JULIAN MONTAGUE: SECONDARY OCCUPANTS collected and observed
Image: Julian Montague, Secondary Occupants Collected & Observed, mixed media / ©Julian Montague
PRESS RELEASE / SPRING 2010
Black & White Project Space, Brooklyn, NY is very pleased to present Secondary Occupants Collected & Observed – site-specific installation by Julian Montague. This exhibition continues the artist’s exploration of the ecologies of decay that began with his now famous The Stray Shopping Cart Identification Project and more recent To Know The Spiders Project.
Secondary Occupants Collected & Observed installation examines multiple aspects of animal/architecture engagement and includes a rotten garden shed, 48 portrait banners, an invented intellectual history of pest control, and an assemblage of different specimens found and multiple photographs taken in the process of researching wildlife and architecture. The point of departure for the new work is investigation of the way in which animals (vertebrate and invertebrate) play a part in physically and conceptually transforming interior spaces into exterior ones. For this project, Montague collected and analyzed the types of insects and other pests that move into abandoned properties. In documenting his findings, the artist notes, “When investigating a Decay Community it is important to make a distinction between animals that have come to an abandoned structure by accident and those that spend a significant portion of their lifecycle in or on the structure. It is also important to note that not all members of a Decay Community directly contribute to the structural weakening of a building; they dismantle it by transforming it from an interior space into an exterior one.”
Julian Montague’s installation at Black & White Project Space will occupy both the indoor and outdoor spaces. It represents the new development of the work exhibited at Black & White Gallery / Chelsea in the spring of 2008 and at the Artspace in Buffalo, NY in the fall of 2009. A portion of the installation will be included in Beyond/In Western New York, 2010 at Burchfield-Penney Art Center, Buffalo, New York in the fall of 2010.
Julian Montague (b.1973) lives and works in Buffalo, NY. Since his graduation from Hampshire College in 1996 with a BA in Media Studies, Julian Montague’s photographs and other works have been widely exhibited in solo and group shows. In 2006 the book version of his Stray Shopping Cart Identification Project, The Stray Shopping Carts Of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification was published by Harry Abrams and is available in bookstores and on most online book sellers. Julian Montague is the winner of the Diagram Prize for the Oddest Title of 2006. Montague’s work has been recently acquired by The Margulies Collection in Miami, FL and Albright - Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY.