Michael Petry

Michael Petry (born 1960) is an American multi-media artist and author who lives and works in London. He is director of MOCA, London (Museum of Contemporary Art London), and co-founder of the Museum of Installation, also in London. He was formerly the Curator of the Royal Academy Schools Gallery, Guest Curator at the KunstAkademi, Oslo, and Research Fellow at the University of Wolverhampton.

For the German footballer, see Michael Petry (footballer).
Michael Petry
Born1960
El Paso, Texas
NationalityAmerican/British
Known forConceptual Art, Installation Art, Queer Theory
Websitewww.michaelpetry.net

Life and work

Petry was born in El Paso, Texas, and has lived in London since 1981. Petry received a BA at Rice University (Houston), an MA at London Guildhall University, and a Phd in Arts at Middlesex University.

He is the Director of MOCA, London (the Museum of Contemporary Art) and a former curator of the Royal Academy Schools Gallery.

In 2009 Petry received a commission from The Ivy restaurant, London, to make a large scale glass installation called "The Network".[1]

In 2010 Petry was chosen to be the first Artist in Residence at the Sir John Soane's Museum, London[2]

In 2015 Petry headlined Rice University's Campbell Lecture Series.[3] The program was entitled "The Trouble with Michael: Artist and Rice Alumni Michael Petry Discusses His 30 Years of Art Production," and involved three lectures: "Growing Up in Public" (April 7, 2015), "Reading a Life" (April 8, 2015) and "The Art of Ethics" (April 9, 2015). A coinciding exhibition of Petry's work, At the Core of the Algorithm, was shown at Hiram Butler Gallery.[4]

In 2012 Petry and Travis Barker entered a Civil Partnership at the London Borough of Southwark.

Petry's piece "The Treasure of Memory"

Books

Petry co-authored Installation Art (Thames & Hudson, 1994), and Installation Art in the New Millennium (Thames & Hudson, 2003), and authored Abstract Eroticism (1996) and A Thing of Beauty is... (Academy Editions, 1997). The Trouble with Michael (ArtMedia Press, 2001) is a monograph of his artistic practice.

Petry's book Hidden Histories: 20th Century Same Sex Male Lovers in the Visual Arts (2004) accompanies the exhibition Hidden Histories he curated for The New Art Gallery Walsall.[5] He documented the exhibition in The International Journal of Art & Design Education and to expand this for publication in Gender Sexuality, and Museums: A Routledge Reader edited by Amy K. Levin.[6]

His book Golden Rain Volumes I & II is part of his project of the same name for Ha gamle prestegard's exhibition On the Edge[7] for Stavanger 2008, European Capital of Culture.[8] His work is included in the Contemporary Glass book by Black Dog Publishing. Petry's book The Art of Not Making: the new artist/artisan relationship (Thames & Hudson, 2011) looks at artists who have work produced for them by artisans.[9]

Petry's 2013 book Nature Morte: Contemporary Artists Reinvigorate the Still Life Tradition (Thames & Hudson) revealed how leading artists of the 21st century are reinvigorating the still life, a genre previously synonymous with the 16th- and 17th-century Old Masters. Nature Morte was adapted into a touring exhibition which visited several European galleries and museums.

He has also contributed chapters to various books and journals, including Pornographic Art and the Aesthetics of Pornography (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013),[10] Sculpture and Touch (Routledge, 2014)[11] and Global Mobilities: Refugees, Exiles and Immigrants in Museums and Archives (Routledge, 2016).[12]

In Petry's 2018 book, ''The Word is Art'' (Thames & Hudson) he asserts the value of text in art by examining the use of text by artists from around the world, including Bruce Nauman, Julien Breton, Jeremy Deller, Takashi Murakami, Tracey Emin, Christian Boltanski, Joe Ovelman, Jenny Holzer, Ed Ruscha, Glenn Ligon and more.[13]

Petry also writes regularly for The Huffington Post..[14]

