Image: Shana Moulton, Meta/Physical Therapy, 2023–24. Installation view, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: Jonathan Dorado
The Akron Art Museum will present Shana Moulton’s ‘Meta/Physical Therapy’ from September 23, 2026, through September 26, 2027, in its C. Blake McDowell Jr. Gallery. The exhibition will inaugurate the newly renovated gallery, which has been reimagined to accommodate sculptural installation, video, performance and other time-based media.
Created in 2023–24, ‘Meta/Physical Therapy’ comprises eight synchronized video projections shown across walls, floors and shaped theatrical flats. The work combines video with MDF, vinyl, seating, scrims, props and window gel, creating an immersive environment in which projected imagery and physical installation operate together. The work is on loan from The Museum of Modern Art, New York, which also supported its development.
The installation forms part of Moulton’s long-running video project ‘Whispering Pines’, begun in 2002 as a collaboration with composer Nick Hallett. At the center of both the larger project and ‘Meta/Physical Therapy’ is Cynthia, Moulton’s semi-autobiographical alter ego. The Akron Art Museum describes Cynthia as an anxious homebody surrounded by New Age healing products and wellness paraphernalia who is transported into stranger, more transcendent realms.
Across its multi-chapter narrative, ‘Meta/Physical Therapy’ examines how consumer lives are shaped by deep needs and the sometimes absurd lengths people go to meet them. Moulton blends magical realism with physical comedy, turning ordinary objects into sources of transformation while shifting Cynthia’s domestic surroundings toward the otherworldly and dreamlike.
The exhibition includes a larger-than-life penguin race, synthetic rainbows, fiber-optic flowers and many-hued menstrual cups. These elements draw on nostalgia and consumer culture while complicating the boundary between Cynthia’s interior emotional life and the world around her. The Akron presentation will also include a live performance component by Moulton during the exhibition’s run.
The renovated C. Blake McDowell Jr. Gallery is intended to provide a setting for technically expansive projects and for artists addressing the relationship between art, technology and contemporary life. ‘Meta/Physical Therapy’ is made possible at the Akron Art Museum with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Mary and Dr. George L. Demetros Charitable Trust, the Kenneth L. Calhoun Charitable Trust and the Ohio Arts Council. The exhibition remains on view in Akron through September 26, 2027.
