a semi abstract painting - a black face with pink mouth and eyes and an oblong head, shapes of various sizes and colors swirling around it, on a green background with the words ARTFORUM in white in the upper left corner.

MoMA PRESENTS PROJECTS: MARLON MULLEN, THE ARTIST’S FIRST SOLO MUSEUM SHOW

NEW YORK, October 22, 2024—The Museum of Modern Art announces Projects: Marlon Mullen, the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work by a major museum, on view in the Museum’s free, street-level Projects gallery from December 14, 2024, to April 20, 2025.

Marlon Mullen uses art publications and other print material as points of departure for his paintings, generating radical reimaginings of these sources in which text and image are transformed through his dynamic color and composition.

Since 1986, Mullen has been based at NIAD Art Center in Richmond, California, a progressive studio for artists with developmental disabilities. Projects: Marlon Mullen is organized by Ann Temkin, the Marie-José and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, with Alexandra Morrison, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture.

“Mullen’s work is a contemporary exemplar of a centuries-old tradition of artists making art about art, an avenue of invention richly represented in MoMA’s collection,” said Temkin. “Taking the covers of art books and magazines as his subject matter, Mullen transforms them into dazzling paintings that bring him and us into the thick of today’s art world.”

A painting loosely inspired by Van Gogh's "Starry Night" with areas of deep blue dotted with bright yellow and orange and swathes of light blue. The full painting from the first slight, seen from an angle with the words Vincent Van Gogh The Starry Night visible on the painting and the side of the canvas.

Projects: Marlon Mullen will feature 25 paintings from the last decade. From MoMA’s collection, two recent acquisitions will be on view at the Museum for the first time: Untitled (2017) and Untitled (2016). The exhibition will feature other paintings from the artist’s studio and private collections, including many canvases inspired by Artforum and Art in America covers from the last 20 years. A new work inspired by the cover of the MoMA publication Van Gogh: The Starry Night will also be shown for the first time.

“On behalf of everyone at NIAD, it is an honor to work with MoMA to heighten visibility for Marlon Mullen’s practice and to open his first solo museum exhibition,” said Amanda Eicher, Executive Director of NIAD Art Center. “Working with MoMA’s curators, the Access Programs and Initiative team, and the Museum as a whole, we celebrate this moment at which artists like Marlon Mullen are redefining contemporary art through partnership with the world’s most esteemed art institutions.”

Projects: Marlon Mullen is part of the Elaine Dannheisser Projects Series, established at The Museum of Modern Art in 1971. The series was named the Elaine Dannheisser Projects Series in 2006 in honor of Ms. Dannheisser, a longtime collector of contemporary art who bequeathed much of her collection to MoMA upon her death in 2001. Experimental and expansive, the Elaine Dannheisser Projects Series continues to challenge and broaden ideas about art and artistic practice.


ARTIST BIO
Marlon Mullen (b. 1963) was born in Richmond, California. He has had solo exhibitions at Atlanta Contemporary in Georgia and at White Columns and JTT in New York. His work has been included in several group exhibitions, including the 2019 SECA Art Award exhibition, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA); the Whitney Biennial 2019; Way Bay 2 and Create, BAM/PFA, Berkeley; and Under Another Name, the Studio Museum in Harlem. Mullen received the 2014 Wynn Newhouse Award. His work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and The Museum of Modern Art; SFMOMA; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; and the Portland Art Museum. Mullen has worked at NIAD since 1986.

SPONSORSHIP
The Elaine Dannheisser Projects Series is made possible in part by the Elaine Dannheisser Foundation and The Young Patrons Council of The Museum of Modern Art.

For downloadable high-resolution images, visit moma.org/press.