The Carter introduces a digital interactive work as part of an exhibition exploring experiments with motion by women drawn primarily from the permanent collection

Fort Worth, TX, September 5, 2019—The Amon Carter Museum of American Art presents Set in Motion: Camille Utterback and Art That Moves, an exhibition that pairs an interactive installation by new-media artist Camille Utterback with a century of art depicting motion drawn primarily from the Carter’s collection. The exhibition will feature Utterback’s Untitled 5, which translates visitors’ movements into an animated digital painting through computer software written by the artist.

Utterback’s work explores the connection between artistic creation and human movement, engaging participants in a dynamic process of discovery and experimentation. It has been exhibited in more than fifty shows on four continents and has been acquired by museums and private collectors around the world. She has received numerous awards, including a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (or “Genius Grant”) in 2009.

“It’s so exciting to be able to show Utterback’s work in our renovated galleries,” said Kristen Gaylord, Assistant Curator of Photographs. “She is the latest in a long line of living artists that the Carter has worked with, starting in 1961 when the museum was founded, and as we reopen to the public this exhibition continues our tradition of showing the breadth and depth of American art.”

Utterback’s Untitled 5 will be presented alongside a selection of work by women who have experimented with bodily movement and motion in their art. Featuring a wide range of work from well-known masters like Georgia O’Keeffe and Helen Frankenthaler to underappreciated artists like Luchita Hurtado and Barbara Morgan, Set in Motion is part of the Carter’s mission to highlight women’s contributions to the history of art and to support female artists.

“So often her work is shown in the context of digital art,” said Gaylord, “but Utterback has always engaged thoughtfully with art history, and the richness of the Carter collection allows us to put her in conversation with outstanding American artists of the last 100 years.”

Untitled 5 builds on a history of artwork that records or transforms human movement, including that of the abstract expressionists Utterback considers her forbearers. “I have always been fascinated with and loved abstract expressionist work because there’s something about standing in front of a painting by Helen Frankenthaler or Joan Mitchell where you can imagine their bodies standing there and their arm and their hand making these incredible marks,” says Utterback in an interview with Carter Curator Maggie Adler. “There’s this magic of connecting to that person and their brush in a different moment in time.”

In the installation, as a visitor steps into a light-filled rectangle, their movements in the space are tracked by a camera that Utterback calls a “corollary” to the brush of an abstract expressionist. That data is then run through an algorithm written by the artist that translates it into an animated digital painting that constantly evolves as visitors interact with it. She describes how Untitled 5 lets visitors “create connections between different moments of time” as they contribute to the work by interacting with the marks of previous visitors, their own movements the basis for future visitors’ interaction. As part of the Carter’s initiative of exploring new media, this work defies easy categorization, blurring lines between computer software, video animation, performance, and painting.

On October 3 from 6 to 8 p.m., the Carter will host an artist talk with Utterback to discuss her pioneering process and how she creates her “living paintings.” Utterback will share her insights on how she has combined technology and art throughout her career and how her work has been influenced by other works that record or transform human movement. This event is free for Carter members and $10 for nonmembers.

Set in Motion opens to the public on September 14 during the Carter’s Party on the Porch event from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Carter members will be allowed early access to the exhibition during our Member Preview Days running from now through September 13. Set in Motion will be on view through December 8, 2019. \

Support for Set in Motion: Camille Utterback and Art That Moves is generously provided by The Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation and The Donny Wiley Memorial Fund at the North Texas Community Foundation.

About Camille Utterback

Camille Utterback is an internationally-acclaimed artist and pioneer in the field of digital and interactive art. Her work explores the aesthetic and experiential possibilities of linking computational systems to human movement and physicality in visually layered ways. Her work focuses attention on the continued relevance and richness of the body in our increasingly mediated world. To create her projects, Utterback combines various sensing and display technologies with the custom software she writes. Whether expressed in the form of architectural-scale projections, custom LED lighting, or intimate sculptures with embedded LCD screens, Utterback’s work engages participants in a process of embodied discovery as they explore the possibilities and behaviors of her physically engaged systems. Utterback’s work has been exhibited at galleries, festivals, and museums internationally and is in private and public collections around the world.

Utterback’s awards and honors include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2009), a Transmediale International Media Art Festival Award (2005), a Rockefeller Foundation New Media Fellowship (2002) and a commission from the Whitney Museum for the CODeDOC project on their ArtPort website (2002). Utterback holds a US patent for a video tracking system she developed while working as a research fellow at New York University (2004).

Utterback is currently an Assistant Professor of Art Practice in the Department of Art & Art History, and by courtesy of Computer Science in the Department of Engineering at Stanford University. She holds a BA in Art from Williams College and an MA from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She currently lives and works in San Francisco, California.

About the Amon Carter Museum of American Art

Located in the heart of Fort Worth’s Cultural District, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art explores the breadth and complexity of American creativity through an important and dynamic art collection. The Carter opened in 1961 to benefit its community by sharing the wonder of American art, fostering the growth of a vibrant cultural spirit, and stimulating everyone’s artistic imagination. Housed in a building designed by Philip Johnson (1906–2005), the Carter features one of the great collections of American art including masterworks of painting, sculpture, and works on paper by artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Jacob Lawrence, John Singer Sargent, Frederic Church, Thomas Eakins, Grant Wood, Alexander Calder, and Stuart Davis. The Carter is also home to a world-renowned photography collection that spans the history of the medium from the 19th century to today. It is also home to Amon G. Carter Sr.’s collection of nearly 400 works by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell, two of the most significant artists of the American West. Admission is free. Open: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Thursday 10 a.m.–8 p.m.; Sunday 12–5 p.m. Closed Mondays and select holidays.

Images: Barbara Morgan (1900–1992), Pure Energy and Neurotic Man, 1941, gelatin silver print, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas © Barbara Brooks Morgan; Camille Utterback (b. 1970), Untitled 5 (screenshot), 2004, interactive installation: custom software (color, silent), video camera, computer, projector, lighting, Collection of the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation, © Camille Utterback, image courtesy the artist; Camille Utterback (b. 1970), Untitled 5 , 2004, interactive installation: custom software (color, silent), video camera, computer, projector, lighting, Collection of the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation © Camille Utterback; Luchita Hurtado (b. 1920), Untitled, 1970, lithograph, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, © Luchita Hurtado