Wangechi Mutu / Carl Scholz

Wangechi Mutu Wangechi Mutu's drawings couple collaged parts of idealized women clipped from fashion magazines with drawn and ink-soaked passages. They are rooted in the history of Kenyan traditional story telling and postcolonial horror stories. Subtly and painfully twisted images reference traditionally-clad African women. As a process of mutation is recognized through careful scrutiny, the images prove hard to stomach. Kenya's past of enormous resources and privilege now faces a crisis of confidence in tackling poverty, civil strife and political instability. This dichotomy is reflected in the work of Wangechi Mutu.

Wangechi Mutu is a Master's graduate of the Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT, and attended the Cooper Union for the Advancement of the Arts and Sciences, New York. Her work has been included in the second Johannesburg biennale, Translocations at CUNY, Magic City at Brent Sikkema Gallery in New York, Out of the Box at the Queens Museum, NY, and Africaine at the Studio Museum in Harlem, NY.

Carl Scholz Carl Scholz's singular work on exhibit at Momenta Art is a sports car. Titled Cherry, the vehicle has been rendered inaccessible through a flawless body job that replaces and covers all windows, exterior decoration, or any reference to the interior. Scholz in interested in symbols of power, class, masculinity, recognition, and safety. Cherry exaggerates these symbols in a seamless exterior presentation of power, allowing for no interior that might suggest vulnerability. Scholz's sculpture tests the effect of this transformation – what happens when the human, on whom the car's visual and physical presence would reflect, is excluded?
Is the object still one of desire, and what remains without the power of seduction? Ultimately, albeit through a dramatic presentation, Cherry refers to the impenetrable nature of existence itself.

Carl Scholz received an MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ in 1999 and attended the Skowhegan School of painting and sculpture , Skowhegan, Maine, in 2000. Recent exhibitions include Surrounding Interiors at Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley, MA and demonclownmonkey at Artists Space, New York, NY, both in 2002.

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Wangechi Mutu / Carl Scholz