Art as Authority

Radical Art

2009-07-16T22:12:49Z

by Richard Gleaves

This summer Southern Californians have a rare opportunity to see the work of Agnes Martin in numbers and variety far beyond the ones and twos typically offered by regional museums.

Martin is commonly labelled a minimalist, but her work differs so markedly from that of other artists so labelled that it exposes the term itself as semantically overextended to the degree of buzz.

Perhaps a better term for Martin is "low stimulus threshold", as a way of foregrounding the visual subtlety that is her trademark. A Martin painting whispers in a way that makes a Judd box or Flavin light shout: all the difference in the world.

Art can take a million paths up the mountain, but the art that interests me most is the kind which challenges viewers to see the water they're swimming in. We live in a consummate high-stimulus-threshold society (the planet Soundtrack), and as a result much easy art exists which parasitizes the spectacle while claiming to comment upon it. Martin, on the other hand, took the hard road of making an art of the radical act of quiet contemplation.

A caveat on making the journey to Newport Beach to see the show: the curators — apparently influenced by their own elevated stimulus thresholds — decided the work was so quiet they could stuff far too much of it into two smallish galleries without causing a stir. Bad move: it reflects poorly on the museum. Each large Martin deserves a room of its own.

Fallen Snow

2009-07-16T21:11:24Z

"FOUND" - Craig Kane - Art Sites Gallery

2009-07-16T16:00:14Z

from the press release

Found
Exhibition Celebrating Conservation and Community
Curated by ANDREA COTE
July 25- August 29, 2009

Opening Reception July 25, 2009 / 5 - 7pm
Art Sites Gallery
651 West Main Street (Route 25)
Riverhead, New York 11901
631.591.2401
www.artsitesgallery.com
Gallery Hours: Thursday - Sunday, 12 - 5pm

The urgency of conservation, waste, and renewal takes artistic form in the upcoming exhibition Found at Art Sites Gallery in Riverhead, NY, bringing together eight contemporary artists with overlapping interests in ecology, resourcefulness and community. Whether collected from curbsides, dumpsters, lunch trays, flea markets or from the artist's studio floor, objects once discarded and overlooked gain new value through transformation into works of art.

]]> Matt Bua, Julie Peppito and Maire Kennedy juxtapose materials to reveal tensions -- between the natural and the manmade, the city and suburbia, class and culture -- creating a record of our desires, obsessions and excesses. Tara Parsons and Charles Butterly invite engagement with environmental and societal concerns through positive interventions. Twentieth-century art movements such as Assemblage, Surrealism, and Arte Povera are revisited and updated by Pablo Cano, Craig Kane, and Pierre Cote. All these artists share a capacity to express humor, poetry and greatness through humble means.

The works include installation, collage, puppetry and outdoor sculpture. The exhibition will include many pieces realized on site and created for the show. Several make use of Art Sites' expansive riverside property. Artist talks, a video screening, and a variety of community events and workshops will be featured throughout the shows 5-week duration. Crafts made from recycled materials by artisans from the Fair Trade Market in Hampton Bays and by Blanca Ricardo of East Hampton will be available for purchase. A catalog created by the curator Andrea Cote, a local artist based in Flanders, will accompany and document the show. One installation will invite public participation, drawing stories from area residents.

The Stitch Britch Fork House

WANTED- Your stories, souvenirs, symbols and collections of stuff to tell OUR history. No Object or story is too Mundane! Artist Matt Bua will be building the "Stitch Britch Fork House" outdoors at Art Sites Gallery in July. The structure, a pavilion in the shape of the North and South Forks of Long Island, will house a creative display of local history, lore, and urban legends collected by the community - YOU! Bring your objects and stories to Art Sites July 15 - 25th. Volunteer assistants welcome.

Take Home this Piece!

We are offering a raffle to offset the costs of this exhibition. Many of the artists are creating non-commercial and site-specific works for the show and traveling quite a distance. Craig Kane, an artist based in Queens, has created a very special "Found" sculpture (pictured on card and above.) For only $5 you get a chance to submit your name and possible take home Craig's piece! For $25, you get 5 chances and a free downloadable copy of the exhibition catalog!! For $100, you get 20 chances and your name listed as a sponsor for the show in all press and catalog materials!!! The drawing will take place at the Artists' Talk on August 30. All of the money raised will go to support the artists.

Calendar of Events:

July 25, Saturday 5-7pm: Opening Reception, free

July 26, Sunday 4pm: Screening of "PABLO CANO - THE MAKING OF VIVA VAUDEVILLE" 2007 Filmed by : SHELLY GEFTER, One hour DVD includes interviews with MOCA Director / Chief Curator Bonnie Clearwater and Choreographer Katherine Kramer. Free

July 29, Wednesday 5:30pm: Art Discussion, free
What do you see when you look at art? Join curator Andrea Cote for an in-depth and lively discussion about the work on view.

