MFA Boston awards 2015 Maud Morgan Prize to performance artist Marilyn Arsem
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MFA Boston awards 2015 Maud Morgan Prize to performance artist Marilyn Arsem
Adrift, September 2013. Durational performance by Marilyn Arsem. 1st Biennial Festival of Performance Art and Sound Art, Contemporary Arts International, Acton, MA. Photo: Chelsea Coon.



BOSTON, MASS.- The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, announced today that Boston-based performance artist Marilyn Arsem (born 1951) is the recipient of its 2015 Maud Morgan Prize—the first performance artist to receive the distinguished award. Arsem has been a fundamental figure in the field of performance art since the late 1970s, and was a faculty member at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA) for 27 years. Having performed 180 pieces around the world over the last three decades, she has had an enormous impact on multiple generations of performance artists in Boston and internationally. Founder of Mobius, a Boston-area collaborative of interdisciplinary artists, Arsem has been central to maintaining the presence of performance art locally and nationally at times when the art form struggled for recognition and funding. In honor of her contributions to the field, Arsem will receive a cash award and will present new performances in a special solo exhibition at the MFA in late 2015. The selection of Arsem as the Maud Morgan Prize recipient occurs at the conclusion of a year rich in performance art at the MFA, which included works by a variety of artists including Joan Jonas and Shinique Smith.

The MFA’s Maud Morgan Prize honors a Massachusetts woman artist who has demonstrated creativity and vision, making significant contributions to the contemporary arts landscape. The Prize was established in 1993 in recognition of the spirit of adventure and independence embodied by noted New England artist Maud Morgan (1903–1999).

“Just as Maud Morgan had a reputation for risk-taking, Marilyn has never shied away from risk over her career,” said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director at the MFA. “Because of the very nature of performance, relatively few have experienced Marilyn’s work. This award and exhibition allow us to share her performances with audiences who otherwise might not encounter them, highlighting her many contributions to the art form.”

As a high school student in the 1960s, Arsem and her friends created “Happenings”—a genre that pre-dated the contemporary concept of performance art. She later chose to pursue a degree in theater directing at Boston University, given that performance art programs had yet to be established. Focusing on experimental projects, she was inspired to create multimedia works that merged theater with visual arts. In 1975, she founded Mobius, a collaborative of artists working in all media, and a space where experimental art could flourish away from commercialization. When the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) ceased funding for individual artists during the early 1990s, Arsem continued to promote performance art through artist-run initiatives. At a time when the art form was disappearing from mainstream institutions, Arsem and Mobius offered 40 weekends of experimental programming annually to Boston audiences and visitors. As Director of Mobius, she organized international artist exchanges and began creating durational works such as Orpheus, a six-hour interactive event involving 30 artists in multiple locations. Through Mobius and the SMFA, she has brought hundreds of artists from 41 countries to Boston, enriching the experiences of several generations of young Boston artists.

“As Maud Morgan was a leader in our community, so is Marilyn Arsem,” said Edward Saywell, Chair of the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art and Arthur K. Solomon Curator of Modern Art. “I am delighted that the award of this prize will give Marilyn a platform to share her incredibly attentive and thoughtful work within the context of the MFA.”

By the mid-1980s Arsem had shifted focus to solo work in her own practice. Recurring themes in her art include death and afterlife; feminism and women’s work; war and Cold War politics; and environmentalism. Arsem worked at the SMFA from 1987–2014—serving as Faculty, a Graduate Advisor and Head of the Performance Area—and over the course of 27 years expanded its performance area to become one of the most extensive visually based performance art programs in the world. In 2013, she presented her first durational performance at the MFA as part of the one-day exhibition, Odd Spaces. For her work, With the Others (2013), she spent more than six hours lying under a bench in the Museum’s Egyptian Galleries. Though she was nearly invisible to Museum goers in the darkly lit room, the scent of jasmine emanated from her clothes and seeped throughout the space. Her quiet action invoked the senses in order to challenge viewers' expectations of how art is experienced in a visual arts museum.

In the early 1990s, when many US institutions began to scale back performance art programming and funding, Arsem began to perform abroad in countries where performance art flourished as a medium. Instead of repeating previous performances, which relied heavily on spoken language, she began to create unique, site-specific works that resonated with audiences in each of the locations where she performed. To date, she has performed in 27 countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America, frequently creating works that deal with the local effects of US foreign policy. She researches each location she visits, and once on the ground, her performances are sometimes planned in as little as two days—inspired by an interaction or unique aspect of the location or culture. When featured in a gallery setting, Arsem often creates “performance installations” that evolve throughout the exhibition. Site-specific works such as these have taken her throughout the world, including the Philippines, Macedonia, Hong Kong, Poland, Chile and Canada.

“This was so unexpected! I am honored to be chosen to receive the 2015 Maud Morgan award. Performance Art has had such a complicated history in the United States, often operating at the periphery of the art world. I know I am not alone in welcoming the MFA’s recognition of the value of ephemeral forms of art making,” said Arsem.

Primarily interested in the relationship between the viewer and the live experience, Arsem often documents her work through photo, video and interviews with viewers following the performance. This performance documentation has been exhibited in group and solo shows at institutions such as the Harvard Film Archives and the DeCordova Museum. MFA curators Edward Saywell and Liz Munsell, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art and MFA Programs, a position supported by Lorraine Bressler, will collaborate with Arsem on her 2015 solo exhibition at the MFA marking the award of the Maud Morgan Prize.










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