Gary Duehr has been chosen as a Best Emerging Artist in New England by the International Association of Art Critics, and he has received an Artist Grant in photography from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. His work has been featured in museums and galleries including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; MOMA PS 1, New York, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; and Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba, as well as exhibitions in Tokyo, Venice, Stockholm, London and Barcelona. Past awards include grants from the LEF Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
His public artworks include a video artwork for the Canadian subway system; a photo installation funded by the Visible Republic program of New England Foundation for the Arts, and a commission from the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority) for a permanent photo installation at North Station.
Duehr has written about the arts for journals including ArtScope, Art New England, Art on Paper, Communication Arts, Frieze, and Public Culture. Currently he manages Bromfield Gallery in Boston’s South End.
Exhibitions: Portraits in Refuge
His personal artist website is www.garyduehr.com.
Artist Statement:
In a parody of 17th-century Dutch still life vanitas paintings, which both celebrated the luxuries of upper class pronkstilleven (Dutch for “ostentatious still life”) and warned of life’s impermanence, “McVanitas” is a modern American version, juxtaposing a middle class Big Mac and fries against traditional elements such as candles, fine linen, a skull, grapes, pearls and a silver platter—all set in an Edenic landscape full of hope and renewal. The contrast is dramatic.
The Big Mac itself functions as a moral on the ephemerality of sensory pleasures, as witnessed in the documentary Supersize Me. Such mingling of class and privilege takes on a new spin in the era of Trump and his Versaille-like Fifth Avenue Tower where he indulges in fast food.