August 1, Saturday, Childrens Workshop at East End Arts Council 10am -12pm: Ages 7-10 yrs, $25 Register through East End Arts Council. Students will create puppets from found and recycled materials inspired by the work of Pablo Cano.

August 2, Sunday 1pm: Family workshop $5, under 10 free. Bring the family for a collaborative project. We will create a transparent fantasyscape based on the work of Maire Kennedy. Project will be displayed at the Riverhead Library.

August 9, Sunday, 1pm: Children's Workshop at Art Sites: (1-3) Ages 8-12 yrs, $25
Students will create small-scale sculptures using clay and found materials based on the works of Craig Kane and Julie Peppito.

August 30, Sunday 3pm: Artists Talk and Panel Discussion

ARTISTS

Matt Bua, founder of b-Home, a property in the Catskills housing site-specific visionary structures, and whose project Cribs To Cribbage is currently on display at Mass MOCA, will be building a recycled "crate house" on site. The structure, a pavilion in the shape of the North and South Forks of Long Island, will house a creative display of local history, lore, and urban legends collected by way of an open call to the community.

Charles Butterly, whose styrofoam icebergs and shopping-cart bird houses were recently on view during the Peekskill Project, will be creating a sculpture on the grounds that will biodegrade over time as well as a live performance.

Pablo Cano's work has delighted children and adults in presentations of his avant-garde marionettes and plays commissioned annually for the past ten years by the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. "Found" will feature several of the artist's puppets created from recycled materials. There will be a special screening of a documentary recently produced about the artist giving insight into his work and creative process.

Pierre Cote is a local artist based in Flanders and the curator's husband, whose ingenuity inspired this exhibition. He dissembles and seamlessly recombines discarded objects, juxtaposing the awkward and graceful, the obsolete and the visionary, always with a sly formal humor.

Craig Kane's constructions of small objects and words blink from within the walls and cast surprising shadows, revealing the extraordinary in the familiar. Following solo installations at Spacecraft Gallery and Point Loma University in San Diego, at Art Sites Craig will create his vignettes onsite, responding to the unique gallery space as well as the other artists works.

Maire Kennedy creates natural forms from unnatural products. Her elegant large-scale sculptures made from hundreds of plastic spoons and drinking bottles transcend their seeming simplicity. Previous exhibitions include the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse and The Rochester Contemporary.

Tara Parsons engages the public in the creative process while addressing social issues. Her recent project Not Without a Trace, a partnership with the Audubon Society and the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, presented at Grand Central Station on Earth Day, invited the public to draw flocks of endangered birds on the street in chalk.

Julie Peppito, a NYFA Sculpture Fellow and Andy Warhol Foundation Grant recipient, creates densely layered mixed-media drawings and sculptures that echo the abundance and excesses of contemporary society. Working with cast off collectibles and plastic trinkets, her aim is "to make the awful and corrupt delicious again."

Andrea Cote co-curated Posing at Henry Street Settlements Abrons Art Center with Joelle Jensen in September 2007. Her artwork has been exhibited at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Islip Art Museum, Delaware Art Museum, The Rotunda Gallery, Solar, and PanAmerican Art Projects.

Sponsors: Crozier Long Island

On the road to Overton

2009-07-15T18:35:38Z

by Kevin Freitas

A couple of videos taken on the way to go see Michael Heizer's "Double Negative" in Overton, Nevada.

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DELAYED GRATIFICATION - Dave Ghilarducci - OMA

2009-07-15T00:21:21Z

from the press release

DELAYED GRATIFICATION by Dave Ghilarducci
Curated by Emily Phelps
Oceanside Museum of Art Parker Gallery
July 14 - September 25, 2009

“Meet the Artist” Dave Ghilarducci on Saturday, August 8th at 2:00 p.m.
“Meet the Artist” is free with museum admission and complimentary for members of Oceanside Museum of Art as a benefit of membership.

]]> DELAYED GRATIFICATION by Dave Ghilarducci
OMA Parker Gallery, July 14 – Sept. 25, 2009

Are you sick and tired of struggling for results? Well, you’re in luck: WE CAN’T HELP YOU. Delayed Gratification offers a stationary test drive into a world of leaking desires and technological insurgence that may be ours or someone else’s…all we know for sure is you’ll have to get a sweat on. San Diego artist Dave Ghilarducci will install a bicycle with a generator connected to the back wheel that will power an LED display. When the visitor climbs on the bicycle and takes a ride, the LED will project words of wisdom from books that discuss utopian and dystopian views of the future. Delayed Gratification, curated by Emily Phelps, will be on view in the Parker Gallery July 14 through September 25, 2009. “Meet the Artist” David Ghilarducci on Saturday, August 8th at 2:00 p.m. “Meet the Artist” is free with museum admission and complimentary for members of Oceanside Museum of Art as a benefit of membership.