Exhibitions
  • Laughing at Time, Ha gamle prestegard, Norway, 2000[15]
  • America the Beautiful, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, 2007[16]
  • Glasswear, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, 2009[17]
  • Glasstress II, 54th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2011.
  • Michael Petry: The Touch of the Oracle, Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA, 2012.
  • AT the Core of the Algorithm, installation for British Glass, Glazenhuis, Lommel, Belgium, 2014[18]
  • Frontiers Reimagined, Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Official Collateral Event as part of the 56th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, 2015[19]
  • A Twist in Time, solo exhibition at Pallant House Gallery, 2016[20]
  • At The Foot of the Gods, installation for the Biënnale Oosterhou, Holland, 2017[21]
  • The WORD, an exhibition curated by Petry for Helsinki Contemporary, Helsinki, 2017[22]
  • In the Realm of the Gods, an exhibition at the Holburne Museum, Bath, 2017–2018[23]

The Art of Not Making

Petry's book The Art of Not Making: The New Artist/Artisan Relationship was adapted into a series of exhibitions which Petry curated: The Fabricated Object, Sumarria Lunn Gallery, London, 2012; The Art of Not Making, Ha gamle prestegard, Norway, 2013.

Nature Morte

Nature Morte: Contemporary Artists Reinvigorate the Still Life Tradition, Petry's 2013 book was adapted into a touring exhibition which was presented at Ha gamle prestegard, Norway, 2015; Konsthallen-Bohusläns Museum, Sweden, 2016; National Museum, Wrocław, Poland, 2017; The Guildhall Art Gallery, London, 2017–18.

Collections

Petry's work is held in the following public collections:

References
  1. "Ivy Private club installation | Westbrook Gallery - London - Contemporary & Modern art Gallery". westbrookgallery.com. 2011. Archived from the original on 9 February 2013. Retrieved 19 July 2011.
  2. "Exhibitions " Michael Petry: Touching the Neoclassical and Romantic". soane.org. 2011. Archived from the original on 8 July 2011. Retrieved 19 July 2011.
  3. "Michael Petry | Humanities". humanities.rice.edu. Archived from the original on 2018-01-20. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  4. "Michael Petry - AT the Core of the Algorithm | Hiram Butler Gallery". hirambutler.com. Archived from the original on 2017-04-13. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  5. "Hidden Histories - The New Art Gallery Walsall". www.thenewartgallerywalsall.org.uk. Archived from the original on 9 October 2011. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  6. "Gender, Sexuality and Museums: A Routledge Reader (Paperback) - Routledge". Routledge.com. Archived from the original on 2018-01-20. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  7. "På Kanten". www.pakanten.no. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  8. Borgen, Trond. "Kunst på kanten". Kunstkritikk. Archived from the original on 20 March 2012. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  9. "In pictures: Artful dodgers". 5 April 2011. Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 20 January 2018 – via news.bbc.co.uk.
  10. Pornographic Art and the Aesthetics of Pornography | H. Maes | Palgrave Macmillan. Archived from the original on 2017-06-29.
  11. "Sculpture and Touch (Hardback) - Routledge". Routledge.com. Archived from the original on 2018-01-20. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  12. "Global Mobilities: Refugees, Exiles, and Immigrants in Museums and Archives (Hardback) - Routledge". Routledge.com. Archived from the original on 2018-01-20. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  13. Petry, Michael (2018). The Word is Art. Thames & Hudson Limited. ISBN 978-0-500-23966-7.
  14. "Dr Michael Petry". HuffPost UK. Archived from the original on 2017-06-12. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  15. "Listen". Listen. Archived from the original on 2018-01-20. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  16. "Michael Petry - Exhibitions - Sundaram Tagore Gallery". www.sundaramtagore.com. Archived from the original on 2017-12-28. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  17. "Works – GlassWear – Exhibitions – eMuseum". mad.emuseum.com. Archived from the original on 2017-10-19. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  18. Gallery, Hiram Butler (2014-12-06), Michael Petry: AT the Core of the Algorithm, archived from the original on 2016-01-30, retrieved 2018-01-19
  19. "Frontiers Reimagined - Publications - Sundaram Tagore Gallery". www.sundaramtagore.com. Archived from the original on 2017-09-28. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  20. "Pallant House Gallery". www.pallant.org.uk. Archived from the original on 2016-04-08. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  21. "Biënnale Oosterhou, Holland 2017" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-01-20.
  22. Contemporary, Helsinki. "Ville Andersson: I can't go on. I will go on". helsinkicontemporary.com (in Finnish). Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  23. "Michael Petry: In the Realm of the Gods". The Holburne Museum. Retrieved 2018-01-22.
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