Mitsui Fudosan America Opens Tom Judd Exhibition Today

Mitsui Fudosan America, Inc. (MFA) www.mfamerica.com, the U.S. affiliate of Japan's largest real estate company, announced today that 527 Madison Avenue will hold its second exhibition of contemporary art as part of its emerging artists series. Paintings by Tom Judd will be on display from today, July 9 - November 7, 2014. One monumental-sized work and 6 additional paintings by Judd will be on view in the lobby of the building, located at 54th Street and Madison Avenue, which is accessible to the public from 9 AM - 5 PM, Monday through Friday.

Tom Judd combines collage and drawing to create works of great complexity. His paintings often contain imagery drawn from multiple sources, abruptly overlaid one another in dramatic fashion. Sudden shifts of scale, juxtapositions of bold patterns with subtle tonalities and unexpected cropping are some of the techniques the artist employs to draw in the viewer. Judd mines art history, skillfully choosing and combining images and ideas to generate works that lead to new questions and understandings of the ideas they reference.

The largest work in the exhibition, The New World, 2007, 6 x 16 feet, contains fragments of two landscape paintings. At left, a wooden sailing ship from the pre-steam era can be seen near the shore in a scene clearly based on Western sources. At right, a rocky coastline is depicted; the manner in which the illusion of space is created and the forms of the rocks, trees and waterfalls mark it as Asian. A brilliant orange and white floral pattern, seemingly a piece of wallpaper, divides these two scenes. The title of the painting as well as the imagery encourages the viewer to think about the encounters that took place in the 16th and 17th Centuries between Eastern and Western cultures. The center image perhaps signals the exchange of ideas, when European artists, fascinated by the designs of their Asian counterparts, began adopting their approach. In time, Asian artists began creating works that echoed these imitations and exported them back to Europe in the form of wallpaper depicting stylized flowers. Judd here is thus demonstrating that the current interest in East/West relations has roots that stretch back at least 400 years.

Tom Judd is a Philadelphia-based artist. His work is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Academy of Art and the Birmingham (Alabama) Museum of Art, in addition to numerous university and private collections. Judd has been the recipient of a Tandem Press Fellowship Residency, a Millay Colony Fellowship, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. He is represented by William Holman Gallery, located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. (www.williamholmangallery.com)

MFA's 527 Madison Avenue is proud of its ongoing program of rotating exhibitions of noteworthy emerging artists. For more information about 527 Madison's exhibition program, please contact Jay Grimm, the coordinator of the program at jgrimm@jaygrimm.com.

The focus of MFA's emerging artists program series is two-dimensional works of art, displayed on the lobby's monolithic walls. The inaugural event in the series featured Brooklyn-based artist, Tracy Miller, and took place from January 15 to May 15, 2014. In the future sculptures will be considered for display. The program was developed to support the artistic community and to provide exposure for up and coming, noteworthy artists who have recently received recognition for their work. MFA is in the early stages of expanding the program to surrounding metropolitan areas, including Washington D.C., at its Homer Building.

527 Madison Avenue is a boutique commercial office building located at the corner of 54th Street and Madison Avenue in New York City. Completed in 1986, it was designed by celebrated architectural firm Fox and Fowle. The property has recently completed lobby and elevator upgrades. MFA purchased 527 Madison Avenue on September 17, 2008.

For leasing information, please contact Cassidy Turley:

				James B. Frederick Phone: (212) 318-9777 James.Frederick@CassidyTurley.com					Peter J. Occhi Phone: (212) 318-9795 Peter.Occhi@CassidyTurley.com

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