Mary-Ann Monforton is the former long-time Associate Publisher of BOMB Magazine
She is known for her involvement with the NY downtown art scene which began around 1978 as a music promoter blending her interest in avant-garde jazz with the emerging No Wave/Punk sound. In 1981 Monforton shifted her attention to the visual arts first as a collector then curator. After attending an opening at the Fun Gallery, she purchased work by Kenny Scharf, Keith Haring and Jean Michel Basquiat igniting a passion for art collecting that has never subsided. The Fun remained her “home gallery”, her commitment to the Fun Gallery was unwavering. She was known to opened the Gallery on Saturday mornings for Patti and Bill.
From 1985 until 1991 Monforton produced a number of successful fundraising art events. It was the two Contemprary Art Auctions to Benefit El Bohio Community and Cultural Center, and their infamous Sculpture Exhibition and Barbeque, hosted by Richard Gere, that really put her on the map. The auctions were financially successful and all three events were well attended and well received by the press. Today the catalogs for those auctions, with forwards by Gary Indiana and Lisa Leibmann respectively, read like a who’s who of the 1980’s art scene. Having witnessed the success of these events, Betsy Sussler approached her to work at BOMB Magazine. Monforton established the Bomb Art Program which placed work in Museums and Institutions as well as organized their annual Gala and Silent Auctions. In her second year she became the Associate Publisher a position she held until her retirement in 2021.
In 2013, Monforton returned to her own studio practice. The move was reinforced with a successful application to the Oxbow Art Residency, which gave her the break she needed. She has never looked back. A conceptual artist at heart, she picked up her practice right where she had left off in the early ’70s: experimenting with tentative lines and nonsolid shapes, making works that were uneven, unstable, off-kilter and insecure, all human characteristic. Humor and pathos remain a cornerstone of her practice. In 2021 Monforton moved to Detroit, her hometown, to pursue a full-tine art studio practice.
Ms. Monforton was born in Windsor Ont. Canada and raised in Detroit. She was a resident of the Lower East Side of Manhattan from 1977 until 2002 during its Neo-Expressionist heyday. She lived in Brooklyn, NY from 2003 until the Spring of 2021 when she returned to Detroit. Mary-Ann Monforton is represented by High Noon Gallery in New York, NY.
“In its totality, the sculptural oeuvre of Mary-Ann Monforton is a kind of rickety house of cards—bold, playful, and intuitive yet also reflective and symbolic in its allusions to the impermanence of all life and all matter, including our manmade constructions (which include art). The artist remakes stuff, mostly mundane and recognizable things, which she reimagines in shapes that are subtly awkward and cartoonish. The rendered objects or subjects—among them toys, animals, and plants—appear crooked, flawed, aging, and imperfect. The crudeness of the imitation is both inherent and desired; it lends the sculpture’s character and almost humanizes them. It’s easy to relate to these objects’ personalities, which Monforton affectionately refers to as “at once tender and tragic.” The artist fully embraces her creations’ “pathetic” nature, and there’s no denying that they get under our skin. No matter what the objects represent, as they stoop, droop, and surrender to gravity, they remind us of the frailty of our own existence.”
-Sabine Russ - Senior Editor / BOMB Magazine