Brian Moss
Curated by Lisa Yuskavage
October 21st – November 27th, 2004
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 21st, 6-8p


 

Brian Moss is an artist who uses drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, computers and the written word in his work. He was born in Philadelphia and studied painting at Tyler School of Art and Temple University Abroad, Rome Campus. He moved to Los Angeles in 1992 to attend graduate school in photography at California Institute of the Arts. Since 1997 he has taught at many colleges in the Los Angeles area including Otis College of Art and Design, UC Irvine and Loyola Marymount University. He maintains a website at www.mossprojects.net

Lisa Yuskavage received a BFA from Tyler School of Art and an MFA from Yale School of Art. She has exhibited in numerous important group shows including SITE Santa Fe, The Whitney Biennial, The Instanbul Biennial and the "Greater New York" show at P.S. 1/The Museum of Modern Art. She recently has had solo shows at greengrassi in London, Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York, Studio Guenzani in Milan and the Centre d'Art Contemporain in Geneva. In 1999-2000 she had a solo survey show at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. She is represented by Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, The Museum of Modern Art, SF MoMA and The Art Institute of Chicago. Yuskavage currently lives and works in New York.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Having lived through the slow and painful process of watching loved ones die prematurely, I have pursued existential issues around death and decay, memory, loss and history and their relation to photography and representation ever since. Reading Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida was a transformative experience for me in that it really solidified the peculiar relationship between death and photography. The work presented here fulfills my need to keep exploring this rich subject.

CURATOR'S STATEMENT

by Lisa Yuskavage

Brian and I went to Tyler School of Art from 1980-84.
As in most colleges, good friends were made and lifetime relationships blossomed. 
But in the case of our college days, the profundity of life got in the way of parties when everyone started getting sick: Marsha Marritz, Brian's girlfriend first of Hodgkin's Disease, and then Guy Kitchen, his best friend of AIDS. Marsha was 25 and Guy was 38 when they passed. 
Biography aside, these photographs move me. I see them as profound and unfiltered expressions of sadness.

It is rare that someone bares themselves so clearly.

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