Was lucky to spend an early January morning in the solitude of the Utah desert, watching the sunrise while surrounded by Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels.
@holtsmithsonfoundation
Closed out the Creative Science Demo 2023 Show this last Sunday which also wraps up an amazing two years at New Inc. I’m very thankful to have spent that time being surrounded by so many beautiful and creative people.
Unsettled Ecologies (Field), 2023
Dimensions 84" x 84" x 72"
Phragmites Australis, broken concrete, various rocks, soil, 25 modified HDPE Buckets
Photos:
1 to 5 - Isaiah Winters
6 - Aroussiak Gabrielian (documenting a special visitor)
7 - Me
From the vinyl:
What does it mean for a plant to perform a political action? Field is part of a larger body of work focusing on this question through engagement with the ecological politics of invasive species and the ways they relate to New York's historically industrial waterways and landscapes. Phragmites Australis is considered an invasive species that outcompetes its native counterparts in the region. Often characterized as harmful, invasive plant life also performs tasks that subvert their own characterization. Such tasks can range from assisting in the remediation of human caused damage in post-industrialized landscapes to providing barriers to protect against sea level rise in marshlands around New York. Field acts as a representation of the complicated dynamics taking place in waterways polluted by human activity and poignantly, which form of life has the power to define and designate the other
Special thanks to Seth August, Neha Savant, Heather Liljengren, Lisa Bloodgood, Greenbelt Native Plant Center, North Brooklyn Parks Alliance, Creative Science Y9, and NEW INC team
Produced by Lauren Goshinski with immense help from Tony, Taly, Ingemar, Eric
Curation by Raul Zbengheci and Salome Asega
@newinc@newmuseum@computers_puting@fruitmankitchen@theseaportnyc@boo__lean@isaiahrw
Opening May 16, Ecotones brings together two bodies of work by Aurélien Bayo (@aurelienbayo ) and Morgan Mueller (@_morgan_______ ), developed over the past several years along the peripheries of New York City, where urban infrastructure, residential life, and fragile ecosystems meet. Bayo’s work centers on the wetlands and residential enclaves surrounding JFK Airport, while Mueller follows industrial waterways and restored marshlands across the city and its margins. The term “ecotone” describes a transitional zone between two environments—spaces defined not by stability, but by overlap, tension, and constant negotiation.
📍All Street Gallery (77 East Third Street, New York, NY 10003)
And that’s a wrap! Thank you to all the talented artists who showed in Reflective Glass, and to our guest curatorial team - @quarterphotos and @adamnordby . It’s an honor and privilege to be able to express ideas through art. And to everyone who visited during the exhibition - thank you for your gracious reception. More to come!
Photos by: @quarterphotos
Fugue Gallery is pleased to spotlight Morgan Mueller, whose work is being featured in our current exhibition - “Reflective Glass” curated by Carter Guthrie and Adam Nordby. Available by appointment: Mar 7 - Mar 28, 2026.
Morgan Mueller is an artist whose work explores the relationships between humans, non-humans, and the landscapes that industry and infrastructure leave behind. Working in large-format photography, writing, and sculpture, he explores how material traces reveal broader stories of transformation, resilience, and entanglement. Approaching sites with methods that borrow from both forensic and ethnographic inquiry, he is able to piece together narratives that are as much about ecological systems as they are about culture and memory.
Artist: @_morgan_______
Lens-based artist and educator Morgan Mueller @_morgan_______ explores the relationships between humans, non-humans, and the landscapes that industry and infrastructure leave behind. Drawn to peripheral or altered sites—places that exist at the edge of cities—Mueller looks at how material traces reveal broader stories of transformation, resilience, and entanglement. His goal is not to create definitive accounts but to reframe how these spaces are seen.
Set along the urban waterways around New York City and the New Jersey Meadowlands, “Edgelands” follows the traces of life through each seemingly abandoned site as the distinctions between natural and constructed, wild and controlled, dissolve. What emerges is a portrait of places in flux: postindustrial wetlands, forgotten shorelines, and infrastructural corridors where decay and renewal coexist.
See more from Morgan Mueller on our site. Link in bio.
