MORGAN CANAVAN

studio@morgancanavan.info

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WORKS



A Shuffle of Aluminum, 488.14%, 2024
aluminum
18 x 12-3/8 x 2-1/8 inches
A Shuffle of Aluminum, 488.14%, 2024
aluminum
18 x 12-3/8 x 2-1/8 inches
[detail]
 Weather Report [3], 2019
laser cut stainless steel with U.V. print
3-1/4 x 42-1/4 x 44-1/2 inches
Weather Report [2], 2019
laser cut stainless steel with U.V. print
2-3/4 x 44-3/4 x 40-3/8 inches
Weather Report [2], 2019
laser cut stainless steel with U.V. print
2-3/4 x 44-3/4 x 40-3/8 inches
[detail]
Weather Report [2], 2019
laser cut stainless steel with U.V. print
2-3/4 x 44-3/4 x 40-3/8 inches
[detail]
Weather Report [1], 2019
laser cut stainless steel with U.V. print
5-1/2 x 42-3/4 x 28-3/4 inches
Weather Report [1], 2019
laser cut stainless steel with U.V. print
[detail]
Untitled, 2017
acrylic polymer paint, welded steel
38 x 18 x 6 inches
Untitled, 2017
acrylic polymer paint, welded steel
[detail]
With audience, stressed internally [2], 2020
plastic, pigmented resin, stainless steel
2-3/8 x 1-1/8 x 2-3/4 inches
With audience, stressed internally [2], 2020
plastic, pigmented resin, stainless steel
2-3/8 x 1-1/8 x 2-3/4 inches
With audience, stressed internally [3], 2020
plastic, pigmented resin, stainless steel
6-5/16 x 1-1/8 x 5-1/2 inches
With audience, stressed internally [3], 2020
plastic, pigmented resin, stainless steel
6-5/16 x 1-1/8 x 5-1/2 inches
With audience, stressed internally [5], 2020
plastic, pigmented resin, stainless steel
5-1/8 x 3-3/8 x 5-1/2 inches
With audience, stressed internally [5], 2020
plastic, pigmented resin, stainless steel
5-1/8 x 3-3/8 x 5-1/2 inches
Without audience, stressed internally [1], 2020
plexiglass, pigmented resin, stainless steel
5-5/8 x 1-1/4 x 5-13/16 inches
Without audience, stressed internally [2], 2020
Plexiglass, pigmented resin, stainless steel
8-7/16 x 1-1/4 x 5-13/16 inches
With audience, stressed internally [4], 2020
plastic, pigmented resin, stainless steel
7-3/4 x 2-1/4 x 5-1/2 inches
With audience, stressed internally [4], 2020
plastic, pigmented resin, stainless steel
7-3/4 x 2-1/4 x 5-1/2 inches
With audience, stressed internally [1], 2020
plastic, pigmented resin, stainless steel
6-5/16 x 1-1/8 x 5-9/16 inches
With audience, stressed internally [1], 2020
plastic, pigmented resin, stainless steel
6-5/16 x 1-1/8 x 5-9/16 inches
With audience, stressed internally [6], 2020
plastic, pigmented resin, stainless steel
6-7/16 x 3-5/16 x 5-1/2 inches
With audience, stressed internally [6], 2020
plastic, pigmented resin, stainless steel
6-7/16 x 3-5/16 x 5-1/2 inches
With/out audience, stressed internally, 2020
ink on paper

Financiers from Los Angeles, 2019
sandblasted aluminum
variable dimensions, 13 unique parts
Financiers from Los Angeles, 2019
sandblasted aluminum
[detail]
Financiers from Los Angeles, 2019
sandblasted aluminum
[detail]
Financiers from Los Angeles, 2019
sandblasted aluminum
[detail]
Financiers from Los Angeles, 2019
sandblasted aluminum
[detail]
27 February/28 February 2016; 27
February/28 February 2016, 2016
stainless steel with U.V. print and primer
26 x 21 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches
27 February/28 February 2016; 27
February/28 February 2016, 2016
stainless steel with U.V. print and primer
[detail]
20 February/21 February 2016; 20
February/21 February 2016, 2016
stainless steel with U.V. print and primer
13 x 12 x 3 1/2 inches
20 February/21 February 2016; 20
February/21 February 2016, 2016
stainless steel with U.V. print and primer
[detail]
Untitled, 2017
stainless steel with U.V. print, magazine
8 x 11 x 1/4 inches
31 October / 1 November 2015..., 2015
stainless steel with U.V. print and primer
2 3/4 x 27 x 21 3/4 inches
Friday 5 June 2015; 6 June 
/ 7 June 2015, 2015 
U.V. print on copper, audio cables,
amplifier, speaker
dimensions variable
Untitled, 2015
U.V. print on stainless steel,
corner guard
22 x 7-1/2 x 9-1/2 inches
Untitled, 2015
U.V. print on stainless steel,
corner guard
22 x 7-1/2 x 9-1/2 inches
Untitled, 2015
U.V. print on stainless steel,
corner guard
22 x 7-1/2 x 9-1/2 inches
Studio mirror, 2015
U.V. print on mirror
40 x 30 inches
Studio mirror, 2015
U.V. print on mirror
48 x 35 inches
Studio mirror, 2014
U.V. print on mirror
12 x 12 inches
Studio mirror, 2014
U.V. print on mirror

