To schedule a viewing of Emmett Moore’s The Boat House, please email karina@ninajohnson.com
Emmett Moore: The Boat House
November 28th - December 6th, 2020Nina Johnson is proud to present The Boat House, an exhibition of recent sculptures and furniture by Emmett Moore, opening by appointment on November 28th and on view through December 6th, 2020. For this body of work, Moore blurs the line between art and design, life and spectacle, more than ever before.
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The Boat House, installation view
Emmett Moore is a problem solver. He observes the world around him with an enthusiastic attention to detail, then incorporates those observations into stunning and surprising objects.
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The Boat House, installation view
A quintessentially Miami artist, Moore is equally comfortable discussing art history, product design, consumer good supply chains, and the effects of climate change on his hometown.
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Caribe Mariner, 2020, second hand shirts, epoxy, hardware, 60 x 84 x 3 in.
For the past decade, Moore has been a deeply devoted and active member of the Miami art community, and he embeds the city’s energy in his work. Most well-known for his vibrant, functional sculptures, such as chairs, shelves, and tables made of epoxy-bound used t-shirts, this new exhibition offers an unprecedented level of access to the inner workings of Moore’s life and mind. Instead of bring his sculptures to the gallery, Moore opens his home to visitors and invites us to experience the objects as he does. The show’s title comes from the nickname Moore uses to refer to the home, due to its water-centric architectural affinities and location on the Miami River.
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The Boat House, installation view
As the world adapts to spending most of our time in our own homes, Moore is ahead of the curve: for the past five years he has been building a house he designed, and furnishing it with his own sculptures and features. In addition to his Constructivist and Modernist sensibility influenced by artists such as Andrea Zittel and Donald Judd, Moore continues his dedication to using accessible, quotidian materials.
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A Book in Every Home, 2020, Coral Rock, EPS, shells, polyurethane, epoxy, found objects, 32 x 72 x 12 in.
The objects on view prioritize locally sourced and recycled resources, such as a dining table and coffee table made of mahogany from a tree felled after Hurricane Irma and a cypress tree, native to south Florida. A bookshelf made out of coral rock and foam references the region’s geological composition and playfully juxtaposes the appearance of a heavy stone structure with the lightness of industrial foam. These pieces incorporate local natural elements into Moore’s home, and emphasize his commitment to lessening his negative impact on the environment.
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The Boat House, installation view
At the root of all the objects and structures is a curiosity motivated by logic and practicality. What are the steps between t-shirt and chair? How can a home be more energy efficient and more beautiful? By embedding these questions into the designs he produces for himself and others, Moore encourages us to let everyday objects be as meaningful as art.
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The Boat House, installation view
Emmett Moore
Emmett Moore is a Miami-based artist and designer known for a technically rigorous interdisciplinary approach that challenges notions of functionality and fluctuates seamlessly between design and art examining our relationship with the built environment. Moore’s work utilizes processes taken primarily from architecture and industrial design, working with found forms of everyday objects to speak to the universality and timelessness of the utilitarian and quotidian. His material language consists primarily of secondhand goods and refuse to break down inherent hierarchies within the physical world and elevate the mundane. The content is based on personal history, nostalgia, and a collective past demystifying systems of value and removing authorship from form. Within this framework functional objects transcend their purpose and achieve an elevated role. His work has been shown institutionally at the RISD Museum, the Frost Art Museum, the Miami Art Museum, the Bass Museum of Art, and is in the permanent collection of the Perez Art Museum Miami. He was the first Miami-based designer to exhibit a solo exhibition at Design Miami/. Moore was named the Miami New Times’ Best Visual Artist in 2015 and 2021.