Ghilarducci’s participatory work investigates perception on an everyday level, often using popular technology as the subject and object of artistic inquiry. Delayed Gratification playfully confronts the contemporary paradigm that if man willingly submits to technology he will become more efficient and therefore lead a more meaningful life. The artwork complicates the matter by creating a forced multitasking environment; instead of simply riding a bike or reading a book, the two activities have been overlaid to the extent that one must experience both activities simultaneously or neither at all. The work further plays on the notion of labor; revealing the book’s contents requires physical labor on the part of the viewer.

Through the world of engineering, Ghilarducci discovered the language of art. In 2006 he resigned from his engineering profession to begin a fulltime art practice. He endeavors to make interactive works that engage the viewer with a sense of play and introspection using electronics as a platform to investigate the relationship between technology and perception.

The Parker Gallery is located on the 2nd level of Oceanside Museum of Art and is designed for special projects. For more information about “Meet the Artist” or other museum programs call the museum at 760.435.3720. The museum is located at 704 Pier View Way in downtown Oceanside, within walking distance from the Oceanside Transit Center with Amtrak, Coaster, Sprinter and Metrolink stops. The museum Web site offers photo galleries of recent exhibitions as well as a calendar of coming events, www.oma-online.org.

Contact: Danielle Susalla, Assistant Director: 760.435.3722 danielle@oma-online.org
Contact: Dr. Teri Sowell, Director of Exhibitions and Collections: 760.435.3730 teri.sowell@oma-online.org

"Measured Resistance" - May-ling Martinez

2009-07-10T16:17:46Z

by Kevin Freitas

“Halftolds is the title of May-ling Martinez’s current exhibit on view at the Art Produce Gallery in San Diego. I didn’t like it. If truth be told, Halftolds as in half-told stories or half-truths makes for an exhibit to this viewer’s eye, half-a-success.” (July 2006)

The above quote was the opening lines to my first review of May-ling Martinez’s solo exhibit at Art Produce Gallery in 2006. A review that many disagreed with including the artist who called me presumptuous, commentators who found my critique half-assed, while still others – including friends and colleagues – I argued with privately and in public over the merits of Martinez’s work.

What a difference three years makes.

May-ling Martinez’s exhibit entitled “Measured Resistance” now on view at Luis De Jesus Seminal Projects through August 1, 2009 is really quite good. So what happened?

The work got better.

"Measured Resistance" - May-ling Martinez

]]> Around this time in 2006, it seemed there was no end to the amount of group shows up and down Ray Street showcasing a handful of artists playing musical chairs by moving from one gallery to the next like carpet-baggers with the same work. Martinez among several others was guilty of this, which not only had a disastrous effect on the “newness” of the pieces exhibited but also disenfranchised regular visitors such as myself. Afterwards, Martinez’s then solo effort at Art Produce I still believe, suffered from an over reliance on clip-art – a sort of misguided love affair with 1950’s suburban Americana, gender stereotypes, and mechanical illustrations glued and glittered to the surface or framed in cheap thrift-store frames. They were meant, the artist explained, to be “triggers to evoke memory”. It was our own memories and experiences she was trying to trigger through the use of iconic and supposed universal imagery. It was never quite clear to me why Martinez had such a yearning to re-vamp such innocent times. She was clearly not of that epoch. The problem was to “bring something new” so to speak to the table, on a subject or issues as loaded as the ones during the 1950’s. It was difficult to know, one way or another, whether this period truly meant something to her or had an effect for example on her up-bringing, or even if it had altered her view (feminist or otherwise) of the world she lived in. There were only unanswered questions as to the intent and goal of such work. This led me to believe that her choice of imagery was purely stylistic.

Subsequent group exhibits that followed - the ill-fated “Innocence is Questionable” at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla, and the Cannon Gallery in Carlsbad - relied heavily and unsuccessfully on books as the medium of choice. Books stacked, books bound, books turned into houses, and books quilted into large hanging tote bags convinced me Martinez had hit a dead end. And then suddenly, she dropped out of sight – no more shows, no nothing, only rumors she was working on a new body of work for Seminal Projects. I was not surprised to hear of this news only fiercely reluctant to view its outcome. Obliged or not, I made the arduous journey to the gallery. What I discovered and saw before me was a very mature artist. Like I said, the work had gotten distinctly better.

"Measured Resistance" - May-ling Martinez

So what’s changed?

