Doug and Mike Starn are American artists, identical twins, born 1961.

Biography

The Starn brothers gained international attention at the 1987

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in ...

. The Starns have been primarily working conceptually with photography for the past two and a half decades. They are recognized for their penetrating conceptualization of light. They employ this as a metaphor for the driving force of creativity and intelligence, and for how we live our lives. Concerned largely with interconnection and interdependence, chaos, time, organic systems and structures. They continue defying categorization, effectively combining traditionally separate disciplines such as photography, sculpture, architecture. Their 2010 installation '' Big Bambú :You Can’t, You Don’t and You Won’t Stop'', roof garden exhibition of The

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

was the 9th most attended exhibition in the museum's history. Throughout the six-month exhibit, the Starns and their crew of 10-16 rock climbers continuously lashed and sculpted over 7,000 bamboo poles, a performative architecture of randomly interconnected vectors forming a section of a seascape with a 70’ cresting wave above Central Park. ''Big Bambú'' suggests the complexity and energy of an ever-growing and changing living organism. Other iterations of the series are in the permanent collection of the Macro Museum (Rome)--curated by Francesco Bonami--, the Israel Museum of Jerusalem, and were featured at the 54th Venice Biennale (Italy) and Teshima Triennial (Japan). Since June 2014, a new permanent installation has been part of the Israel Museum Jerusalem sculpture garden: it is titled: ''Big Bambú: 5,000 Arms To Hold You''. The Starns were represented by

Leo Castelli Leo Castelli (born Leo Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-American art dealer who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased contemporary art for five decades. Among the movements which ...

from 1989 until his death in 1999. Their work has been the object of numerous museum and gallery exhibitions worldwide. ''Gravity of Light'' a monographic publication (Skira/Rizzoli 2012) based on the eponymous exhibit, follows ''Attracted to Light'' (Blind Spot/powerHouse 2003) and Doug and Mike Starn (Abrams 1990). Their pieces are represented in important public and private collections internationally. They have received two National Endowment for the Arts Grant; The International Center for Photography’s Infinity Award for Fine Art Photography in 1992; and, artists in residency at NASA in the mid-nineties. Their first permanent installation (glass, metal, and a stone mosaic) titled ''See it split, see it change'', was inaugurated at the South Ferry subway terminal.

Major works

* 2014 – Big Bambú: 5,000 Arms To Hold You, The Israel Museum Jerusalem (Israel) https://web.archive.org/web/20130224210731/http://www.english.imjnet.org.il/ * 2013 – Big Bambú #8, Setouchi Trieniale, for the Naoshima Museum of Art (Japan) http://setouchi-artfest.jp/en/ * 2012 – Big Bambú: Minautor Horn Head, Museo Macro Testaccio Rome https://web.archive.org/web/20140918005647/http://www.museomacro.org/it/enel-contemporanea-2012-big-bamb%C3%BA * 2011 – Big Bambú, Official Collateral Exhibition to the 54th Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale: ‘Big Bambú,’ Italian Style, Roberta Smith, May 31, 2011, New York Times. * 2010 – Doug + Mike Starn on the Roof: '' Big Bambú,'' The

Metropolitan Museum of Art Roof Garden The Met Fifth Avenue is the primary museum building for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, United States. The building is located at 1000 Fifth Avenue, along the Museum Mile on the eastern edge of Central Park in Manhattan's Upper ...

, New York, NY.
See It, Feel It, Touch It, Climb It, Carol Vogel, February 11, 2010, New York Times. * 2009 – ''See it split, see it change'', a permanent installation commissioned by the Arts for Transit program of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York City) for the South Ferry – Whitehall Street (New York City Subway), South Ferry Subway Terminal.
Making Artistic Connections at a Subway Station, Marlena Ryzik, December 14, 2008, New York Times.

Public Collections

* Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York. *

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

, Chicago, Illinois. *

Israel Museum The Israel Museum ( he, מוזיאון ישראל, ''Muze'on Yisrael'') is an art and archaeological museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world’s leading encyclopa ...

, Jerusalem, Israel. *

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, New York, New York. *

Princeton University Art Museum The Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) is the Princeton University gallery of art, located in Princeton, New Jersey. With a collecting history that began in 1755, the museum was formally established in 1882, and now houses over 113,000 works o ...

, Princeton, New Jersey. *

Moderna Museet Moderna Museet ("the Museum of Modern Art"), Stockholm, Sweden, is a state museum for modern and contemporary art located on the island of Skeppsholmen in central Stockholm, opened in 1958. In 2009, the museum opened a new branch in Malmö in t ...

,Stockholm. *

, New York, New York. *

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's o ...

, California.https://www.moca.org/collection/work/mare-imbrium-et-mare-vaporum

References

External links

Starns brothers' website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Starn, Doug 1961 births Living people Artists from New York (state) American twins Art duos Sibling artists