2019 Acquisition: Marina Zurkow
Marina Zurkow is a new media artist whose work explores the intersection of technology with environmental impact. The Mecocosm works are an ongoing series of animated landscapes that develop and change according to their underlying algorithm. The title Mesocosm is drawn from the field of environmental science and refers to experimental, simulated ecosystems that “allow for manipulation of the physical environment… [for] organismal, community, and ecological research.”
Playing in a long, looping cycle, the work features Times Square drawn in solid shapes and calligraphic outlines reminiscent of both Asian painting as well as contemporary graphic novels and animated films. The work references the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, as detailed in the description below.
Recent exhibitions of Zurkow’s work include the Chronus Art Center, Shanghai; the Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey; Diverseworks, Houston; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Wave Hill, New York; National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington D.C. among others. Zurkow’s collections include the Montclair Art Museum, NJ, SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.
Zurkow is a recipient of the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. She has also been granted awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Creative Capital.
