MOCA Jacksonville opened two new exhibitions April 10 at its Spring Exhibition Opening Celebration. The new exhibitions include “Jax Contemporary: MOCA Jacksonville Arts Triennial,” a juried art exhibition highlighting the vibrant artistic landscape of Northeast Florida through the work of 64 local artists; and “The Armory South: The 1924 Jacksonville Woman’s Club Exhibition Rediscovered.”
“Jax Contemporary: MOCA Jacksonville Arts Triennial”
Artists were invited to submit their applications in late 2024. Since then, each of the nearly 500 applications were reviewed by MOCA Senior Curator Ylva Rouse and Guest Curator Adeze Wilford and the final 64 artists were selected to be in the exhibition.
Through this exhibition, MOCA seeks to support and promote the contemporary art practices of the area, sharing the broad vitality of artistic voices representing this moment in Jacksonville’s history with the general public.
This exhibition series, which will take place every three years, is intended to highlight and expand the museum’s relationship with the local arts community and to foster the growth of the arts ecosystem of the area. To accomplish this, the artist finalists will have access to vital professional development opportunities, including professional guidance, studio visits and critiques and opportunities to engage with the community around their artwork and artistic practice through artist talks and programs.
To this end, an important professional development component has been included for the artist finalists, including professional guidance, studio visits and critiques from MOCA’s senior curator, Ylva Rouse; MOCA Director Caitlín Doherty; and visiting curator, Adeze Wilford, who also helped to select the work to be on display in the exhibition.
These studio visits facilitate meaningful discourse between the artist and the curators and are an essential step to connecting Jacksonville-based artists to a broader network of curators and institutions.
Jax Contemporary fulfills MOCA’s mission by activating and engaging local communities in contemporary art, offering patrons an opportunity to connect with local artists and cultural producers that explore national contemporary aesthetic discourses and ideas from a Florida First Coast perspective. Artist Talks will take place in the MOCA Theater throughout the exhibition during Museum Nights and VyStar Free Saturdays, which are high traffic days offering free access to the public.
The exhibition is made possible through the support of Presenting Sponsors Dolf and Anna James and Exhibition Underwriters Douglas Anderson School of the Arts Foundation and Florida State College at Jacksonville.
Additional support for this exhibition was made in part by the City of Jacksonville, the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville, the MOCA Board of Trustees, MOCA Director’s Circle and the University of North Florida.
Special thanks have been extended to Crystal Floyd at CoRK Art Studios; and Adeze Wilford, Blackmon Perry Curator of African American Art & Art of the African Diaspora at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis Tennessee, who served as juror together with MOCA Executive Director Caitlín Doherty and Senior Curator Ylva Rouse.
“Jax Contemporary” will be on exhibit through Nov. 9. Regular admission applies.
“Project Atrium: Spectral Subjects”
Spectral Subjects is a new interactive artwork commissioned for MOCA Jacksonville. The piece is a thermal observatory — a constantly updating map of the room’s temperature, projected in the round.
Using state-of-the-art thermographic cameras, the project detects and displays heat and cold in the environment, including the building’s ventilation, visitors’ body heat and inanimate objects. As with previous biometric art projects by Lozano-Hemmer, the piece is a call to think of the human body as a continuum with the environment around us.
“Honoring Joan Mitchell”
This small exhibition presents a selection of Mitchell’s works from the museum’s Donald and Maria Cox Collection, complemented by a loan from a local private collection. The exhibition joins more than 70 museums across the country exhibiting works by abstract artist Joan Mitchell during what would be her 100th birthday year.
“All Hands On Deck”
“All Hands On Deck” presents artist books created by Small Craft Advisory Press (SCAP) at Florida State University. Founded by Professor of Art Denise Bookwalter, SCAP brings together artists, writers, designers and scholars to work collaboratively on projects that challenge the conventions of what books are and do.
“Nature Re:Wired”
MOCA’s Fall 2024 UNF Student Artist-in-Residence exhibition features the work of recent graduate retired military veteran and sculptor Dustin Sims. In “Nature Re:Wired,” Sims reimagines discarded technology, transforming it into captivating animal sculptures that celebrate the brilliance of nature’s design.
MOCA Jacksonville is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Free access is available to the entire community each week during VyStar Free Saturdays at MOCA and from 5 to 9 p.m. on the first and third Wednesday of each month during Free Museum Nights at MOCA presented by Florida Blue.
