage has heavily influenced popular culture in recent decades. From the release of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s 1983 concept album “Dazzle Ships” in collaboration with designer and Factory Records co-Founder Peter Saville to 1980s Italian design and architecture studio Memphis; from wartime “Dazzle Balls” to Op Art and Pop Art; from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse to contemporary artists working today across the globe; dazzle camouflage has become one of the most highly-appropriated and widely-recognized design tropes. The exhibition raises awareness of this important style of painting and design while presenting new work created by contemporary artists Natalie Lanese, Carrie Schneider and Miho Shimizu informed by dazzle camouflage. “Dazzled” includes a special solo presentation by Memphis founding member Peter Shire, as well as an immersive OMD “Dazzle Ships” installation in MOCA Tucson’s Great Hall with interactive video and sound components. Tucson’s own KXCI will create a playlist and listening lounge on site to accompany the exhibition.
The opening reception will take place on Saturday, January 19th , with a VIP “Meet and Greet”, cocktail reception, and dialogue between OMD and KXCI’s Elva de la Torre.
Saturday, January 19, 2019
5:00pm: Cocktails and OMD “Meet and Greet” (VIP EVENT, TICKETS REQUIRED)
5:30pm: Dialogue between OMD and KXCI’s Elva De La Torre (VIP EVENT, TICKETS REQUIRED)
7:00pm: MOCA Members’ Preview
8:00pm: Public Reception with live DJing by Dave Wright and Falcotronik from KXCI’s Under Surveillance
Individual tickets and discounted combo tickets for the VIP event at MOCA Tucson on January 19 and the full concert at the Rialto on January 22 are available. Individual tickets for MOCA are $75 and include an open bar from 5:00pm-7:00pm on the 19th. Tickets and more information: HERE
Sunday, January 20, 2019
10:00am Art Now! with Peter Shire
Find more information about this lecture HERE
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
8:00pm: OMD concert at The Rialto Theatre
Tickets go on sale October 26th, Tickets and more information: HERE
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) was founded by teenage pals Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, who have retained their friendship over an impressive career spanning four decades. Their debut single, “Electricity” was released on Factory Records in 1979, and 1983’s “Dazzle Ships” is now regarded as an experimental classic. The group has appeared a staggering twenty-nine times on “Top of the Pops.” Most recently OMD performed in front of 35,000 people at the Rewind Festival, as well as a series of performances with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in celebration of their 40th Anniversary. These electronic pioneers are equal parts conceptual art project as they are pop stars. Andy McCluskey says “electronic music is our language…we took alternative music into the front rooms of every house in Britain.” During their career OMD have sold an astonishing 25 million singles and 15 million albums, all while remaining uncompromising and unwaveringly innovative.
Peter Saville is an artist and designer who has made singular contributions to art and culture. As a founder and art director of the legendary independent UK label Factory Records, he accessed a mass audience through pop music, best exemplified in the series of record sleeves he created for Joy Division and New Order between 1979 and 1993. His radical designs seemed to break all the rules, omitting information about artists or titles, fundamentally questioning modes of consumption and communication. Over the past decade he has served as the consultant creative director for the City of Manchester. His achievements were celebrated in “The Peter Saville Show” at the Design Museum in London (2003), and his first major show in a contemporary art museum was at the Migros Museum in Zurich (2005). Saville’s first monograph was published by Frieze in 2003. He has three D&AD Awards and won the London Design Medal in 2013.
Peter Shire is an LA-based artist whose work eludes all attempts at categorization. He has created ceramics, furniture, toys, interior designs, and public sculptures that seem to at once reference and parody influences such as Bauhaus, Futurism, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco. This subversive humor and playfulness extend throughout his work and made him a natural fit for the controversial and iconic Milan-based Memphis Design group, of which he was a founding member. A graduate of the famous Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, Peter Shire has an impressive exhibition record. In addition to many group shows, his works have been exhibited in numerous museum solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, Milan, and Paris to name just a few, and his work can be found in public collections and museums across the world.
Carrie Schneider is a Brooklyn-based artist working in photography and film. Her recent project Reading Women has been shown at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh), Perez Art Museum (Miami), Haggerty Museum of Art (Milwaukee), Brown University (Providence), Museum of Fine Arts (St. Petersburg, FL), California Museum of Photography (Riverside), and Mattress Factory (Pittsburgh), and she has had solo projects at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Trondheim Academy of Fine Art (Norway), and the Finnish Museum of Photography (Helsinki) to name just a few. Schneider holds a BA from Carnegie Mellon University, and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She was a Fulbright Fellow at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts (Helsinki) and recently completed the Whitney Independent Study Program. She is currently represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago.
Memphis is the great cultural phenomenon of the 1980s that revolutionized creative and commercial logics in design. Born from the idea of Ettore Sottsass and a group of young designers and architects in Milan, Memphis turned upside down all of the existing parameters on living. Memphis design gave birth to innovative concepts and expressions through new shapes, materials, and patterns, expanding the creative limits of the industry, becoming a symbol of “New Design.”
Miho Shimizu is a Japanese artist whose work looks to tribal and urban costuming to emphasize materiality that allows for variable meanings. She has created numerous pieces for live performance events where her work interacts directly with the audience. In Autumn 2018 she premiered an immersive performance entitled xhe in collaboration with Daniel Kok: a collision of dance, visual installation, and live electronic music spanning a duration of 5 hours. Parallel to her solo practice, she has been collaborating with Oyvind Renberg since 2001 under the name “Danger Museum.” Their collaborative work has been show in museums in Berlin, London, Seoul, New York, Oslo, and Tokyo to name just a few. Shimizu holds a BA from Goldsmiths College and an MA from the Oslo National Academy of Arts.
Natalie Lanese is an Ohio-based artist with a BA from Xavier University and an MFA from Pratt Institute. Her work is recognized for its punchy color palette and layered patterns. The Village Voice described her work as “enigmatic narratives heightened by keen color clashes and jazzy textures.” She works primarily in painting, installation and collage and has solo exhibitions at the Akron Art Museum and deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. Her public artwork can be widely seen across Ohio.