PNC Presents Larger than Life Exhibition at Mobile Museum of Art
John Cerney: SELFIE on View November 13, 2015 – February 14, 2016
MOBILE, Ala., Sept. 21, 2015 – PNC will present John Cerney: SELFIE at the Mobile Museum of Art, opening Nov. 13, 2015 through Feb. 14, 2016. For more than 30 years John Cerney, an installation artist, has created giant, realistically painted, plywood people and creatures that appear in unexpected places along highways, in agricultural fields, ranches, and in storefronts around the country.
This fall, the artist is traveling east to capture the sense of irony, fun and egocentric nature of social media through SELFIE, which is funded through grants from PNC Bank, the city of Mobile, the Alabama State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Cerney has been recognized nationally in the New York Times, National Geographic, public television broadcasting, and in a 2006 one-person exhibition, Big Landscape, Big West, at the prestigious Rice Art Gallery at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
Broadly appealing, Cerney’s work is populist in the great tradition of Norman Rockwell, depicting everyday people and situations with humor, compassion and American pragmatism. The Salinas, California, native’s SELFIE humorously pairs the national craze for selfies with the epic popularity of dinosaurs, demonstrated by Jurassic Park film box office numbers. This is the first public exhibition of John Cerney: SELFIE.
“PNC is committed to supporting the Mobile Museum of Art’s efforts to create accessible and impactful exhibitions for our shared community,” said Brian Bucher, PNC regional president. “John Cerney’s work will not only complement the Museum’s permanent collection, but also help reflect the cultural vitality of the Gulf Coast.”
SELFIE underscores MMofA’s history of sharing culturally relevant exhibitions and programs that promote the region’s diverse art community.
About John Cerney
He calls himself a muralist, but Cerney found out years ago that painting on a wall restricted the effect he was looking for. He finally concluded that the wall was unnecessary and that his cut-outs could stand on their own, and in 1995, he created a series of 10 large fieldworkers (18 feet tall) for a local farmer who wanted to pay tribute to the agricultural labor force. The landscape behind the figures became the background. For more information about John Cerney, check out his website, www.johncerney.com.
About the Organizations
The Mobile Museum of Art includes a permanent collection of approximately 10,000 works of fine and decorative arts from America, Asia, and Europe, spanning periods from classical antiquity to the present day. The Museum is supported by a unique public/private partnership of city and community support; its facility is owned by the city of Mobile, and the art collection is privately owned. Founded in 1964, the Museum has grown from a modest initiative of the Mobile Art Association in the late 1950s, to the only accredited art museum in southern Alabama. The Mobile Museum of Art is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation. www.MobileMuseumofArt.com
The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (www.pnc.com) is one of the United States’ largest diversified financial services organizations providing retail and business banking; residential mortgage banking; specialized services for corporations and government entities, including corporate banking, real estate finance and asset-based lending; wealth management and asset management.
In addition to SELFIE, five other, new American exhibitions will open at the Museum on November 13, 2015:
- size MATTERS
- Raine Bedsole: YOU ARE THE RIVER (Site Specific Installation Series)
- Hiroshi Sueyoshi: ROCK GARDEN
- AMERICAN ART: 1945 to the Present
- Master American Crafts: 1945 to the Present
- A PASSION FOR THE PAST: New Acquisitions from the Schoenknect~Paul Collection, Part I
