Mungo Thomson (born 1969, Woodland, CA) is a contemporary visual artist based in Los Angeles.
Thomson’s work pairs a West Coast conceptual sensibility[1] with an interest in culture, cosmology and reception. In Thomson’s diverse art—films, sound work, sculpture, installation, drawing, photography and publications—simple processes of inversion and transformation are joined with an expansive sense of space and context. Coat Check Chimes, his project for the 2008 Whitney Biennial, transformed the Museum’s coat check into an enormous musical instrument that was “played” by the incidental participation of the public, the weather, and chance.[2]
Thomson attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program and the UCLA MFA program. He has had solo exhibitions at the UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2008); the Kadist Art Foundation, Paris (2007); and Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAMeC), Bergamo, Italy (2006). He participated in the Istanbul Biennial (2011), the Whitney Biennial (2008), and the Performa Biennial of Visual Art Performance (2005). His book Font Study (TIME) was published by Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2011), The White Album was published by RITE Editions (2008), and Negative Space was published by Christoph Keller Editions and JRP|Ringier (2006). Thomson self-published the comic book Einstein #1 (2008).