Rowe Galleries to feature work by New York artists

The UNC Charlotte Department of Art and Art History presents work by acclaimed new-media artists Jennifer and Kevin McCoy. “Priests of the Temple 2015” opens in Rowe Galleries on Monday, Oct. 5, with a lecture by the artists at 4 p.m., followed by a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. The exhibition continues through Friday, Oct. 30.

Based in New York City and recipients of a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship, the husband and wife duo have exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, P.S.1, the Museum of Modern Art, the New Museum and in galleries across the United States. International exhibitions include projects at the Pompidou Center, the British Film Institute, the Hanover Kunstverein, the Bonn Kunstverein and the Hong Kong Arts Center. Their work has been reviewed in major news and art publications, including the New York Times, Newsweek, the Washington Post, Artforum and New York and Wired magazines. They have exhibited in Charlotte only once before, at the Light Factory in 1997.

Described by New York magazine as “perennial wizards of little worlds made to look like sculptural panoramas,” the McCoys create unique installations that combine sculpture, portraiture, miniature diorama and video projection.

“There’s simply nothing else quite like the work they do,” wrote Blake Gopnik in a profile of the artists in the Washington Post.

A suite of multimedia works developed during a recent residency at the Headlands Center of the Arts, “Priests of the Temple 2015” expands upon a work from a 2012 exhibition at Postmasters Gallery in New York. That “Priest of the Temple” places a photograph of Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel Corporation, and a model of a deteriorating office building into a rugged miniature landscape that evokes Mt. Rushmore and the American West. A tiny embedded video shows a Silicon Valley hotel spa, while a live video projection on a nearby wall creates a kaleidoscopic treatment of the diorama’s elements.

The artists became fascinated by the relationship between Silicon Valley innovation and the libertarian ethic of the American frontier. “Priests of the Temple 2015” further explores this relationship, portraying Silicon Valley leaders within the changing landscape of the West.

The McCoys both received M.F.A. degrees in electronic arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Jennifer McCoy is a professor at Brooklyn College; Kevin McCoy is a professor at New York University.