In/Animate
Documents the groundbreaking art of nationally renowned metalsmith Myra Mimlitsch-Gray.
In/Animate surveys the past decade of work by Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, internationally renowned metalsmith and head of the Metal Program at SUNY New Paltz. Curated by author Akiko Busch, the exhibition explores a variety of artistic processes using iron, copper, brass, silver, and enameled steel. Mimlitsch-Gray's domestic artifacts suggest a coalescence of body and thing, conveying the mutability of the animate and inanimate and reflecting the intimacy between people and the objects they use. A spoon could be a lip, or a dangling twist of fabric, a vein. Over forty meticulously crafted works contribute to the contemporary conversation about how household objects express ideas about presentation, utility, and class.
Daniel Belasco is Curator of Exhibitions and Programs at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Akiko Busch writes about design, culture, and nature for a variety of publications. She is the author of Geography of Home, The Uncommon Life of Common Objects, Nine Ways to Cross a River, and The Incidental Steward. Myra Mimlitsch-Gray is an artist whose metalwork and sculpture has been widely exhibited in the United States and abroad. She received the 2014 Individual Artist Fellowship in Crafts/Sculpture from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the 2012 United States Artists Glasgow Fellowship in Craft and Traditional Arts. Sara J. Pasti is the Neil C. Trager Director of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York at New Paltz.