Penelope Umbrico

Penelope Umbrico is an award-winning New York-based artist.

Her work (installations, video, and digital media) utilizes common software applications and consumer-to-consumer websites as a wide archive in order to explore screen space, light, and electronic signals.

She likes to navigate between the producer and the consumer, the individual and the collective with attention to the technologies that are shaped by and produce these forces.

Umbrico’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally (Guggenheim Museum; LACMA; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Milwaukee Art Museum; Museum of Modern Art New York) and is the winner of multiple awards and grants (Guggenheim Fellowship in 2011, Pilchuck Glass School, Artist in Residence in 2015, Sharpe-Walentas Studio Fellowship in 2018.

She has served as a member of faculty at Bard College’s Summer MFA, and she is a core faculty member at the School of Visual Arts MFA Photography Video and Related Media in NYC.

INTERVIEW: Fri 16 Jan 2015, 18:00 | Penelope Umbrico In Conversation with Katrina Sluis

For more details about this interview please refer to the photographer’s gallery

QUOTE

“I have always been more interested in how we as a culture see things than how I see in particular.”

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS AND INSTALLATIONS

2019           │  Rochester NY │  George Eastman Museum | Everyone’s Moon Any License

2019           │  Ballarat, Australia│Ballarat International Foto Biennale | Everyone’s Moon Any License

2019           │  Chicago, IL│ 150 Media Stream, Screen to Screen (eBay, Craigslist)

2018           │  Brooklyn, NY│BRIC Media House

2018           │  Le Locle, Switzerland│Musée des Beaux-Arts, Out of Print

2017           │ Peoria, IL│Peoria Riverfront Museum, Screen Light

2017           │ Denver, CO │David Smith Gallery

2016          │  Paris France│Salon d’Honneur, Paris Photo, Range: of Masters

2016          │  Bienne, Switzerland│Photoforum PasquArt, Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography

2015          │  NY, USA│Grand Central Terminal Light Boxes, Four Photographs of Rays at Grand Central

2015          │  UC Riverside, CA│Museum of Contemporary Photography, Range

2015          │  Rossinière, Switzerland│Alt+1000 Festival de Photographie results from A Proposal and Two Trades

2015          │  Ontario, Canada│Justine M. Barnicke Gallery, Hart House, University of Toronto,

2014         │  Paris, France│RVB Books,

2013         │  Rossinière, Switzerland│ Alt. + 1000 Festival de Photographie, A Proposal and Two Trades,

2013         │  Kentucky, KY│ Art Museum at the University of Kentucky

2013         │  St Paul, MN│ Olson Gallery, Bethel University,

2012         │  Vevey, Switzerland│ Vevey, Ville d’Images, Cameras from the Smithsonian History of Photography Collection, billboards,

2011         │  Paraty, Brazil│ Paraty Em Foco, Future,

2010        │  Brooklyn, NY│ Brooklyn Academy of Music, Suns from Flickr (Box Office), site-specific installation,

2013        │  Toronto, Ontario│ P/M Gallery,

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2020  | Rochester, NY |  George Eastman Museum, Gathering Clouds: Photographs from the Nineteenth Century and Today

2020 | Vevey, Switzerland | Festival Images Vevey Biennale

2019 | Lianzhou, China | Lianzhou Foto Festival 2019, Living Mountains curated by Natasha Egan

2019 | Portland, OR |  Portland Art Museum, Toughened to Wind and Sun: Women Photographing the Landscape

2019 | Belgium | Foto Museum Antwerp, Maan/Moon, Antwerp, Belgium, 2019

2019 | Sunderland, UK | Northern Centre of Photography, Observe Experiment Archive, Sunderland, UK, 2019

SELECTED CURATORIAL

2020 | Munich, Germany | Surplus Management, Guest Editor, Der Greif, Issue #13

2017 | Brooklyn, NY | Monument, Gowanus E-Waste Warehouse

2017 | Los Angeles, CA | Frame Element, Photo La

SELECTED MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

Berkeley Art Museum, CA

Crocker Art Museum, CA

Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO

Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY

Honolulu Museum of Art, Hawaii

International Center of Photography, New York, NY

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND WRITING

Fall 2017 | Oslo | Subjective: on the current political climate, essay, Objective Journal

Spring 2016 |  Mongo Thomson, Negative Space; Oliver Laric, Ancient Copies; and Mishka Henner, Photography Is, book reviews for “The PhotoBook and the Archive”, The Photobook Review, Aperture,

July – August 2015 | The Back Page, Photograph Magazine

Summer 2014 | NY|  Range, artist monograph, Aperture,

2014 | Paris |  Out of Order: Used Office Books and Used Office Plants for Sale, artist monograph, essay by Clément Chéroux, RVB

BIO

American artist. Lives in New York

1957 │Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

FORMATION

1980│ Toronto, Canada│Graduated from the Ontario College of Art.

1989│ New York, USA │Obtained her M.F.A at the School of Visual Arts.

ARTISTIC AWARDS/GRANTS/RESIDENCIES

2017-2018 │ Sharpe-Walentas Studio Fellowship

2015 │ Pilchuck Glass School, Artist in Residence

2012 │John Gutmann Photography Fellowship

2012 │Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship

2011 │ Guggenheim Fellowship

2011 │ Peter S. Reed Foundation Grant

2010 | Deutsche Bank Fellowship – New York Foundation of the Arts

2009 | Anonymous Was A Woman Award

2008 | Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer’s Fellowship

2008 | Harvestworks, Scholar Residency

2002 | New York Foundation of the Arts, Fellowship

2000 | New York Foundation of the Arts, Catalog Project Grant

LINKS

Penelope Umbrico’s Website

Penelope Umbrico’s Facebook Account

Penelope Umbrico’s Instagram collaborative project

FEATURED PORTRAIT AND IMAGES
Images courtesy of Penelope Umbrico