SAN FRANCISCO.- From August 1 through November 1, 2008, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) features the exhibition New Work: Zilvinas Kempinas, Alyson Shotz, Mary Temple. This focused presentation, part of the museum’s ongoing New Work series, showcases three installations that embody current trends of light-based work in contemporary art, and is organized by Alison Gass, assistant curator of painting and sculpture at SFMOMA.

Working in distinct styles and media, Kempinas, Shotz, and Temple explore the transformative properties of light, underscoring its ability to inform our perception of space. Temple’s installation from the series Light Installations, begun in 2002, casts trompe l’oeil shadows from nonexistent windows across the gallery walls and floor, dramatically affecting our spatial experience. In her, The Structure of Light, 2008, Shotz strings clear beads onto wires to create large, abstract sculptures that hang like drawings in space; light refracted by the beads alters our perception of the object, lending it an ephemeral quality. In Link, 2008, Kempinas works with videotape, unraveling it from the cassette and reassembling it in sculptural form, the tape reflecting light and casting shadows in the space around it.

According to Gass, “The challenge for contemporary artists working through the richly explored history of light within visual art is to find ways to pioneer while crossing such well-traversed artistic terrain. Kempinas, Shotz, and Temple all meet this challenge with extraordinary creativity and aesthetic capability. And it is particularly satisfying to bring these three artists together at SFMOMA, a museum connected through both its architecture and collection to the effects of light on space.”

Zilvinas Kempinas was born in Plunge, Lithuania, and lives and works in Brooklyn. He received his BFA from Vilnius Art Academy in 1993 and his MFA from Hunter College in 2002. He has had solo exhibitions at Galerie des Franciscains, Le Grand Café contemporary art center, Spencer Brownstone Gallery, and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. His work was also selected for Manifesta 7, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art. In 2007 Kempinas won the Calder Prize and Atelier Calder Residency Award.

Mary Temple lives and works in Brooklyn. She studied at Arizona State University, Tempe, receiving her BFA in 1989 and her MFA in 1995. She has had solo exhibitions at Sandroni Rey, Smack Mellon, and the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Recent group exhibitions include Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape, MASS MoCA; Inner and Outer Space, Mattress Factory; Second_Nature, Dexia Art Center, Luxembourg; and Light x Eight, The Jewish Museum, New York. In 2006 she was the Lily Auchincloss Fellow for the New York Foundation of the Arts.

Alyson Shotz lives and works in Brooklyn. She received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 1987 and her MFA from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1991. She has had solo exhibitions at Yale University Art Gallery, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Recent group exhibitions include The Shapes of Space, Guggenheim Museum; NeoIntegrity, Derek Eller Gallery; and Light x Eight, The Jewish Museum, New York. In 2007 she received the Saint-Gaudens Memorial Fellowship.

The New Work series is organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and is generously supported by Collectors Forum, the founding patron of the series. Major funding is also provided by the Mimi and Peter Haas Fund, Nancy and Steven H. Oliver, and Robin Wright.