Let’s start with the drawings; they are made from larger Xeroxes taken from smaller collage works that have been transferred onto large sheets of paper by blotting the backs of the copies with acetone. This creates lines in the transfer drawing that bleed into the paper’s surface giving it a blurry, almost shimmery effect that differentiates it from say, a strict mechanical or architectural rendering. Martinez has substituted precision for a chance experience. This allows for more freedom and a personal “touch” over one that is rigid and exact when a mechanical pen is used. Gone with the exception of one drawing is the glitter and glitz, dollies, and useless paraphernalia found in earlier works that only interfered in their reading and enjoyment. These newer drawings have been pared down, blown-up in scale and are cleaner looking. The imagery itself has not changed much, still a hybrid of collaged mechanical and electrical diagrams with truncated human figures – hands, legs, heads etc. – fused into these Escher-esque (though not as complex or detailed) drawings that represent electrical circuit boards if not metaphorically than nightmarishly. Their blend of resistors, body parts, circuitry, and surging electrical current is freakish at best. If there is a small criticism to be made, the drawings now have what I would call an “L.A. look” to them which was quite popular a few years ago. This was typically a small drawing, scribble, or blotch situated at the bottom of the paper’s edge, surrounded by acres and acres of immaculate whiteness. In other words, even though Martinez’s drawings have been cleaned up, are sparser, and let the viewer enjoy them to an even greater extent, they still have too much of a design aesthetic to them. I would have favored just a tad bit less starkness, a blush of color, and less control. The difference between a smaller tighter drawing and its larger blurry counterpart is not enough to fully activate the paper’s surface. That being said, they are crucial to the rest of the show’s content which is found in the sublime machines Martinez has fabricated.

"Measured Resistance" (detail) - May-ling Martinez

I might add, the only non-kinetic sculpture in the show “Caught/Stuck” suffers (like the drawings) to a certain degree from the slickness of its materials and presentation, but contains enough mystery and irony to support its idea. A cast aluminum figurine – the groom from a wedding cake – is stuck in a tree branch; he is all tangled up and the kitchen tablecloth that once served as his parachute lies useless on the ground. It is a poignant and delicate piece and likely the only sellable work in the show. This isn’t a bad thing; it just reinforces its object qualities over its sculptural ones. Objects sell, sculptures don’t.

“Measured Resistance” is a large 4 x 8 foot table-like sculpture propped up on skinny aluminum legs with a Plexiglas shelf holding several electric household fans pointed upwards. Stretched over this armature is a supple white fabric that fills up with air (imagine a hot air balloon) when the fans are all running. When filled to capacity, the fabric takes the form of a slightly bloated rectangle and remains that way, jiggling slightly, until the power is turned off. Once the fans are stopped, the fabric deflates immediately falling listlessly over the fans. The sculpture surprisingly retains its interest and our attention when flaccid, in the same way we anticipate the blowing-up of a toy balloon. The sculpture is either on, this includes the deafening noise it makes, or it is off, and does nothing more than sit there.

"Measured Resistance" (detail) - May-ling Martinez

The beauty of this work and another entitled “Learning Device” is their simplicity and quirkiness, enough to draw your attention to their uniqueness as machines and to their futileness in manufacturing anything (which they don’t) or aiding us in some menial repetitive task (ditto). They could be Jean Tinguely’s Homage to New York or a Disney animated film like Up uprooting themselves from their very foundation. But perhaps they are more like Sisyphus, condemned to hard labor. These machines tirelessly start and stop only to recommence once again their useless efforts – the buoyancy of the sheet or parachute unfortunately depends on it. They appear curiously enough, to be happy in doing so – if machines can be happy that is. Could it be the same “happiness” Sisyphus might have experienced? The writer Camus believed so, “If the descent is sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." (The Value of Labor and the Myth of Sisyphus, Rick Garlikov)

Two things are happening with Martinez’s new sculptures: first, there is a direct link between these pieces and the newer drawings. Martinez has succeeded in bringing these strangely morphed assemblages on paper to life with a flash of her wand. Second and most importantly, Martinez has assumed full responsibility for what she’s presented, meaning there has been a shift (and you can see it) in the approach, attitude and commitment made to this new body of work. This is crucial to its success and the success of the show. This exhibit is the perfect example of what it takes for an artist to succeed, seeing an idea through to its end or what William Wilson, referring to Michael Heizer, would call the power of ideas: “By activating it he put it in a world somewhere between fiction and fact, demonstrated the terrible power of ideas and concepts by organizing the randomness of man and nature.” (Don’t Know Trenches, but we Know What We Like, William Wilson) It is somewhere between Martinez’s world and scientific fact that these works exist.

"Learning Device" - May-ling Martinez

If I am to note a third circumstance, these sculptures truly function now as “triggers to evoke memory”. They are simple metaphors for life and its lessons to be recognized and learned, similar to that of Sisyphus. Martinez has finally left enough room for the viewer to actively and intellectually participate in her work without being made to think about what it is she is trying to communicate via obscure and out-dated imagery. A 1950’s reality is not Iran’s for example in 2009. Similar issues of rights, human rights, and women’s rights might exist in both eras, but which one is the more relevant? “Measured Resistance” could just as easily be a government’s resistance to regime change. And this is the point, Martinez is breathing easier now; she is poised, relaxed and in peace with what she has produced. She has updated her vocabulary and found her voice. This has a profound effect on the viewer. Are there art historical precedents to this type of work, probably, I only know of one, Pablo Reinoso from France and perhaps Greg Hull from Indianapolis. This does not make Martinez’s work circumspect, au contraire, it reinforces its originality.

