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MP3: Kelli Connell, Justin Newhall, Brian Ulrich
August 18 — October 14, 2006
Kelli Connell, Giggle, 2002
Justin Newhall, Utica, MT, 2006
Brian Ulrich, Copia series, 2006
In August of 2006 MoCP will release a trio of books by artists from the Midwest Photographers Project (MPP), a rotating archive established in 1982. MPP is a collection of photographs by both prominent and emerging artists from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The Museum utilizes the images in print viewings, exhibitions, and for the first time, publications. MP3 will include the work of three rising stars, Kelli Connell, Justin Newhall, and Brian Ulrich, and will be published by the Aperture Foundation.
Kelli Connell uses elements of private relationships she has experienced herself or witnessed in others to inspire intimate, two-person scenes, played by a single model. She uses Photoshop to stitch multiple medium-format negatives together to create the juxtapositions in the final photographs. Justin Newhall’s photographs explore the energy we put into keeping myths alive—the stories of undaunted courage, brave explorers, cowboys and Indians— by capturing the landscape, historical sites, discarded memorabilia, and makeshift roadside museums littering the modern West. When, in the wake of September 11th, Americans were encouraged to respond by shopping (so as to maintain the nation’s economic stability), Brian Ulrich began documenting consumerism. Shot in malls, grocery stores, and commercial warehouses, Ulrich’s pictures document the bounty of commercial goods available to consumers and the peculiarities of the places that offer them for sale.