Jesse Murry: Rising

Jesse Murry, Untitled (Rising/Abyss Study), 1992. Oil and wax on canvas. 20 x 20 inches (50.8 x 50.8 cm). © 2022 The Jesse Murry Foundation, New York. Courtesy of The Jesse Murry Foundation, New York. Photograph by Kerry McFate.

August 26 – December 3, 2022
USF Contemporary Art Museum

Exhibition Hours: Monday-Friday 10am-5pm; Thursday 10am-8pm; Saturday 1-4pm; Closed Sundays and University Holidays (Sept. 5, Nov. 11, 24, 25); Special Hours August 26, 6:30-9pm.

PRESS

Jesse Murry and Lisa Yuskavage Exhibitions in 83degrees - 08/30/2022 - September Arts Roundup: USFCAM, Bloom on Franklin, Jobsite, Stageworks, Florida Orchestra and more - By Michele Smith, 83degrees
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The USF Contemporary Art Museum is proud to present two concurrent and interrelated exhibitions, Jesse Murry: Rising and Necessary Angels: Jesse Murry & Lisa Yuskavage.

Co-curated by Jarrett Earnest and Lisa Yuskavage—and first staged at David Zwirner gallery in New York in September of 2021—Jesse Murry: Rising serves as an important introduction to the art, poetry, and criticism of an exceptional and polymathic American talent. Rising brings together paintings from the last five years of Murry's life as well as recordings of influential voices attesting to Murry’s enduring legacy. This work—made while confronting his impending mortality from AIDS-related illness—testifies to Murry's lifelong belief in the capacity of painting to hold the complexity of human meaning, at the meeting of a material fact and a location within the mind.

Jesse Murry: Rising is accompanied by the first publication of Murry's poetry and art criticism, Painting Is a Supreme Fiction: Writings by Jesse Murry, 1980–1993 (Soberscove Press, 2021), edited by Jarrett Earnest and with a foreword by Hilton Als.

Jesse Murry, Deluge—After Turner, c. 1990 - 1991. Oil and wax on linen. 30-3/4 x 31 inches (78.1 x 78.7 cm). © 2022 The Jesse Murry Foundation, New York. Courtesy of The Jesse Murry Foundation, New York. Photograph by Kerry McFate.

About Jesse Murry

Born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and raised in White Plains, New York, Jesse Murry (1948–1993) studied art and philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College. Following his graduation in 1976, Murry moved to New York City, where he immersed himself in the contemporary art world. His essays on artists such as Hans Hofmann and Howard Hodgkin appeared in a range of publications and catalogues, including Arts Magazine. In 1982, he curated Currents: The Reverend Howard Finster at the New Museum. After two years of teaching art history and exhibiting at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Murry enrolled in the Yale School of Art at the age of thirty-six, where he took classes with Andrew Forge, Jake Berthot, and Harold Bloom. Murry received his MFA in 1986 and staged his first New York solo exhibition at Sharpe Gallery the following year. During this period, he was awarded the Mellon Individual Project Grant and the Pollock-Krasner Grant.

About Lisa Yuskavage

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Lisa Yuskavage (1962) is widely celebrated as one of the world’s most important and influential painters. She received her BFA from the Tyler School of Art in 1984 and her MFA from the Yale School of Art in 1986. Yuskavage's work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at numerous institutions worldwide and is held in prominent public collections. In 2020-2021, The Baltimore Museum of Art and the Aspen Art Museum co-organized a solo presentation of the artist's work, Wilderness, focusing on the ways she has used landscape in her work since her earliest watercolors. Yuskavage's monumentally scaled painting Bonfire (2013–2015) is currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, as part of the permanent collection exhibition Knowledge of the Past Is the Key to the Future. Her large-scale 2021 painting Pink Studio (Rendezvous) is currently on view on the second floor of the Museum of Modern Art.

About Jarrett Earnest

Jarrett Earnest is the author of What it Means to Write About Art: Interviews with Art Critics (2018), editor of Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light: 100 Art Writings 1988–2018 by Peter Schjeldahl (2019). He recently curated Ray Johnson: WHAT A DUMP at David Zwirner, New York (Spring 2021).

Jesse Murry Audio

An introduction to a panel discussion on “Expressionism” in contemporary art moderated by Jesse Murry, November 7 1980. Participants included Natalie Edgar, Joseph S. Lewis III, Masami Masuda, Ana Mendieta, Peter Passuntino, Nancy Spero, and Philip Wofford. Excerpted is an exchange with Ana Mendieta about space, site, and the body, which intersect with Murry’s own later work on landscape.

Credit: “Expressionism: 1980” (panel discussion, New York City, November 7, 1980), Artists Talk on Art records, c. 1974–2018, audio recording, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Image: Jesse Murry outside of 431 Broome Street, NYC, 1979. Photo by Beverly D'Andrea.

EXHIBITION WORKBOOK

A full color, 52-page workbook is available to exhibition visitors without cost and includes an essay Christian Viveros-Fauné and a conversation edited by Jarrett Earnest. For more information call 813-974-4133. <View complete PDF (8MB)>

Jesse Murry: Rising and Necessary Angels: Jesse Murry & Lisa Yuskavage Walkthrough

Replay of the Jesse Murry: Rising and Necessary Angels: Jesse Murry & Lisa Yuskavage Walkthrough. The USF Contemporary Art Museum is proud to present two concurrent and interrelated exhibitions, Jesse Murry: Rising and Necessary Angels: Jesse Murry & Lisa Yuskavage. Jesse Murry and Lisa Yuskavage met while attending Yale School of Art, where they received their MFAs in 1986. The bonds of their creative friendship are explored in USFCAM’s concurrent exhibition Necessary Angels: Jesse Murry & Lisa Yuskavage. Besides giving proof to the idea that artistic friendship can transcend simple influence and achieve higher dimensions of collaboration spurred on by mutual learning, respect, and love, Necessary Angels features rarely seen paintings on paper by Murry and celebrated paintings and watercolors by Yuskavage. Organized by USFCAM Curator-at-Large Christian Viveros-Fauné, the exhibition constitutes only the second time since their Yale 1986 MFA thesis show that Murry's and Yuskavage's work has been presented under the same roof. Video is also available on our YouTube channel.

VIRTUAL TOUR

Explore this virtual 360 degree interactive walkthrough of Jesse Murry: Rising and Necessary Angels: Jesse Murry & Lisa Yuskavage at USFCAM. For the best experience click the View Fullscreen icon in the lower right of the window. Virtual tour Courtesy of USF Access 3D Lab, Dr. Laura Harrison.

ARTIST CONVERSATION VIDEO

Replay of the Lisa Yuskavage artist talk from September 1, 2022, with curator Christian Viveros-Fauné in conjunction with the USF Contemporary Art Museum exhibitions, Jesse Murry: Rising and Necessary Angels: Jesse Murry & Lisa Yuskavage.

GALLERY TALK VIDEO

Replay of the live gallery talk from August 26, 2022, with curator Christian Viveros-Fauné and Jarrett Earnest in conjunction with the USF Contemporary Art Museum exhibitions, Jesse Murry: Rising and Necessary Angels: Jesse Murry & Lisa Yuskavage.