“Measured Resistance” has succeeded where another work like “Air Machine Prototype” (from Devices to Measure the Immeasurable) has not. Resistance is similar to Oldenburg’s soft sculptures or even Jeff Koon’s balloon works, in that they all have become empty vessels to be filled with everyday experiences and encounters, childhood memories, or utilitarian uses. You can’t use a Martinez or an Oldenburg in their current states, but you can use the memory of what those actual objects did as a springboard to imagining the way they were and are not now, to extenuate their attributes or undermine their functionality –either way, it’s always just plain fun to do. It is a conceptual move that is rooted in what a colleague of mine refers to as “perceptual contrasts”. Unfortunately, Air Machine is a clunky assemblage of tubes, breathing apparatus, foot pump, and plastic bag that inflates and then slowly deflates. It is a derivative that does not contain the poetry or grace that Resistance has.

"Air Machine Prototype" (from Devices to Measure the Immeasurable) - May-ling Martinez

"Air Machine Prototype" (from Devices to Measure the Immeasurable) - May-ling Martinez

In the end, the real meaning to the work just might simply rely within the show’s title. Resistance against what? What outside and unseen forces are acting upon us that we need to resist? What physical or emotional forces if any? What spiritual forces? What temptations? Resistance to change, new ideas, and new art forms as is the case for Martinez? Isn’t resistance just a defense mechanism? A protective measure? Man has spent countless hours laboring to construct shrines, architectural wonders, habitats, and churches with all the current technology available to him, only to see it all burn to the ground or crumble when a simple electrical cord is pulled. No more Twitter of Facebook. Is Martinez’s work resisting new advances in science and technology – hoping for simpler days when life was less complicated? This is a lot to ask of one sculpture to provide us those answers now isn’t it? But somehow it just works, the answer is good enough and that’s good enough for me. Thanks May-ling.

"Caught/Stuck" - May-ling Martinez

"Caught/Stuck" (detail) - May-ling Martinez

"Tender is the Night" - Art Produce Gallery

2009-07-09T15:33:17Z

from the press release

Tender is the Night concludes several years of focused independent studio work and academic studies by recent graduates of the University of California, San Diego Visual Arts department. Ten students exhibit a broad range of media and practice, including a diversity of video, interactive sculpture, painting and photography. These graduates have worked closely with current UCSD professors: Ernest Silva, Kim MacConnel and Ruben Ortiz Torres to develop their interdisciplinary art practice and theory.

Tender is the Night
July 3 - Aug. 2

Opening Reception: July 11, 6 - 9pm
ART Produce Gallery
3139 University Avenue
San Diego, CA
619.584.4448

Miami Graffiti

2009-07-08T16:05:24Z

from the press release

Mid-City Arts continues to bring the best of street art to Los Angeles with its latest show honoring the Miami graffiti scene. “Miami Graffiti” opens July 11, 7pm – 9pm and will be on view through July 26th.

Mid-City Arts
5111 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90019
http://www.midcity-arts.com

Rapidly becoming one of the United States' top graffiti destinations, Miami, Florida is home to a deep well of talented artists driven by a fiercely competitive graffiti scene. Miami’s profile has risen thanks to the city’s role as host to the famed "Art Basel" and most recently "Primary Flight.” “Primary Flight” is the internationally acclaimed, site-specific, street level mural installation that takes place during Art Basel. Artists that have graced the Primary Flight walls include Crome, MSG, Typoe as well as Blek Le Rat, Retna, El Mac, David Choe, Revok and many others.

]]> Miami Graffiti by photographers Jim and Karla Murray is the first book to capture Miami’s graffiti scene. Documenting 20+ years of graffiti art and history along with Miami's most notorious crews and writers, Miami Graffiti is a detailed presentation of South Florida's past, present, and future of graffiti.

Mid City Arts’ "Miami Graffiti” show is a celebration of the release of Jim and Karla Murray's book – they will be on hand to sign books - and a showcase of some of Florida’s finest street artists from the MSG, TCP, SH and THC crews. Artists from these crews are coming out to Los Angeles and will be displaying their work in the gallery as well as customizing the gallery’s back yard space. Featured artists include Crome, Typoe, Acme, Enve, Murder, Afex, Kemo, Cynic, Gere, Flojoe and others. The show is curated by “Slow”.

The MSG crew formed in 1994 by a group of kids bonded through their shared street backgrounds and love of graffiti. Now, 14 years later, MSG has evolved into a creative collective that has expanded into everything from graphic design and fine art, to retail and product design, and everything in between. South Florida’s Crome is one that region’s graffiti pioneers. Crome’s work is an amalgam of sex, color, crime and fun. Drawing inspiration from Miami’s clashing of tropical South Beach & seedy underbelly of Downtown Districts, he creates images that reflect the dichotomy between the beauty, style and color of the former, while balancing it with the images of prostitution; drive bys and drugs of the latter. Crome is multifaceted and multi-dimensional. He’s an artist with a dark past and a bright future making his mark on the vanilla, superficial Miami art scene.

