October 6 - November 3, 2017
Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA) is pleased to present Linden by Kansas City artist Marcie Miller Gross, opening for First Friday October 6. Linden debuts as part of Every Street is Charlotte Street, celebrating twenty years of partner organization Charlotte Street Foundation’s Award Fellows. Through an incremental means of building, Miller Gross, a Charlotte Street Fellow in 2004, studies repetition, mass and void, physicality and weight, compression and release. Her work is informed by repetitious activity and simple gestures of the hand, as in folding, stacking, and cutting. Linden is inspired partially by a recent residency to Berlin. Says Miller Gross, “my focus on the city led me to draw connections between the powerful sites of the Berlin Wall Memorial, the Chapel of Reconciliation, and the history and significance of trees and forests in Germany. In this urban context, I found the lushness of the lindens, from darkness to sublime, profound in their sense of hope. The trees buffer, envelop, shelter, offering repose and sanctuary, in their verdant loft. The lindens were a looming protection and a timeless witness to the city’s ghosts.” This residency was supported in part by an Inspiration Grant from ArtsKC.
The exhibition will be on view for First Friday on October 6 and November 3. Gallery hours are 6:00–8:00 p.m., with other public viewings by appointment only through November 3.
— Event description provided by Beth Maggard of M-AAA
Artist Statement
“I make sculpture of materials with which I have an intimate visceral connection. Industrial felt, wood, felted wool sweaters, soil, paper towels, and used hospital towels are materials that I know, have manipulated and coaxed through my hands. They speak to the vulnerability of the human condition, carry traces of body memory through history of their former use, and create an absorptive silence.
Through an incremental means of building, I study repetition, mass and void, physicality and weight, compression and release. My work is informed by repetitious activity and simple gestures of the hand as in folding, stacking and cutting. Within these qualities, I find parallels in the physical and psychological states of the body, my environment and sensory knowledge. The focus of reduction and order makes reference to artistic precedents such as mono-ha and minimalism. These solids are inspired by elemental geometries as found in Froebel’s gifts as well as German modernism.
In a recent residency in Berlin, my focus on the city led me to draw connections between the powerful sites of the Berlin Wall Memorial, the Chapel of Reconciliation, and the history and significance of trees and forests in Germany. In this urban context, I found the lushness of the lindens, from darkness to the sublime, profound in their sense of hope. The trees buffer, envelop, shelter, offer repose and sanctuary. The lindens are a looming protection and a timeless witness to the city’s ghosts.
The immediacy of taking a photo and the stillness of the image contrasts with the slowness of the accumulative process of making these objects. I am fascinated by the tension between the physicality of these solids and my intuitive response to specific places.
Significant places, such as the Bauhaus in Dessau, my backyard on Glogauerstrasse, Sachsenhausen Memorial, and Unter den Linden, left impressions that continue to reverberate in my studio practice.
My site responsive objects, installations and drawings are often informed by the spatial conceptual and architectural conditions of a place. I am interested in the traces, the remains, the evidence of people on a place.”
About Marcie Miller Gross
Marcie Miller Gross is the recipient of honors that include Charlotte Street Foundation Fellowship, MidAmerica Arts/National Endowment for the Arts, ArtsKC Inspiration Grant, Studios Inc. Residency 2005-2011 from the Nicholson Foundation, and Allied Arts and Craftsmanship Award, American Institute of Architects.
Marcie’s work has received reviews and writings in Art in America, Sculpture, Art Papers, Review, ID Magazine, Kansas City Star, Politiken and Kunstforum with publications including Marking 20 Years: Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Outpost Journal: Kansas City, MO and 10 Charlotte Street Foundation 10th Anniversary. Her work is held in numerous collections that include American Institute of Architects/Kansas City, Andrews McMeel Universal Publishing, Missouri Bank, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Helix Architecture + Design and private collections in New York City, Seattle, Los Angeles, Detroit and Kansas City.
Based in Kansas City since receiving my Master of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1990, she has held teaching appointments at Kansas City Art Institute and University of Kansas. Her work is represented by Haw Contemporary, Kansas City.
Recent projects of hers include: commissions for the new Health Education Building, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, and School of Business, University of Kansas, Lawrence, GlogauAIR residency in Berlin, Germany for studio research with support from ArtsKC Inspiration Grant. Upcoming exhibitions include Pattern Languages, Rockhurst University, Underpass, Studios Inc., and Linden, (solo) Mid America Arts Alliance, Kansas City.
Other exhibitions include print edition at Lawrence Lithography Workshop, On Behalf of One’s Obsessions, Working Parts, both at Haw Contemporary, Kansas City, Sum of Us, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, The Spring Show (Forarsudstillingen), Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen. She was an Individual Award Finalist in Women to Watch, Kansas City Museum Jewish of Contemporary Art/National Museum of Women in the Arts, Overland Park. In 2016, her work was included in The Kansas City Collection and Corridor InfraTrust Management, Kansas City. Earlier exhibitions include H & R Block Artspace, Cranbrook Art Museum, Byron Cohen Contemporary Art, Urban Culture Project/Paragraph, and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.
