MIAMI, FL.- This fall, Miami Art Museum will present 11 installations by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. The first exhibition in the Museum’s new collaboration with Miami Arts Central (MAC@MAM) Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller: The Killing Machine and Other Stories 1995-2007 will premiere on October 21, 2007 and remain on view through January 20, 2008. Because of the size of the exhibition it will be presented in two venues: Miami Art Museum and Freedom Tower.

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller: The Killing Machine and other Stories 1995-2007 was organized by the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) and the Institut Mathildenhöhe (Darmstadt, Germany). The exhibition premiered at the MACBA and will be on view at the Institut Mathildenhöhe through August 26 before traveling to Miami.

The Killing Machine and Other Stories 1995-2007 features11 installations that weave together independent but complementary experiences. Each piece moves to its own time and rhythm, uniting sound with moving image in order to produce stories that live side by side in time. The installation from which the exhibition title is drawn, The Killing Machine (2007), is based on Franz Kafka’s In The Penal Colony. A reflection on the use of the death penalty in the United Sates, the piece seems to invite the spectator to approach it, while simultaneously arousing a feeling of rejection. Also on view will be The Paradise Institute (2001), which was created for the Canadian Pavilion of that year’s Venice Biennial and won both the Biennale di Venezia Special Award and the Benesse Prize.

“We are thrilled to launch our MAC@MAM exhibition series with the U.S. premiere of these groundbreaking works by Janet Cardiff and George Miller,” said Terence Riley, Director of the Miami Art Museum. “Visitors will find themselves transported to and immersed in new, dreamlike worlds. This exhibition continues both MAM’s and MAC’s shared mission to make the work of living artists readily accessible to the people of Miami and the region.”

Since the early nineties, the husband-and-wife team of Cardiff and Miller have worked together on installations in which they use sound as the principal subject and raw material to create memorable spatial environments. Using binaural recording techniques to create three-dimensional sound spaces, their audio installations challenge the visitor's sensory experiences, pitting the sense of hearing in opposition with the sense of sight. Their installations also unite forms of high culture such as opera, German Expressionist cinema and French New Wave films with popular culture, such as B-movies, rock and roll and radio broadcasts.

In addition to their joint works, both artists work separately and the exhibition includes examples of individual productions by each artist. The Freedom Tower venue will feature Cardiff’s Forty Part Motet, based on a 16th century choral piece –Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis. Cardiff embodied Tallis’ composition for 40 voices in an oval arrangement of 40 speakers, one for each voice in the composition. By moving around and through the space Cardiff created, participants can experience the piece just as it is perceived by the performers themselves. MAM will exhibit Miller’s Imbalance. 6 (Jump) (1998) which consists of a television suspended from the ceiling by a cable which seemingly reacts to the screen image of the artist’s jumping feet.

About the Artists: Janet Cardiff (Brussels, Ontario, Canada, 1957) and George Bures Miller (Vegreville, Canada, 1960) live and work in Grinrod, Canada and Berlin, Germany. Cardiff was the recipient of the National Gallery of Canada's $50,000 Millennium Prize. Miller has received the B Grant, the Canada Council Project Grant and the DAAD Grant and Residency. Among the joint exhibitions of their work in recent years are: the Lousiana Museum and the Art Gallery of Hamilton in 2006; the Hirshhorn Museum (Washington) and the Kunsthaus Bregenz, in 2005; the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary in 2004; London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery and the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, in 2003; The National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), the L. Augustine Gallery of New York and the Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin) in 2002; the Canadian Pavilion in the 49 Biennale Venice, the Ps.1 Contemporary Art Center (New York), the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal and the Castello di Rivoli (Torino) in 2001. Cardiff Received her B.F.A. from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada and her M.V.A. from University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Miller graduated from the Ontario College of Art.

Exhibition Organization and Catalogue - Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller: The Killing Machine and other Stories 1995-2007 was organized by the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) and the Institut Mathildenhöhe (Darmstadt, Germany). In Miami, the exhibition is coordinated by Adjunct Curator Rina Carvajal. Major support is provided by the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation. Additional support is provided by MAM’s Annual Exhibition Fund. The exhibition premiered at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) and will be on view at the Institut Mathildenhöhe (Darmstadt, Germany) through August 26 before making its debut at MAM on October 21, 2007.

German publisher Hatje Cantz has produced a 224-page hardcover catalog with 75 pages in full color, to accompany the exhibition. A comprehensive reader on the artist’s work, the catalog includes essays by Christy Lange, Jeanni R. Lee, Ralf Beil and Bartomeu Marí as well as short stories by authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Roberto Cortázar, Phillip K. Dick and Franz Kafka, The Killing Machine and Other Stories 1995-2007 is available in the MAM Store for $x, $x for members.

About the Curator - Rina Carvajal was appointed adjunct curator at Miami Art Museum in 2007. As Executive Director and Chief Curator of Miami Arts Central (MAC), she established its reputation as a leading institution for contemporary art and culture in Miami and internationally. Prior to joining MAC, Carvajal was the director of the Mason Gross Art Galleries at Rutgers University, adjunct curator for the 1998 XXIV São Paulo Biennial, and Ahmanson Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles from 1997–2000.