Museum acquisition by the Barrick Museum of Art, Las Vegas →

The Marorie Barrick Museum of Art at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas has acquired Marisa J. Futernick’s video work Mirage.

Originally created for the museum’s 2023 exhibition Modern Desert Markings: An Homage to Las Vegas Area Land Art, curated by Katie Hoffman and Hikmet Sidney Loe, the work will now be part of the Barrick’s permanent collection.

”Marisa J. Futernick’s Mirage (2023) explores the region’s complicated sociopolitical histories when it comes to the land. Futernick’s video, poetically narrated and told through the artist’s rapturous still images, exposes the desecration, commodification, and governmental experimentation (atomic testing, mining) of the desert. ‘People can disappear out here,’ says Futernick in the twenty-four-minute-plus piece. ‘Things disappear, too. Stories. Histories. Species. Money. Time. Rights.’” Read more in Southwest Contemporary

”Futernick builds tone through temporality in the form of a slide show highlighting the shifting locations and experiences through a narrated slideshow, a catalog of region and emotion.” Read more in Double Scoop

Watch Mirage here
Explore the exhibition Modern Desert Markings in depth here

A Catalog of American Things features in Refract Journal

A Catalog of American Things
Refract Journal
Volume 4: Document/ary


Featured in the new issue of Refract (the visual studies journal of the University of California, Santa Cruz), the ongoing work A Catalog of American Things borrows the notion of the encyclopedia—an “exhaustive” record of the world. The photographs serve as a record, as evidence of the present and the very recent past, as an act of preservation of what this place is made up of right now. Futernick says, “like an encyclopedia, A Catalog of American Things attempts to gather and organize information about what a world is made up of, but it is as much about what is left out.”


Click to watch A Catalog of American Things
Click to read the accompanying essay

Still from A Catalog of American Things, 2021. Single-channel video with sound, 10:18

13 Presidents: A Radio Series, now airing on M&A Architecture Radio


My work is currently being broadcast from a terrestrial radio tower in beautiful Burbank, California and online as part of M&A Architecture Radio

The radio series that I made based on my book 13 Presidents is featured as part of a 6-month broadcast loop of contributions, curated by Materials & Applications for the first issue of M&A Architecture Radio. Tune in to 96.7 KGAP LP–FM Burbank and online at lookout.fm. The works are played on a random loop, so listeners encounter found and coincidental radio. Or listen on-demand here.

Almost Presidential: a new online project →

In the run-up to the 2020 U.S. Presidential election on Nov. 3, a film connected to Orange Coast College's Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion's newest online proje...

September 19–December 16, 2020
Presented by the Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion
Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa, California

Watch the special project film here

Click here to view Concession, the new work that I have made for this project

Almost Presidential presents new work by six artists who examine the American political landscape from an unfamiliar angle. Featuring sculpture, drawing, photography, installation, and video by Pio Abad, Deborah Aschheim, Matthew Brannon, and Cintia Segovia, and project curators Marisa J. Futernick and Rebecca Sittler, Almost Presidential highlights artists whose previous bodies of work have challenged the visual and rhetorical representations of former presidents and their legacies.

In the context of the 2020 U.S. Federal election, Almost Presidential looks at vice presidents and failed presidential candidates, investigating names forgotten to history, or reduced to one-liners or supporting roles outside the spotlight. Presenting a timely exploration of political rhetoric, failure, and gendered dynamics within political systems in the U.S. and beyond, including Mexico and the Philippines, these six artists combine fiction and historical fact into an active survey of political material, text, and image.

Artist panel discussion
Thursday, October 1, 2020
12noon–1pm PDT / 3–4pm EDT / 8–9pm BST

The Spiritual Exercises: now showing

Arts Chaplaincy Projects presents an online exhibition with over 70 artists
Now showing at https://artschaplaincy.net/projects/index/the-spiritual-exercises/

 I Dreamed of a House features as part of The Spiritual Exercises, a new online exhibition of works mediating memory and longing via the parameters of the present, curated by Mark Dean.

