TIPSY

TIPSY is a site-specific installation by Marisa Morán Jahn that explores the role of art and “spirits” (drinks made from distilled and fermented plants) in shifting perspective and communing with the divine or with others. Jahn, who was born in Texas to an Ecuadorian mother and Chinese father, frequently creates artwork that remixes cultural icons to destabilize fixed ideas. Jahn’s mural, composed of latex paint and cut vinyl, is the second iteration of Gateway, an ongoing project series that enlists contemporary artists to activate SAMA’s main lobby. For TIPSY, Jahn draws upon SAMA’s history as the former Lone Star Brewery (established in 1884) along with cross-cultural traditions of imbibing spirits, represented in objects throughout the Museum’s collection.

Based in New York City, Jahn is a visual artist, filmmaker, transmedia producer, and the director of the Integrated Design Program at Parsons/The New School. Jahn’s collaborative and socially engaged practice explores civic spaces and the radical art of play, often in large-scale public artworks and spatial interventions. She earned a BA from the University of California Berkeley and an MS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 2022 she was a Sundance Fellow, a senior researcher at MIT, and an artist in residence at the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago. Her work has been recognized with grants and awards from Anonymous Was a Woman, Creative Capital, National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, and Tribeca Film Institute, among others.