NEW YORK.- Tony Oursler at the Met: “Studio” and “Climaxed,” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through September 18, 2005, presents two installations by the internationally renowned artist Tony Oursler (American, b. 1954) that have never before been on view in the United States.

In Studio: Seven Months of My Aesthetic Education (Plus Some), inspired by Gustave Courbet’s The Artist’s Studio: A real allegory of a seven year phase in my artistic and moral life (1855), Oursler creates his own three-dimensional studio identical in scale to Courbet’s painting. In Climaxed, a floating fireball will hang in mid-air in a state of continual explosion. The figure, which speaks, is a combination of animation and live-action elements of a face.

“Tony Oursler’s Studio is a stunning presentation for the Metropolitan’s new Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern and Contemporary Art, as Oursler is looking to the 19th century for inspiration for his thoroughly modern installation,” commented Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Curator in Charge of the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art. “We are also privileged to introduce American audiences to Climaxed, a contemporary allegory in which the viewer, immersed in a perpetual explosion, must confront a dichotomy of emotions such as fear and fascination, or obliteration and absolution.”

Studio is a mixed-media installation that playfully re-interprets Courbet’s The Artist’s Studio, bringing in “studio visitors” – who Courbet calls “shareholders,” in his notes on his own work – who make appearances on a large video screen. Visitors include family members, friends, and colleagues, such as artist’s infant son, filmmaker Robert Altman, artists John Baldessari and Constance de Jong, and musicians David Bowie and Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon. All share stories or comments, or act out roles. Also included in Oursler’s Studio are “inspirational objects,” such as a Rem Koolhaas architectural model and works by Kaare Rafoss, a friend and former teacher, and Jacqueline Humphries, the artist’s wife.

Oursler is represented in Studio by a laughing, glowing blob onto which a video of multiple eyes is projected. This differs from Courbet, who portrays himself facing away from the viewer. As Oursler explains, “Courbet chose to depict himself at work, turned away from the viewer, looking into the picture space. I want to be in the work, the picture space, looking out at the viewer/participant.”

For Climaxed, the artist creates an environment that seeks to uncover and attenuate forever what happens – or how it feels – if an explosion is frozen at its most exciting moment, just as it begins. “By suspending what should happen in a split second, Oursler produces a space in which diametric opposites co-exists,” according to Gary Tinterow. “In the same way we marvel at cinematic special effects that result from violent, fictional acts, the viewer is likely to find him- or herself simultaneously rapt and revolted, and playing the symbolic role of both voyeur and victim.”

Tony Oursler at the Met: “Studio” and “Climaxed” is organized by Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Curator in Charge, and Anne L. Strauss, Assistant Curator, both of the Metropolitan’s Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art. Exhibition design is by Michael Langley, Exhibition Designer; graphics are by Barbara Weiss, Graphic Designer; and lighting is by Clint Ross Coller and Rich Lichte, Lighting Designers, all of the Metropolitan Museum's Design Department.

A variety of education programs will be presented in conjunction with the exhibition. Information regarding these related programs, as well as the exhibition itself, will be featured on the Museum’s Web site (www.metmuseum.org).