about the exhibition
International Artist-In-Residence
New Works 08.1
Rodney McMillian
Los Angeles, CA
March 13–May 11, 2008
about the artistRodney McMillian’s multimedia installations recycle remnants of everyday life into objects that deconstruct the tenets of historical interpretation. Formally trained in both painting and foreign affairs, McMillian in his exhibitions and performances juxtaposes a variety of media—from realist paintings to found objects and video—resisting adherence to a single creative practice. These strategies provide a language to examine an idea of history as a non-linear construction, consumerism, and pop culture.
Rodney McMillian was born in Columbia, SC, in 1969. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. McMillian received his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA, in 2005. He has had solo exhibitions at Neuer Aachener Kunstverein (NAK), Aachen, Germany (2007); Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Culver City, CA (2006, 03); and Triple Candie, New York, NY (2003), among others. His group exhibitions include the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2008); Rodney McMillian and Olga Koumoundouros: On a Porch, LAXART, Los Angeles, CA (2007); and Painting in Tongues, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA (2006). He was recently awarded the William H. Johnson Prize by The William H. Johnson Foundation for the Arts (2007).
about the project
McMillian’s Untitled comprises a group of paintings, photographs, and historical ephemera. Each work references myriad sources—from Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road to 19th-century American and German landscape painting. Seen as a unit, these works form a constellation that situates paintings adjacent to sculpture in order to explore themes related to the landscape, church, and home.
The five canvases hanging from ceiling to floor are laden with a combination of red, black, and white latex and acrylic paints. Between these paintings are anonymous portraits, gathered by the artist from antique stores. The photographs, all framed and altered to measure 11 x 14 inches, are stacked in vertical columns that terminate just above eye level. The resulting uniformity of these images suggests the organization of tombstones in a graveyard or the columns of names listed on a memorial wall. By using photographs of unknown individuals, McMillian has emphasized the vast numbers represented in human birth and death.
The sculptural nexus of the exhibition—a ragged chair and rug—is surmounted by a six-pointed, vaulted paper canopy. This makeshift cathedral ceiling, however, is dwarfed by the paintings dominating the walls. Linking sculpture and painting, McMillian has coated the soiled chair and rug with thick applications, respectively, of red acrylic and latex paint.
The sound component to the installation, Pelicans in Texas by musician Stefan Tcherepnin, is a synthesizer-based minimalist composition. This two-channel progression pulses back and forth between silent tracks and cacophonous, yet oddly meditative sound. Reverberating bass frequencies and dissonant spiking sounds bounce throughout the space, permeating the environment. By presenting this musical compilation in conjunction with the physical elements of the installation, McMillian conjures an atypical cathedral setting.
-Emily Morrison
Curatorial Assistant