During our new crisis, I have been thinking a lot about Detroit—a city already deep in suffering that is now being hit especially hard by the pandemic. I’ve been thinking about the places that will be left behind on the other side of this cataclysm: what will still be there when we venture back out into the world? What will we return to? What will we bother to save, and what will we let be lost? Watch the film here

Almost Presidential opening soon at the Barrick Museum, Las Vegas

Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
March 27–July 25, 2020
(Exhibition postponed)

The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art presents Almost Presidential, an exhibition of new work by five artists who examine the American political landscape from an unfamiliar angle. Featuring sculpture, drawing, photography, and video by Pio Abad, Deborah Aschheim, Cintia Segovia, and exhibition curators Marisa J. Futernick and Rebecca Sittler, Almost Presidential highlights artists whose previous bodies of work have challenged the visual and rhetorical representations of former presidents and their legacies. In the run-up to the 2020 U.S. Federal election, the exhibition looks at vice presidents and failed presidential candidates, investigating names forgotten to history, or reduced to one-liners or supporting roles outside the spotlight.

What happens when these physical embodiments of collective political hopes and dreams return to daily life and become civilians again? What traces do they leave in our political imaginations? How do they inform assumptions about future candidates or impact how we see ourselves and each other through a political lens? Though our national histories are often written with the victors in mind, failed candidates can also have a substantial impact on intangible ideas surrounding “electability” and how we visualize presidential power.

Presenting a timely exploration of political rhetoric, failure, and gendered dynamics within political systems in the U.S. and beyond, including Mexico and the Philippines, these five artists combine fiction and historical fact into an active survey of material, text, and image.

Click for more

Tailgate opens at Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles


The photograph Tailgate, 2019 lends its title to a new group exhibition, on view at Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles from February 8 to March 1, 2020.

Tailgate was taken in the aftermath of the 2017 Harvard–Yale football game. Known simply as “The Game,” the Harvard–Yale match-up, first held in 1875, is one of the oldest sporting rivalries in the world:

https://www.nhregister.com/connecticut/article/Yale-student-accused-in-Harvard-game-tailgate-11433232.php

Opening reception: Saturday February 8, 7–10pm.

More info here

There is a commonly held belief among truck enthusiasts that removing the tailgate will significantly increase a vehicle’s mpg. Each craft has its own variation of this, and it comes down to the same thing: the desire to engage in a way that allows…


There is a commonly held belief among truck enthusiasts that removing the tailgate will significantly increase a vehicle’s mpg. Each craft has its own variation of this, and it comes down to the same thing: the desire to engage in a way that allows you to get the most out of what you are doing. For Monte Vista Projects’ open call, Tailgate, this is the very sentiment that we held in mind when selecting the works for this exhibition. This show is about artists in their pursuit of fullness, and supporting them as they strive to get to where they are going.

This year’s show consists of a group of work representing a variety of approaches and visions. The nature of an open call precludes a single overarching theme, and instead is the result of openness to surprise and discovery. We feel that the selected works present compelling bodily engagements both to distinct places and spatial contexts, the presentation of self, and the connection to everyday objects that surround us. The exhibiting artists are Ricky Amadour, Jisoo Chung, Luna Esparza, Sasha Fishman, Erin Fussell, Marisa Futernick, Scott Grover, Alina Hayes, Alexander Hill, Yoory Jung, R Kauff, Tiana Marsh, Ken Min, Josh Vasquez, Magdalena Wittig, Adrian Kay Wong.

Breaking Bread in L.A.: group show at Oxy Arts

Breaking Bread in L.A.:
Connecting Communities and Cultures through Food

Exhibiting artists:
Carmen Argote, Susu Attar, April Banks,
Marisa J. Futernick, iris yirei hu, Phung Huynh, Jessica Rath and Akemi Ki, and The Echo Park Film Center

Opening reception:
Thursday September 12, 5–8pm
Exhbition: September 12–November 24, 2019

Oxy Arts
4757 York Boulevard, Highland Park, Los Angeles

Programming for the season includes performances, workshops, panels, film and, of course, food. Highlights include a discussion on food equity with chef Roy Choi, and a tasting and talk tracing the history of the chili pepper:
See the full season of programming