Mid-City Arts was established in September 2009 as an extension of the store 33third – LA’s premier source of street art supplies, streetwear apparel, and related books and magazines. The gallery was established with the purpose of showcasing local, national, and international artwork by up and coming and established artists with a focus on (but not limited to) graffiti / street / urban art. Recent shows have included work by Chaka, Retna and El Mac. Mid-City Arts offers a show space that interacts with other artists and events that surround the 33third Los Angeles location. The gallery’s artwork is available to view by the active customer base of 33third, which includes graffiti artists and fans of graffiti art.

"After Glow" - Tom Torluemke

2009-07-08T01:03:25Z

from the press release

After Glow
The Chicago Cultural Center
78 E. Washington Street
Chicago, IL
312.744.6630

Opening Reception:
Friday, July 10 / 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.

After Glow Afterparty
Jennifer Wolfe Photography
2021 W. Fulton
Chicago, IL

Gallery Talk: Thursday, July 16 / 12:15 p.m.

Tom Torluemke is a well-known, Chicago-area artist whose professional accomplishments include highly imaginative work in a wide variety of artistic mediums. A versatile and prolific artist, Torluemke’s artworks range from major public projects to site-specific installations, to oil paintings, watercolors, and his continuing use of paper in many forms. For this exhibition, the artist pursues his gallery work by showing mainly figurative, semi-abstract paper constructions in both two and three dimensions, with socio-political content guided by personal experiences. In Torluemke’s skillful manipulation of imaginative forms, his non-objective watercolors present intensely autobiographical themes relating to life experiences, states of being, and states of mind.

Pushing the limits of his imagination at all times, Torluemke has ventured to invent new ways of conveying his artistic language in collage, culminating in three separate bodies of collage work: using contact paper, construction paper, and inlaid painted paper. Just two of his collage portraits seen here collectively contain 60 parts, while his three new wall reliefs are complete works of sculpture, individually worked out to be an interesting, interlocking combination of fabricated elements.

His work addresses a myriad of complex domestic and social situations, taking us on numerous visual journeys of exploration and invention laced with life experiences and reflections on nature, man and society. They are intricate beyond our first impression, and both playful and profound at the same time. By employing collage techniques that are reminiscent of grade school art projects, and by manipulating and recycling his own pre-drawn images within the medium, Torluemke strikes a perfect balance between accessible abstraction and innovation. One wall of facial likenesses also exposes genitalia in the abstract, using the veiled sexual imagery that he favors in his deeply personal practice.

Tom Torluemke is a Chicago native now living in northern Indiana, with a career spanning more than 25 years. He has a long list of solo exhibitions since 1982, predominantly in the Midwest. In addition, he has participated in group shows too numerous to list, which took place in many states from California to New York. Torluemke has works in museum permanent collections and private collections in Chicago, Indiana, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Germany, in addition to his public and private commissions. In 2007, Torluemke was the recipient of the Efroymson Contemporary Arts Fellowship, in addition to receiving other awards and honors for his educational work and community contributions. Besides giving private studio classes, Torluemke has taught as an adjunct instructor at Valparaiso University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and as a full-time instructor for 12 years at the American Academy of Art in Chicago.

The Michigan Avenue Galleries exhibitions are generously supported by Friends of the Chicago Cultural Center.
EXHIBIT RUNS THROUGH September 27.

David Russell Talbott - Art of Pride

2009-07-08T00:27:20Z

from the press release

"Art of Pride"
Group show curated by Noel-Baza Gallery

Opening reception: Saturday July 11, 2009 / 6 - 10pm
Ray Street Annex
3803 Ray Street
San Diego, CA
619.488.7540
anne@raystreetannex.com
Art of Pride

Show moves to the Pride Festival in Balboa Park July 18th and 19th.

Carla Naden

2009-07-06T23:06:47Z

by Kevin Freitas

I first saw Carla Naden's work in a series of expositions organized around San Diego under the auspices of an all girl collective calling themselves Grrrrrl Power, and individually, in group shows at the Art of Framing Gallery in Normal Heights. Grrrrrl Power was formed by San Diego artist Bill Pierce known for his eccentric art party happenings. At the time, Carla was teamed up with another artist (Kelli Bratvold) who together, made collaborative works that were displayed under their nom de plume mulletpony. I own two works by Carla, Sunset Cunts and Sacrificial Virgin, they are still some of my most treasured pieces. Carla consistently produces work that is strong, caustic, politically incorrect and often humorously gut-wrenching while remaining beautifully executed and eye-catching. I adore the work and remain an ardent fan to this day. I thank Carla for letting me post some of her work on the blog. I think you will too.

www.carlalovesponies.com

The Art of Transitions

2009-07-06T18:54:48Z

from the press release

The San Diego Art Department is pleased to announce our first Open Call Fundraiser Exhibition.

