Black & White Gallery Text
Investigations into overlooked realms
of daily life, continues to be at the heart of Montague's art practice.
In his highly acclaimed The Stray Shopping Cart Identification
System project exhibited in the fall of 2006 at Black & White
Gallery, Montague's method was to build a system of classification
around a mundane object. In To Know the Spiders, Montague mounts
a visual exploration of seemingly mundane animals – the spiders
that occupy the peripheries of human architectural space. His process
begins with the collection and killing of a spider. He then studies
its face under a microscope and from the resulting drawings creates
a portrait of the spider in the form of a fabric banner. The banner
is then placed and photographed in the exact spot of collection.
The banner illuminates the presence of a silent witness and sometime
symbiotic partner while also serving as a memorial to the spider
that had to die for that understanding to be gained.
|
|



Banner photographs: 42.5"x35",
or vice versa depending on orientation, all are Digital Pigment Ink Prints
(2008)
Vial Photographs (pictured in installation shot) measure 19"x44"
|