Curator & Artist Bios & Acknowledgments

Markus Baenziger

Born in Zurich, Switzerland, 1959.

Markus Baenziger is currently Associate Professor of Fine Arts teaching sculpture at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.

Baenziger received an MFA in sculpture from Yale University School of Art, a BFA from Parsons School of Design. His work has been presented in one-person shows at Edward Thorp Gallery, NY; Louise Jones Brown Gallery, Duke University; Bonakdar Jancou Gallery, NY; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, NY; and Cohen Gallery, NY. His work has also been featured in select group exhibitions at the Walton Arts Center, the Rose Art Museum; the Walker Art Center; the Yale University Art Gallery; the Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL; the Hillwood Art Museum, Brookville, NY; the Florida Atlantic University Gallery; the Swiss Institute; Zabriskie Gallery; C/O Gallery in Oslo, among others.

His awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship and awards from the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, the State of Connecticut Commission on the Arts, and Yale University. Baenziger’s work has been reviewed in the New York Times, the New York Sun, the Art Newspaper, the Village Voice, Artforum, Art in America, Arts & Antiques, Sculpture Magazine, and other publications.

His work can be found in the collections of the Walker Art Center, MN; the Agnes Gund Collection, NY; and numerous private collections. He is represented by Edward Thorp Gallery, NY.

For more details see www.markusbaenziger.com

John Muse

Born in Roanoke, VA, 1962.

John Muse is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Haverford College and the John B. Hurford ’60 Humanities Center Exhibitions Faculty Liaison.

He received an MFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and a PhD in Rhetoric from U.C. Berkeley. His videos and media installations have been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe. In 2010, Muse and frequent collaborator Jeanne C. Finley installed a commissioned media installation, Sleeping Under Stars, Living Under Satellites, at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT.

Muse was the 2007–2009 Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Hurford Humanities Center. He is a Rockefeller Foundation Media Arts Fellow, a Creative Capital Grantee, and a former Xerox Palo Alto Research Center artist-in-residence. The Patricia Sweetow Gallery in San Francisco represents his installation works, and the Video Data Bank distributes his single-channel works.

For more details see www.finleymuse.com


Markus Baenziger

I would like to thank John Muse for his vision and expertise in curating this exhibition. Thanks to Matthew Callinan, the John B. Hurford ’60 Humanities Center, and members of the exhibition committee for their support and encouragement. Thanks to the Office of the Provost for its research grants, and to my studio assistants Brooke Reid, Angel Genares, Milap Dixit, and Rob Williams for their skillful work. Thanks also to Rick Bechtel for his help in the foundry and to Jacob Lunderby for his assistance with the installation of the works. A special thanks finally to my wife Jenifer for her support.

John Muse

I would like to thank Markus Baenziger for entrusting this show to me and for teaching me how to think about the ecology of invention. Thanks to Matthew Callinan and Yani Chu-Richardson for helping me clarify my ideas and for supporting me through this effort. Thanks to the many who proofed and improved the catalog essay: Ruti Talmor weighed every word and helped me create something better than okay. James Weissinger and Ms. Chu-Richardson also gave invaluable editorial support. Thanks to the John B. Hurford ’60 Humanities Center, in particular the members of the exhibitions committee: Israel Burshatin, Mr. Weissinger, Mr. Callinan, and Emily Cronin. The Center has breathed life into many of my projects and has here done so again. Thanks to Richard Torchia for discussing the details of this exhibition with me. Thanks as well to entire staff of the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery,to Wormwood & Haze, and to Haverford College’s Business, Central Receiving, Communications, Dining Service, Facilities, Housekeeping, and Purchasing Departments. Thanks finally to my family, Vicky Funari and Celeste Funari Muse, for the love, the songs, and the support, even during our summer vacation, my writer’s holiday.

Curated by John Muse