Matthew Day Jackson: The Immeasurable Distance at MIT List Visual Arts Center

Currently on view at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston is the solo exhibition, Matthew Day Jackson: The Immeasurable Distance. The exhibition, which features works based on Jackson’s artist residency at MIT List Visual Arts Center in Cambridge, MA, was originally on view at MIT from May through July of 2009. The work on view reflects Jackson’s curiosity with aspects of MIT’s research, as well as his own while in residency at the institution—particularly the Energy Initiative, since the Brooklyn-based sculptor has historically employed the use of recycled and repurposed objects in much of his work. Chariot—a crashed race car frame that the artist’s cousin, Skip Nichols built, raced and then crashed—has a body rebuilt by Jackson and is lit underneath in a ROYGBIV spectrum of lights generated by solar panels on top of the museum. In a video interview with MIT, Jackson says that “bringing it [the piece, Chariot] to MIT and working with the Energy Initiative was a…seamless, perfect fit in the sense that it was an opportunity to sort of explore perhaps…some poetic aspects of what they’re doing.”

Matthew Day Jackson: The Immeasurable Distance at MIT List Visual Arts Center

Born in Panorama City, CA, Matthew Day Jackson lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He earned his BFA from University of Washington and his MFA from Rutgers University. Jackson’s solo exhibitions include Terranaut, Peter Blum Gallery, New York, NY; Diptych, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, MA; Paradise Now!, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, OR; and By No Means Necessary, The Locker Plant, Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX. His work was included in the 2005 exhibition Greater New York at P.S.1 in New York City. For the 2005 Whitney Biennial of American Art, Jackson contributed Chariot, The Day After the End of Days (2005-2006), a pioneer covered wagon floating above a bed of fluorescent tubes.