SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
PHOTOGRAPHY & THE SPECIMEN
January 11 - March 23, 2025
Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA
Charaxes angusta (cibratus?), 1999, photogravure, image size: 11 x 14 inches, paper size: 19-1/2 x 22 inches. Included in Photography & The Specimen, a selection of photographs from the museum’s collection curated by Dr. Sarah M. Miller that explores various modes of the photographic specimen and how they function as forms of knowledge. “Photographs, like natural specimens, preserve what is lost—to death, to extinction, to exile. Considering natural history museums' reliance on death to represent life, Susan Magnus strips museum butterfly specimens of their lifelike illusion by printing her photographs in funereal blacks.”
SUSAN MAGNUS: IMAGEAFTER
September 21 - October 27, 2024
Garrison Art Center, 2024
The work in Imageafter draws on an inherited, multi-generational archive of family photographs, film negatives, and personal artifacts. Engaging with these materials, Magnus repurposes and reconfigures them into photo-based projects, sculptures, and mixed-media works that explore themes of ephemerality, identity formation, and the instability of memory. Installation view, Garrison Art Center, Garrison, NY. Photo credit: Ernesto Eisner.
FIRST EDITION SHOWCASE
January 12 - January 27, 2013
Jen Bekman Gallery, New York, NY
The Architecture of Memory, 2013, synthetic polymer paint on 4 x 6-inch chromogenic prints, dimensions variable. “Repurposing 4 x 6 inch snapshots of people and places she has accumulated, Susan Magnus paints over and distorts these often already-blurry, awkwardly composed photos to create installations that question the symbolic aspects of material culture and reflect the unreliable nature of photography and memory.” Exhibition juror: Penelope Umbrico. Installation view, Jen Bekman Gallery, New York, NY.
HOWLAND CULTURAL CENTER, Beacon, New York, 2012
Trace, 2012, site-specific. This project responds to the history and architecture of the former Howland Library in Beacon, New York. Designed in 1872 by Richard Morris Hunt, the building served as the city’s public library until 1976, when the book collection was relocated. In Trace, effigies of the books were made from tracing paper and arranged on the remaining bookshelves. Installation view, Howland Cultural Center, Beacon, NY.
THE UNCANNY VALLEY
June 23 - September 9, 2007
Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, State University of New York, New Paltz, NY
Threshold, 2007, metalized polyester, dimensions variable. Presented as part of The Uncanny Valley at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, Threshold is an institutional-scale curtain wall of reflective material that mirrors the entire room and responds to unpredictable air currents and visitor interactions. Installation view, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY.
TURNING CORNERS
February 26, 2003 - January 22, 2006
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, University of California, Berkeley, CA
Lifetime, ongoing, National Geographic magazines, steel, 7 x 10 x depth increases with yearly installments. Collection Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, purchase made possible by a gift from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation. Photo taken in 2003 by Sibila Savage.
MERIT BADGE
July 23 - September 3, 2005
Private Residence, Hudson, New York
Folly, 2005; wood, cardboard boxes, mailing labels, tape, dimensions variable. In Folly, shipping boxes are repurposed to create an avian metropolis designed to deteriorate over time. The work was featured in Merit Badge, an exhibition organized by Jason Middlebrook. Installation view, Hudson, New York.
SUSAN MAGNUS: EX NATURA
November 3, 2—3 - December 3, 1994
Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA
MFA Exhibition, 1992, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA