MOCA Jacksonville

The Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville promotes the discovery, knowledge, and advancement of the art, artists, and ideas of our time. MOCA Jacksonville, a nonprofit visual arts educational institution and cultural institute of the University of North Florida, serves the community and its visitors through exhibitions, collections, educational programs, and publications designed to enhance an understanding and appreciation of modern and contemporary art with particular emphasis on works created from 1960 to the present.

Exhibits

Kara Walker: Cut to the Quick from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation
May 20 - September 25, 2022

Offering a broad overview of her career, this exhibition positions Kara Walker as a leading artist of her generation through more than 80 works in a variety of media, such as prints, drawings, paintings, sculpture, and film. These powerful and provocative images address themes of racism, gender violence, and exploitation, along with power structures like imperialism and colonialism, especially as they play out in the histories and hierarchies of Art. Walker is best known for her large-scale silhouette cutouts that have stirred controversy though their depictions of exaggerated racial and gender caricatures and the Antebellum South that challenge viewers to consider America's painful legacy of slavery. Co-curated by Susan H. Edwards, former director of the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, and Nashville poet Ciona Rouse.

SPONSOR | Florida Blue
PROGRAM SPONSOR | Douglas Anderson School of the Arts Foundation

PROJECT ATRIUM: Maud Cotter: what was never ours to keep
July 9-November 13, 2022

An acclaimed artist, both in her homeland Ireland and internationally, Cotter is best known for her sculptural installations. Although her early work used glass and steel, in recent years Cotter has turned to other man-made materials such as cardboard, industrial rubber and clear plastic, as well as wood, to create the three-dimensional works through which she explores our definitions and boundaries, both physical and mental, of material form and space.

For her new commissioned project for MOCA's Project Atrium Series, what was never ours to keep, Cotter will respond to the spectacular 40 foot tall Atrium Space with an installation that continues her probe into our relationship with matter, and the forces that govern this relationship; in this case, gravity.

Co-Curated by Caitlín Doherty, Executive Director, MOCA Jacksonville and Ylva Rouse, Senior Curator, MOCA Jacksonville.

SERIES SPONSOR | Joan and Preston Haskell; Driver, McAfee, Hawthorne & Diebenow, PLLC.
SPONSOR | Culture Ireland

FIFTY: An Alumni Exhibition
March 25, 2022 - February 12, 2023

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of The University of North Florida, and underlining MOCA's special affiliation as a cultural institute of UNF, this exhibition showcases the work of fifty artists, each having graduated from the Department of Art, Art History and Design, and having carved substantial careers as professional, practicing artists. Working across a breadth of media - from photography to painting, film to ceramics, and sculpture to printmaking - the diversity of work on display is reflective of the variety of art disciplines taught at UNF, as well as the wealth of career opportunities that UNF alumni choose to explore. The first exhibition of its kind, FIFTY demonstrates the strength of art and creativity at UNF, as well as its continued impact and reach in Jacksonville, across the nation, and around the world.

Co-curated by Caitlín Doherty, Executive Director, MOCA Jacksonville and Louise Freshman Brown, Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of North Florida.

Presenting Sponsor | Community First Credit Union of Florida
Sponsor | Marilyn and Charles Gilman

Shervonne Neckles: Bless This House
September 2, 2022 - March 5, 2023

Shervone Neckles is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, community worker, and artist advocate who uses repurposed materials and Afro-Caribbean sensibilities to retell histories and mythologies. By embellishing textiles, assemblage, printmaking, sculpture, and installation, Neckles connects the sacred and scientific, the past and the present, and life with the afterlife. Her work has been shown worldwide in both group and solo exhibitions. Recent projects include BEACON public art installation, recently displayed at the Lewis Latimer House Museum, Queens, NY, and currently on view at the Fulton Plaza, Downtown Brooklyn, NY, and Roots/Anchors at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Snug Harbor, in 2021-22. Her work was featured as part of the 2019 Venice Biennale's Grenada Pavilion.
The UNF Gallery at MOCA Jacksonville is programmed in collaboration with the Department of Art, Art History, and Design at the University of North Florida (UNF). Curated by UNF Associate Professor Sheila Goloborotko and Assistant Professor Andy Kozlowski. This exhibition is made possible by support from the Devereux family and presented in conjunction with the Barbara Ritzman Devereux Visiting Artist Workshops at UNF.

Co-Curated by Caitlín Doherty, Executive Director, MOCA Jacksonville and Ylva Rouse, Senior Curator, MOCA Jacksonville

Art with a Heart in Healthcare: What Lifts You Up
September 11, 2022 - February 5, 2023

MOCA Jacksonville continues its partnership with Art with a Heart in Healthcare (AWAHIH), a nonprofit organization that provides personalized art experiences to enhance the healing process for patients and families at Wolfson Children's Hospital, Nemours Children's Clinic, St. Vincent’s, Mayo Clinic, and Baptist Medical Center. The exhibition What Lifts You Up was created under the guidance of AWAHIH Artists-in-Residence. Each patient and AWAHIH Artist-in-Residence work together to celebrate and explore the artistic process, gaining self-confidence and self-awareness in the process.
Through the years, the program has developed different themes to encourage the students to express themselves through art, helping them to articulate their feelings, ideas and experience, while gaining technical skills in both art and photography. MOCA is proud to be part of this program, transforming the healthcare experience of young patients through the power of creative expression in the arts.

SPONSOR | Florida Blue Foundation

Annual support is also provided by the City of Jacksonville, the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville, the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the University of North Florida.

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