EXHIBITIONS



EXHIBITIONS

More Coming Back & More Returning. With Ben Estes, Marisa Takal. Badwater, Knoxville, 2023.




The Californian Subject II. With Salomon Anaya, Peppi Bottrop, Hildegarde Duane/David Lamelas, Julia Eichler, Fabian Ginsberg, Alex Heilbron, Anne Imhof, Sam Lewitt. 2019 Temple, Los Angeles, 2023.
The Californian Subject II. With Salomon Anaya, Peppi Bottrop, Hildegarde Duane/David Lamelas, Julia Eichler, Fabian Ginsberg, Alex Heilbron, Anne Imhof, Sam Lewitt. 2019 Temple, Los Angeles, 2023.
Press Release. Storage Art Gallery, 2022.
Press Release. Storage Art Gallery, 2022.
Fragments are the only forms I trust. White Columns Online, 2022.
Centerless Space. With Hanna Stiegeler. Sweetwater, Berlin, 2020.
Centerless Space. With Hanna Stiegeler. Sweetwater, Berlin, 2020.
Centerless Space. With Hanna Stiegeler. Sweetwater, Berlin, 2020.
Nancy Buchanan, Morgan Canavan, Sidsel Meineche Hansen. Potts, Alhambra, 2017.
Bad Windchime (group show). Kimberly Klark, Queens, 2017.
Morgan Canavan & K.r.m. Mooney. White Flag Library, Saint Louis, 2016.
Tacking bit. VI Dancer, San Francisco, 2016.
Koroneiki. Hester, New York City, 2015.
A larger glass bottle. Blood Gallery, 131 Huntington Street, Brooklyn, 2015.
Passive collect. Chin's Push. Photo by Victoria Vu, 2014.

TEXTS


... Morgan Canavan has created an object that resembles a copy of the Financial Times. It lies on the floor, elegant and slightly bent. The object is made of laser-cut stainless steel and is UV-printed. Approaching the object to inspect it more closely, we can read, for example, the weather report, the recent stock market activity, errata, cooking instructions, parts of articles, and advertisements. The artist has reconfigured the texts and images, but the collaging interventions are minor and subtle. The newspaper’s claim to be an index of everything in the world today seems untouched, at most a trace. The relationship between information and design and the familiar patterns of the Financial Times are also hardly irritated. If we look a little closer still, we notice the differences that distinguish the newspaper object from the work of art: at the creases, the paint has flaked off, and one can see the sheet steel. Inconspicuously, we can see the edges of the print where different newspapers have been mounted. These placesof deviation seem to increase the density of the newspaper object. The sheet-steel newspaper’s casual tension and elegance are perhaps what the paper newspaper achieves only in the imagination. At the same time, these deviations openly refer to the different production processes of newspaper and artwork, because this work is not about the deceptively real simulation but about the subtle irritation.


