To Know the Spiders

For the last year I have been working on a new project called To Know the Spiders. The first showing of this work will be at Black and White Gallery in Chelsea from June 5th through July 12th. At this point I am only showing a couple of the visual elements from the project as I still have a lot of decisions to make and photographs to take.

My show will be the final show in The Proper Animal, a three exhibition season of animal focused work. This is the press release blurb for my show:

Julian Montague continues his investigations into overlooked realms of daily life. In his highly acclaimed Stray Shopping Cart Identification Project exhibited at the gallery in the fall of 2006, his 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.