The world is full of transitions, whether it be internal or external, we are all affected by the passage from one form, state, style or place to another. Young to old, college to profession, single to married, daughter/son to mother/father, season to season, rich to poor, life to death.

Reception: August 15, 2009 6pm to 9pm - Awards Reception
Exhibition: August 15th thru September 13th

Submission Rules:
Please submit your work by August 1, 2009. All media accepted, original work only.
"Click on" the following link to view the registration form. Open Call Registration Form

Juror: Kevin Freitas with Art As Authority

Prizes will be awarded for Best In Show, 1st, 2nd, 3rd Place, Honorable Mention and People's Choice.
Award prizes from: Baja Betty’s, California Ballet Company, Children’s Museum, Hornblower, Landmark Theatres, San Diego Chamber Orchestra, San Diego Youth Symphony, Urban Mo’s, Urban Solace... And More!
Please visit our website: www.sdad-sdai.org and click on the “Exhibiting” tab for more details.

St. Jude Project: Can Cancer Art Show

2009-07-02T21:09:56Z

from the press release

Saturday, July 11th, The Nesian Ohana, seventyNINE co., and Nesian's Can Cancer Foundation presents the St. Jude Project: Can Cancer Art Show- San Diego located at The Luce Loft (1037 J St. San Diego, CA 92101) on the corner of 10th & J from 6pm-midnight.

Join the Ohana in a night of art, culture, music entertainment, food and drinks as we hold a silent auction and raffles all for the fight against cancer. Come down and check out the art of:

Jenny Larsen
GrandLarsen
Dark Vomit
Mark Jesinoski
David Russell Talbott
Kevin Peterson
Chris Ganan
Bre Custodio
Paul Brogden
Taylor Johnson
Bret Barrett
Nilo Jones
Janelle Carter
and the debut of a VERY special artist.

Along with music guests:
Kontious and the Ko-op
Dj Chris Cutz
& Dj Cnerio

Food will be provided by the asian fusion taste of Ono's Cafe- Island Style Bistro.

Support is GREATLY needed! If you know of anyone who would also be interested in attending this great event, please forward this to them as well. Each donation package comes with a gift bag and raffle tickets, quantity depends on the package purchased.

Lux Art Institute 2009-2010 Artist-in-Residence Season

2009-07-01T19:53:35Z

from the press release

Lux Art Institute Announces 2009-2010 Artist-in-Residence Season

Lux Art Institute, San Diego’s interactive art destination, announced today the artists who will participate in Lux’s third Artist-in-Residence season, which begins this September.

A significant contemporary art venue in San Diego County where visitors can “see art happen,” Lux is one of the first museum facilities in the United States to establish an innovative artist-in-residence program that focuses on the living artist and the creative process.

“We are thrilled with the artist line-up for the 2009-2010 season,” said Lux Director Reesey Shaw. “Lux is bringing a fresh and exciting pool of talent here, a group of inspiring artists that work in a variety of media, from marble to charcoal to metal. We hope the public will visit often throughout the new season to explore, experience and see great new art for themselves.”

]]> The 2009-2010 Artist-in-Residence season includes:

Elizabeth Turk
In-Studio Sept. 10 – Oct. 3, 2009
On-Exhibit through Oct. 31, 2009
A native of Southern California, sculptor Elizabeth Turk kicks off Lux’s new season on September 10, 2009. Though she has mastered a variety of media, she currently embraces and brings new vision to the classical practice of stone carving. With chisel in hand and fueled by her fascination with patterns, she painstakingly transforms solid, 400-pound blocks of marble into fantastic and improbable shapes — collars, pinwheels and ribbons — that illustrate the tension between the inherent strength and fragility of the stone. Her exhibit at Lux will feature numerous examples of sculpture as well as works on paper. While in residence, Turk will be carving a sculpture for her “Collars” series.

Other venues for Turk has exhibited at include Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC; Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Calif.; and Ben Maltz Gallery at the Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles. Her works are featured in such collections as the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the National Museum for Women in the Arts, both in Washington, D.C., as well as the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College, Claremont, Calif.

Susan Hauptman
In-Studio Nov. 12 – Nov. 21, 2009
On-Exhibit through Jan. 9, 2010
New York City-based Hauptman is Lux’s second artist of the new season. For over twenty years, her enigmatic, charcoal self-portraits have been her focus. Drawn with complete candor and near-photographic exactitude, the works display not only Hauptman’s astonishing technical mastery but also serve as the artist’s own means of self-revelation and reinvention. Her work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the country and is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock; and Norton Gallery of Art, Palm Beach, Fla.

