Two New and Two Recent Works On View From November 12 to December 15, 2004
in the Paley and Levy Galleries at Moore College of Art & Design

    PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- "Janet Biggs: Norms and Forms," an
exhibition of two video installations and two single-channel video works by
New York-based Moore alumna Janet Biggs, opens to the public on Friday night,
November 12. The exhibition will close on December 15.

    OPENING EVENTS on Friday, November 12

    -- 5:30-6:30 pm: Artist Janet Biggs presents a slide-lecture and
    discusses her work with director of exhibitions Brian Wallace, Stewart
    Auditorium, admission free

    -- 6:30-8:00 pm: Opening reception for the artist, Moore College Atrium,
    admission free

    The first major exhibition in Philadelphia of this Moore College of Art &
Design graduate's work, Janet Biggs: Norms and Forms includes two large video
installations, "Ativan" (2004) and "Tegretol" (2003), and two single-channel
works, "Bright Shiny Objects" (2004) and "Apraxia" (2002).  Janet Biggs's work
explores - and embodies - the tense connections between physical and
psychological balance and power.  In the "Ativan" installation, the projected
image of a fast-running horse, with hooves, limbs, and mane flying, is
actually an animal in training on an equestrian exercise treadmill, pulling
and bumping rhythmically against constraints, but remaining essentially in the
same place.  In combination with the installation's other image - an
underwater view of synchronized swimmers that reveals the paradoxical
difficulty of holding a simple position - the locomoting horse embodies the
difficult-to-articulate complexity of tasks and behaviors often taken for
granted.  In "Tegretol," a gradual loss of synchronization between two
adjacent video projections of male wrestlers accentuates the restraint, the
aggression, and the crucial balance between them that structures this
symbolically charged interaction.  The other works in the exhibition
underscore the fundamental instability - or perhaps interconnectivity - of our
physical and psychological bearings.

Artist's biography

    Janet Biggs was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and earned her B.F.A. at
Moore College of Art & Design, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her work has been
the subject of solo exhibitions at the University of Connecticut Contemporary
Art Galleries, Storrs, Connecticut; the Rhode Island School of Design,
Providence, Rhode Island; the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell
University, Ithaca, New York; and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center,
Sheboygan, Wisconsin.  Biggs's work has been included in over fifty group
shows at such venues as DiverseWorks, Houston, Texas; Momenta Art, Brooklyn,
New York; Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Chemnitz, Germany; Site Gallery,
Sheffield, England; the Basel Art Fair, Basel, Switzerland; and the
Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has received awards or grants
from the Wexner Center Media Arts Program, the Panasonic Corporation, Art
Matters, Inc., the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Sony Corporation.
Biggs's work is in the collections of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art,
Cornell University; the Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina; and the
Philadelphia Electric Company. Janet Biggs lives and works in New York City.

    A portion of the Galleries at Moore's general operating funds for this
fiscal year has been provided by grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the
Arts, the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, the Barra Foundation, the Louis Cassett
Foundation, and the Friends of the Galleries at Moore.
    The Galleries at Moore are open to the public, free of charge, Tuesday
through Friday from 10 am to 5 pm, Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4 pm.  The
galleries are closed on Mondays and all academic and legal holidays.  For
further information, please contact Molly Dougherty at 215.965.4044 tel.;
215.568.5921 fax; galleries@moore.edu.