MASTERWORKS / LONG BEACH MUSEUM OF ART
What does a decade of painting lead to?
Creative Director · Curator · Author
Long Beach Museum of Art · Gingko Press
2014–2015
Masterworks brought fourteen artists together at the Long Beach Museum of Art, each represented by a major painting reflecting at least a decade of practice. As creative director, curator, and author, I helped shape the exhibition and its accompanying publication, connecting the finished works with the interviews, studio photographs, and earlier paintings that revealed how each artist arrived there.
01 / THE X
Ten years is where the story begins.
The “X” in MasterXWorks marked a threshold: every artist invited to participate had dedicated at least a decade to developing their practice as a painter.
Rather than assemble a retrospective, the exhibition asked each artist to look forward through a single major work. Where had years of experimentation, failure, repetition and refinement brought them now? And what could their earlier work reveal about the path that led there?
Installation of “Pagoda” by James Jean.
02 / DEFINING A NEW NARRATIVE
Fourteen ways to keep pushing.
I brought together artists whose work showed sustained exploration over at least a decade. Each had developed a recognizable visual language and continued to push it further. Seen together, their paintings offered a view of contemporary narrative painting through fourteen practices still evolving.
Esao Andrews
Greg Simkins
Exhibition announcement featuring artwork by Mars-1.
03 / THE BOOK
Making the journey visible.
The exhibition presented a defining work from each artist. The book opened up the years behind it.
I shaped the editorial approach and art direction, bringing interviews, studio photography, earlier paintings, and new work into a record of each artist’s development. The publication gave readers a way to explore the thinking and practice behind what they encountered in the museum.
Creative direction / art direction: Nathan Spoor
Book design + layout: Wendy Peng
Publisher: Gingko Press
Cover explorations featuring James Jean (left, published cover), Aron Wiesenfeld (center), and Mars-1 (right).
04 / EXHIBITION IDENTITY
From page to place.
The MXW identity carried across museum signage, invitations, digital promotion, and artist programming. A consistent wordmark and typographic hierarchy connected the materials, while different featured paintings gave each application its own character.
05 / THE EXHIBITION
Let the work take the room.
At museum scale, the system receded and the paintings took over.
Large-format works transformed the galleries into a sequence of distinct worlds, while their scale gave visitors the physical encounter the exhibition had been conceived around.
Nicola Verlato
Josh Keyes
James Jean
Aron Wiesenfeld
06 / THE RESPONSE
A conversation people showed up for.
Contemporary coverage in the Long Beach Post reported that Masterworks set attendance records for the museum. The conversation continued through artist talks, events, and the accompanying publication.
Together, the exhibition and book gave audiences a way to encounter the paintings and understand the years of practice behind them.
NATHAN SPOOR
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
