(Waltham, MA) – The Rose Art Museum is pleased to announce that JJ PEET is the recipient of the 2016 Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence Award. The New York-based PEET is a celebrated ceramicist who works in a range of media, including installation, video, painting, and sculpture. PEET’s multi-faceted residency and exhibitions will take place at pop-up locations across the Brandeis campus, and at the Rose Art Museum’s satellite gallery Rosebud, this April through early June. 

Established through the generosity of Ruth Ann Perlmutter and given in recognition of an emerging artist’s achievement, the Perlmutter Award allows the museum to bring artists on the cusp of national and international acclaim to Brandeis. The Perlmutter Award supports PEET’s exhibition series at Rosebud, as well as his residency on campus and engagement with Brandeis students and the broader academic community.

“We thank Ruth Ann Perlmutter for her generous support of the Rose and for enabling us to bring JJ PEET to Brandeis this spring,” said Chris Bedford, the Henry and Lois Foster Director of the Rose. “The Perlmutter Award allows the Rose to continue to promote and explore the work of artists poised to have a major impact on their field. JJ’s residency will create a unique opportunity for broad interaction between art, art-making, and the community.”  

PEET will be at Brandeis during the Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts, April 15-17, engaging the community in FIELD_WORK, a series of performative actions featuring pop-up video installations and artist interactions on campus and at the Rosebud Gallery in downtown Waltham. As part of FIELD_WORK, PEET will bring an iteration of his project BARTER_STATION to the Rose Art Museum on Friday, April 15, from 6-8pm. In this particular rendition of BARTER_STATION, PEET invites participants to barter for a PROXY_Cup in exchange for their assistance or participation in the realization of the final work.

PEET’s new and existing work will be on view at Rosebud, April 7 - June 5. During the FIELD_WORK portion of the residency, Rosebud will exhibit Pysche_UP Animation, a 20-minute video projection that serves as a 10-year archive of every stop-motion image the artist has created, strung together in a lush, hallucinatory stream. PEET’s Perlmutter residency will culminate with an exhibition at the gallery of new work created during his time on campus.

ABOUT THE PERLMUTTER AWARD
The Perlmutter Award is part of the Rose’s longstanding tradition of promoting young artists. Honorees include Roxy Paine (2002), Barry McGee (2004), Xavier Veilhan (2005), Dana Schutz (2006), Clare Rojas (2007), Alexis Rockman (2008), Michael Dowling (2009-10), Sam Jury (2011) and Dor Guez (2012), Mika Rottenberg (2013-2014), and Mary Weatherford (2015).

Nathan Perlmutter served as national director of the Anti-Defamation League for eight years. Along with his wife, Ruth Ann, he championed the interfaith movement and sought to empower Jews, blacks and other minorities. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in 1987, shortly before his death. He was a vice president at Brandeis from 1969-73. Ruth Ann, who has degrees from the University of Denver and Wayne State University, is a noted sculptor and painter.

ABOUT JJ PEET

JJ PEET (American, born 1973 in Minnesota) works across different media and uses found materials to make art through which he reflects upon contemporary life, his place in the world, and his relationship to others. He incorporates such unlikely items as mouth guards, eyebrow hair, and socks into his sculptural assemblages, and his exhibitions feature paintings, mixed-media drawings, films, installations, and ceramics. The artist is especially drawn to ceramics, which he considers the most direct form of art making. PEET describes molding clay as a process that closely connects “brain to hand to object,” and sees each completed piece as a stand-in for himself. Some of his handmade cups are titled PROXY, alerting those who drink from them that they are holding a small piece of the artist himself.

PEET received a BFA from the University of Minnesota in 1999 and an MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2006. PEET has had solo exhibitions at The Contemporary Austin, Austin, TX; Gallery Diet, Miami, FL; On Stellar Rays, New York, NY; and Redling Fine Arts, Los Angeles, CA. He is represented by On Stellar Rays gallery in New York.

Recent group exhibitions include Richard Shaw and JJ PEET, Harvey / Meadows Gallery, Aspen, CO, 2016; Satan Ceramics, Ever Gold Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2016; Live in the layers...not on the litter, Ashley Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 2015; FIELD EFFECTS, Le Cap, Arles, France, 2015; VESSELS, Blackston, New York, NY, 2015; Xenia, curated by Robert Rhee, Poker Night, Seattle, WA, 2015; Satan Ceramics, Tom Sachs, JJ PEET, Mary Frey and Pat McCarthy, Salon 94 Freemans, New York, NY, 2014; In Proximity, JJ PEET and Daniel Peet, Gallery Diet, Miami, FL, 2013; In Praise of Chance and Failure, Family Business, New York, NY, 2013; and Regis 10th Anniversary Alumni Exhibition, Quarter Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, 2013. The artist’s work has received reviews in Art in America, Artforum.com, Bomb, Frieze, The Last Magazine, and The New Yorker.

ABOUT THE ROSE ART MUSEUM AT BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY

Founded in 1961, the Rose Art Museum’s permanent collection of postwar and contemporary art is unequalled in New England and is among the best at any university art museum in the United States. Major paintings by Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Helen Frankenthaler, and Andy Warhol anchor the collection, and recently acquired works by Mark Bradford, Al Loving, Jack Whitten, and Charline von Heyl build upon this strength while reflecting the museum’s commitment to works of both artistic importance and social relevance. Through its collection, exhibitions, and programs, the Rose works to affirm and advance the values of global diversity, freedom of expression, and social justice that are hallmarks of Brandeis University.

Located on Brandeis University’s campus at 415 South Street, Waltham, MA, the museum is free and open to the public Wednesday through Sunday, noon – 5 PM, with extended hours from noon - 7 PM on Friday and Saturday.

ABOUT ROSEBUD
Rosebud aims to activate public engagement with contemporary art through curated exhibitions and programs that revive underutilized properties in the city of Waltham. The project supports the city's long-term goals for economic growth and cultural vibrancy by attracting new visitors to the neighborhood and inspiring opportunities for partnerships with local businesses and arts-related organizations.  

In addition to increasing off-campus awareness of the Rose and expanding our audience, the goal is for Rosebud to serve as a hub from which new ideas might radiate and benefit the people of this community. Rose curatorial interns and the Student Committee of the Rose Art Museum (SCRAM) will be offered the opportunity to design complementary programs and activities for their fellow students and the public. 

Located at 683 Main Street in downtown Waltham, MA, Rosebud hours are Thursday, 1 PM - 4 PM, Friday, 5 PM - 8 PM, and Saturday, 10 AM - 1 PM.

For more information, visit www.brandeis.edu/rose/ or call 781-736-3434.