Los Angeles-based artist Marisa J. Futernick exhibits at Murray State University’s Mary Ed Mecoy Hall Gallery

 

MURRAY, Ky. – The Murray State University Galleries and the Department of Art & Design are pleased to present the solo exhibition “Concession” featuring recent work by Los Angeles-based artist Marisa J. Futernick. The exhibition is on view in the Mary Ed Mecoy Hall Gallery until Feb. 14.

Futernick will give an artist talk on Monday, Jan. 27 at 12:30 p.m. in Fine Arts Room 621.

Taking place at a crucial moment in American democracy, and coinciding with the 2025 Presidential inauguration, this exhibition considers ideas of political failure through works that use photography and text in experimental ways.

Futernick explores the promise of the American Dream by intertwining the personal with the historical and fact with fiction, telling stories that address issues of inequality. Through the combination of text and image, Futernick seeks to uncover the less visible social and political histories of the United States and its complex mythologies. Her invented narratives weave together rigorous research, humor and the poetry of the everyday in an effort to understand and humanize history.

Works on view include “Concession,” a photographic installation in which Futernick uses her own body to assume the identity of 12 failed Presidential candidates—nearly all male—from Barry Goldwater to Hillary Clinton. Futernick dons paper face masks and poses in prototypical American landscapes. These staged photographs are paired with texts that weave together quotes from actual concession speeches with fictional lines that the artist has imagined.

In the photographic work “American Explosions,” Futernick presents an unexpected visualization of one of the most clichéd American images: Fourth of July fireworks, as seen on television. The exhibition also features “Bring a Folding Chair,” an artist’s publication that offers a poetic take on the legacy of Shirley Chisholm, produced in 2022 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Chisholm’s historic presidential campaign. The first African American woman elected to the U.S. Congress, Chisholm was also the first African American female candidate to seek a major party’s nomination for president of the United States in 1972.

This is the artist’s first solo exhibition in Kentucky; this presentation coincides with the two-person exhibition “Tobacco Lands,” Futernick and Cintia Segovia Figueroa’s work on display at the Bolivar Art Gallery at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Futernick is a recipient of the prestigious Deutsche Bank Award and holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale and a Master of Fine Arts from the Royal Academy Schools. She has published numerous artist’s books, including “13 Presidents” which was shortlisted for the Bar Tur Photobook Award from The Photographers’ Gallery in London.

Recent solo exhibitions include “Dirty Dancing: Revisiting the Catskills” at the Kniznick Gallery, Brandeis University in Boston (2023) and “Popular Vote” at The Art Gallery at Glendale Community College (2022). A major new work by the artist featured in the group exhibition “Modern Desert Markings: An Homage to Las Vegas Area Land Art” at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas (2023). Her work has been presented at many other venues, including Oxy Arts, Los Angeles; Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles; Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa; Human Resources, Los Angeles; Harvard University; and Yale University; as well as United Kingdom institutions including the Royal Academy of Arts, Whitechapel Gallery, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Arnolfini and The British Library.

Futernick was born in Detroit, Michigan, and raised in Hartford, Connecticut. After many years in London, Futernick now lives and works in Los Angeles, where she is a core member of the activist group Artists 4 Democracy.

The University Galleries visitor hours for spring 2025 are Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Tuesday and Thursday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission to the galleries is free and open to the public. For more information about the Department of Art & Design, visit murraystate.edu/art or follow them on Instagram @murraystateart.