Mai-Thu Perret: an Ideal for Living February 13, 2011

UMMA is pleased to present the first large scale North American survey exhibition of contemporary Swiss artist Mai-Thu Perret (born 1976 in Geneva). Synthesizing a range of media and genres-including painting and sculpture, but also literature, design, craft, film, and performance-Perret mines the formal vocabulary and political aspirations of modernism to conjure an imaginary alternate history of twentieth-century art, design, and social activism. Much of this work has stemmed from 'The Crystal Frontier,' a fictional narrative she began writing in 1999. The ongoing, intentionally unresolved story follows a group of women who, in an attempt to escape the impositions of capitalism and patriarchal society, relocate to the remote New Mexico desert and form an autonomous community called New Ponderosa Year Zero. Presented in the form of diary entries, letters, manifestos, handbills, and the like, this fragmentary archive serves as a generative mechanism for installations and objects that Perret presents as the products of the commune's residents. From paintings and sculptures to ceramics, textiles, and films, Perret's works infuse the formal vocabulary of modernism with a distinctly handmade aesthetic. Perret's exhibition at UMMA will present an overview of her work from the past decade and will include numerous works never before exhibited in North America.