CONTACT: jennydrumgoole@gmail.com
For the past 20 years I have worked in video, performance and public art. I insert myself into marginal spaces with subversive actions that question our obsessions with celebrity, desire, and the limits and illusions of individuality in popular culture and political spheres. I am interested in absurdist realities that serve as microcosms to larger American systems and in placing my work in new and untraditional realms of social engagement that reach communities and audiences outside of the traditional gallery setting. I use humor, parody and satire as a means of social and institutional critique.
My work is the subject of the chapter “Online Corporate Communities and Artistic Intervention” in, A Companion to Public Art, (Wiley-Blackwell Press, 2016), which examines the main issues, theories and practices of historic and contemporary public art. Written by Dr. Jonathan Wallis, the chapter discusses my work as it relates to public art and “interventionist practices” to create new spaces for self-expression.
My work has been exhibited and screened nationally and internationally. Venues have included Delaware Contemporary, Wilmington, DE (2017), Practice Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (2016), The Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel (2007), Moore College of Art & Design (2011) and the IFC Center, New York, NY (2007). I have presented and lectured about my work at a variety of institutions and venues over my career including Yale University (2021, 2020, 2019, 2017), Rhode Island School of Design (2020), Wesleyan University (2016), Sarah Lawrence College (2013), Pomona College 2012) and the Tyler School of Art (2015). In 2017, I worked over several months with the producers of The Moth Podcast to craft a live storytelling of my interventionist art practice and describe how my participation and video series exposed the exploitative practices used on consumers in a cream cheese contest sponsored by Kraft and Paula Deen. I performed this as part of the MOTH Mainstage at the Keswick Theater in Glenside, PA (“Identity Crisis”) and the Cutler Majestic Theater (“State of Affairs”) in Boston, MA. I was nominated for a United States Artist Fellowship in 2015 and twice nominated for a Pew Fellowship in the Arts (2015, 2016).
I received my MFA in Photography from the Yale School of Art in 2006 and received my BA in Intercultural Studies from Fordham University in 1999. I am currently an Assistant Professor at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ and live in Philadelphia, PA.