AUSTIN, Texas—Troy Brauntuch, associate professor in the Department of Art and Art History at The University of Texas at Austin, has been chosen as one of the featured artists for the “Whitney Biennial 2006” exhibition on display March 2-May 28 at the renowned Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
Brauntuch is one of seven Texas artists chosen by museum curators to be included in the internationally recognized Biennial exhibit. This year’s show, titled “Day for Night,” offers artists the opportunity to have their work recognized by arts patrons from around the world.
“‘Day for Night’ explores the artifice of American culture in what could be best described as a pre-Enlightenment moment, in which culture is preoccupied with the irrational, the religious, the dark, the erotic and the violent, filtered through a sense of flawed beauty,” curator Chrissie Iles said. “This reflective, restless mood is not unique to the United States. Its presence across both America and Europe suggests a shift in the accepted values that have formed the basis of 20th-century culture.”
“The works in this exhibition continue my investigation into public imagery and its function through drawing and photographs,” Brauntuch said. “My most recent drawn works illuminate views of a private world and introduces them to a public realm. The images are from my immediate domestic environment—such as the sensation of light falling on the pattern of my girlfriend’s coat or a staggered view of my tabby cat passing a snakeskin modern chair.”
Conversely, Brauntuch plumbs the life of the mediated image—the view of dust-laden shirts stacked in retail shelving in a suite of three large canvases.
Brauntuch’s work is in many prominent public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, both in New York. His work was seen recently in Philadelphia at the Institute of Contemporary Art in the show “Springtide” and in a one-man show this past fall at Friedrich Petzel Gallery in New York.
Brauntuch was one of three professors honored this year with a Teaching Excellence Award from the College of Fine Arts at The University of Texas at Austin.
The six other Texans chosen for the exhibit are Houston photographer, Amy Blakemore; the four-member Otabenga Jones group (Dawolu Jabari Anderson, Jamal Cyrus, Robert Pruitt and Kenya Evans), also of Houston; and Waller-based Daniel Johnston.
For more information contact: Amy M. Crossette, Office of Public Affairs, 512-471-3046.