A newspaper’s claim to offer information and relevance presupposes, on the one hand, knowledge on the part of readers and, on the other hand, the work of selection, contextualization, evaluation, and research on the part of newspaper makers. In this sense, there is no such thing as raw information. Newspapers can produce an informational worldview by curating, anticipating, and speculating on the world. Intrigued by this, Canavan takes control of the finished product and subjectivizes it through his subtle interventions. He inscribes himself in the self-consciously presented public address, but without having a say in it, he thematizes the discourse. Without being subversive in content, Canavan makes imaginable in the irritation of the form what conditions this discourse: whoever agrees with its form may differ in opinion in terms of content, but whoever irritates or criticizes its form makes visible the hegemonic nature of the discourse, which is usually threatened with exclusion. What kind of form is this? It is a mediation between these two patterns: the informing material network and the informing expectant readership. This structure coincides with corresponding political and economic networks. Some call them the “market” or “public sphere.” It is indirectly conveyed in the design of the newspaper object. The comparison of the form of the product with its material semiotic process of production and consumption reveals how broadly the scope for design is interpreted and how intentions are either concealed or coveted. Through the transformation of this product into a work of art, not only the medium of the newspaper, its production of topicality, and the collective informational environment become reflectable, but also the medium of the work of art. What use value does the artwork as a commodity promise in comparison to the utility and relevance of the newspaper? What is the duration and topicality of art compared to the newspaper’s time periods? Who provides the duration and topicality of art, and who produces it? What infrastructure and agents condition art and are involved in its use? And what is the relationship between the use of art and its value? What is the relationship between the hegemonic order, the specific mediation of value, and the processual form of an artwork? What reflexive information takes place? 

Excerpted from The Californian Subject II, by UN-SdA / courtesey Fabian Ginsberg, 2023.




... Each ‘40-foot’ shipping container is around the size of a stick of butter, placed on the floor in stacks. Walking up to the sculpture on the floor in a gallery creates something like a bird's eye perspective in the viewer: it's as if we have an omniscient viewpoint of the work. There is the suggestion that the room is a landscape, or the work is in a space with different boundaries than the gallery. Through their size, these sculptures adjust the viewer’s own scale, or position their scale, with a different set of terms. Like the sun looking at the earth; rescaling a viewer is significant. Looking past the perceptual suggestions of the sculptures, there's a reverse process. 

Conceptually, I find the way that it operates is by drawing you back into considering what the scale of an actual shipping container really is. After all, agreements about the dimensions of shipping containers allowed for the scale of globalism to increase in the ’60s and ’70s.

Waybill, Issue 1, On Logistics. “Without Perspective,” excrpts selected by Morgan Canavan.
&
“Low Relief Globalism, Morgan Canavan with Sampson Ohringer”, from “Waybill, Issue One: On Logistics,” 2023.





Some of my sculptures are welded together. Imagine the conductivity of these works as if a tuning fork is struck and set on the surface so that the sound resonates through the entire object. In an artwork, this tone has a capacity to describe the world as much as it describes the object it passes through. 

Categories (say, sections in a newspaper) are porous to other parts of the world; for instance, the impression of finance upon nature, or the confusion between lifestyle and art. My specific concern is with the ontological tone this mixing characterizes. My work in the studio consists of shifting the mental and physical density of everyday objects by changing the materials they are made from; often, facsimile prints on stainless steel reproducing collaged newspapers. Newspapers are a material carrying their own content that I can reposition, slow down and abstract. I like to think of the proximity for viewing my sculptures is at reading distance. The content of my clippings varies: animal feed for sustainable meat, the effects of climate change on flower blooms, PM2.5, recipes, restaurant reviews, and so on. 

My approach to repositioning these clippings developed while I was keeping a studio at home a few years ago. I was making work in my living room, which was open to the kitchen. If I boiled water, the newspapers would begin to curl up. I started using Himalayan salt, bran and whole wheat flour in my paper-mâché mix. I used the fixed content in the collages to consider what a creative process could look like in more provisional terms. 

That tuning fork might be considered in another way. Last spring I visited a fiberglass shop and afterward drove to a wildflower nursery down the road. The contrast between these experiences of color, density, and absorption in smell made me wonder how the interior of a sculpture is permeable to the space it is set in. I am interested in making work that shares space with its context, but that is nonetheless a dial indicator of ecologies changing around it. 

Recently the world shifted around the work so that innocuous sections in the New York Times like the Corrections or Weather Report are nonetheless political: the adherence to facts, a continuous mapping of the country, or what’s in the air today. 


ABOUT

I am a visual artist based in Los Angeles whose work explores permanence and ephemerality through de-contextualized everyday objects. Using materials like newspapers, food, ultraviolet printing on stainless steel and moldmaking, I examine how objects resonate in their environments, embodying tension and stress. The sculptures engage viewers with materiality from reading distance, prompting speculative valuation and re-contextualization.

©Morgan Canavan, all rights reserved.