Donald Moffett

The recorded working language is English. Work by Donald Moffett is recorded in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Buffalo AKG Art Museum and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Moffett was born in San Antonio, Texas, where he studied art and biology at Trinity University, earning a BA. He lives and works in New York City. Moffett is a founding member of Gran Fury, the artistic arm of the AIDS activist group ACT UP. On May 20, 2011, Gran Fury received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Moffett is represented by Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York, and Anthony Meier Fine Arts in San Francisco.

As a painter, Moffett extends the traditional two-dimensional frame through non-traditional techniques such as prying open the canvas to paint the backside, perforating or suturing the painting's surface, or loading it with paint forced into extreme textures. At other times, he transposes paintings into screens by incorporating video projections onto the canvas. The subject matter of his paintings have been described as being poetic, provocative, and at times humorous. His influence by classical painters, such as Goya and Manet, manifests in his blending of the subtle with the outlandish and structural experimentation, along with social critique. Moffett's artwork focuses on contemporary topics and universal issues of love, loss, alienation, and death.

• 2017-2018: Range: Experiments in New York, 1961–2007, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York • 2011-2012: The Extravagant Vein, mid-career survey exhibition, traveled to Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, NY); and Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA. • 2002: Donald Moffett: What Barbara Jordan Wore, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

• Strange Ways: Here We Come. Donald Moffett & Felix Gonzalez Torres. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Fine Arts Gallery (1990). • The Inward Eye: Transcendence in Contemporary Art. Houston: Contemporary Arts Museum (2002). • Donald Moffett: What Barbara Jordan Wore. Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art (2002). • Image Stream. Columbus, OH: Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University (2003). • Festschrift: Selections from a Collection. Hartford, CT: Leo Press (2008). • The Judith Rothschild Foundation Catalogue Raisonné. New York: The Museum of Modern Art (2009). • Everywhere. Sexual Diversity Policies in Art. Santiago de Compostela, Spain: Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (2009). • Donald Moffett: The Extravagant Vein. Houston: Contemporary Arts Museum (2011). • Donald Moffett: The Radiant Future, Exhibition Catalogue. Columbus, OH: Columbus College of Art and Design (2012).

• Moffett, Donald. "Sex with Sheila Hicks". Art in America, November 30, 2012. • Dunkerley Dialogue: Donald Moffett with Mason Stokes. Tang Museum, 2012. • Donald Moffett on This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s. Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, March 21, 2012. • "Troy Schulze Chats with Donald Moffett". NPR, November 28, 2011.