ART-PRESENTATION: Jennifer Angus-Museum of Everything
A Professor of Design Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jennifer Angus’s installations create surprising beauty while also informing audiences of insects’ importance to the ecosystem. They pollinate food crops, control parasites and predators, produce silk, dyes, and honey, and decompose matter back into the soil. Like a historic artist-naturalist in the modern era, Angus collects her specimens in an ecologically sound manner, obtaining many from insect farms and reusing and repairing them over decades.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Mattress Factory Archive
“Museum of Everything”, a new site-specific installation by Jennifer Angus is set to open at Mattress Factory. Angus, who primarily works with dead and dried insects, draws upon her background in textile design, placing thousands of insects on walls in patterns that mimic those of textiles and wallpaper. Upon discovering that the ornate patterns are formed from insects, viewers feelings typically fluctuate between incredulity and amazement, and very occasionally terror. Over time, Angus’ work has evolved to explore issues related to the environment and the important role insects play within it. “I feel an urgency to continue to make work that draws attention to some of our planet’s lowliest creatures for, simply speaking, without insects man cannot survive,” says the artist. Angus is an alumna of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (BFA) and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA). In 2005, the Textile Museum of Canada showed “A terrible beauty”, a site-specific installation involving 15,000 insects organized in ornamental patterns similar to those found on wallpaper and textiles. The exhibition won the 2006 Exhibition Award from the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. Bravo commissioned a short documentary called “Touch of Weevil – The Work of Jennifer Angus” documenting one of her installations at the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in 2008. In 2015, Angus participated in the exhibition “Wonder”, that celebrated the reopening of the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. with a site-specific installation called “The Midnight Garden” that used sustainably harvested insects. At the ‘Wonder’ exhibition at the Renwick Gallery, Angus’ installation consisted of about 5,000 dried insects. Angus’s installation “Silver Wings and Golden Scales; Or, An Evening of Metamorphosis at the Lyme Art Colon” was on view in the Florence Griswold House through 12/1/2020. After researching the Lyme Art Colony, Angus conceived of a fantastical “lost chapter” of the colony history first recorded by artist-visitor Arthur Heming in his book “Miss Florence and the Artists of Old Lyme”. Angus’s chapter imagines the artists holding an insect-themed party in the House, inspired by the naturalist impulse of Willard Metcalf and others. Angus has installed her insects as “wallpaper” in the House’s hallway, and in each of the period rooms visitors encounter marvels related to the artists’ merrymaking— including Victorian glass domes glittering with rarities and vignettes of insects dancing or working.
Info: Mattress Factory, 500 Sampsonia Way, Pittsburgh, PA, Duration: 19/8/20-2021, Days & Hours: Wed 11:00-20:00, Thu-Sun 11:00-17:00, https://mattress.org