Iva Gueorguieva
In-Studio Jan. 16 – Feb. 6, 2010
On-Exhibit through March 17, 2010
Bulgarian-born Gueorguieva starts the New Year as Lux’s third resident artist. Her large-scale abstract paintings are filled with exuberant hues, dizzying brushstrokes, ghostly humanoid characters and churning landscape melodramas where themes of beauty, violence, isolation, sex and death are revealed. Gueorguieva has exhibited at Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, Calif.; Outline, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Electric Works, San Francisco; and Stephen Stux Gallery, New York. She also teaches drawing and painting at UCLA.

Robert Lobe
In-Studio March 27 - April 24, 2010
On-Exhibit through May 22, 2010
Inspired by the shapes, materials and textures found in the woods, New York City sculptor Robert Lobe depicts rock and trees in shimmering, hollow forms. He uses an adaptation of the ancient process of repoussé to recreate ephemeral, natural objects as monumental sculptures whose aluminum surfaces glimmer with the play of light and shadow. His work has been commissioned and exhibited in galleries and museums across the country, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art, both in New York; National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

Sati Zech
In-Studio June 5 – June 26, 2010
On-Exhibit through July 31, 2010
Born in Southern Germany and currently living and working in Berlin, Zech’s vibrant cloth fields in the series titled Bollenarbeit encompass elements of painting, drawing and sculpture. While the sumptuous displays of thick, red mounds of paint on torn rows of canvas hint at domestic handicraft and historically ritualistic mark-making, her bold, dynamic creations defy category and inhabit a world of their own. She made her stateside debut in 2008 at Howard Scott Gallery in New York City. Since 1985, Zech has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows, as well as art fairs, in cities including Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Salzberg, Zurich and Bilbao.

About Lux Art Institute
Lux Art Institute, located in Encinitas, Calif., opened its doors to the public in November 2007 and is redefining the museum experience with its unique artist-in-residence program. At Lux, artists live and work on site, while producing a commissioned work of art.

Throughout the year, Lux invites significant regional, national and international artists to participate in the Lux residency and encourages visitors from across the country to observe and engage them. This one-of-a-kind institution invites visitors to not only “see art,” but also to “see art happen.”

Slated to be the first “green” (LEED certified) art museum in California and located alongside one of Southern California’s few remaining coastal wetlands, Lux’s five-acre site overlooks the San Elijo Lagoon and is surrounded by a wildlife preserve that stretches to the Pacific Ocean.

Santa Monica, California-based Renzo Zecchetto, AIA, designed the two-story building, a recent recipient of the San Diego Architectural Foundation’s top design award.

Lux Art Institute is located at 1550 South El Camino Real in Encinitas. Lux hours are Thursday and Friday, 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

For more information visit www.luxartinstitute.org or call 760.436.6611

Brian Goeltzenleuchter at OMA - some thoughts

2009-06-30T04:18:05Z

by Kevin Freitas

"Though Russe (Beate Russe — president of the museum's board of directors) believes that museums are there partly to educate and challenge their audience, this show reached too far, too fast, in her estimation, for a museum with a populist, even a parochial, bent in its programming." — Robert Pincus, from his review Oceanside's conceptual exhibit risky but worthy

photo courtesy: Brian Goeltzenleuchter

How do you know when art reaches too far? Do you try to slow it down, dumb it down, make it accessible to everyone: bite-size sugar-coated morsels for easy digestion and contemplation? Russe's commentary surely raises the hackles on all of us who smell institutional dogma and knee-jerk conclusions. But then beyond partly educating and challenging its audience, what do museums do exactly? And what about those infallible artists: are they not partially responsible for the pétrin Russe finds herself in? Of course they are. The question then becomes, who is responsible for an artwork's content and its subsequent showing after it leaves the studio? The simplistic response would be the artist is responsible for content and the museum for putting the work up on the wall. If that division of labor truly exists, then Russe has no reason to complain. So what is she questioning?

I think, despite Russe's gibberish commentary and the apparent backlash the show has accrued, some of the problem might lie within the show's formal structure and less to do with the artist and his ideas. I have a smidgen of doubt, as incredulous as her remark may seem, that it isn't a matter of Goeltzenleuchter's work being too advanced for the public, but the intangibility of an idea put on display that simultaneously positions itself as an art form laden with art historical precedents — as Pincus clearly points out in his review (a movement that many may be unfamiliar with including Russe), appears to also point an accusatory finger in her direction (clearly tongue-in-cheek), propounds some type of scientific experiment and data to back it up, but might fail in convincing the audience that what they are viewing is relevent and can be meaningful to them. Russe's criticism in an oblique way then, might be questioning what types of art should be made for the museum. What Russe doesn't understand is that art like museums, have limits in their capacity to communicate everything to everyone. It doesn't make the adventure any less exciting for trying, but the art must somehow signal a larger purpose beyond its exhibition when in a public domain (as opposed to a much more private domain such as a gallery). How that manifests itself either didactically or pragmatically with a clear intent, is the key I believe, to a show's successful reading by the public.

]]> We're often too quick to raise the flag of injustice, the very notion of questioning artistic expression seems more than anyone of us can tolerate. One thing I'm quite sure of though, it has never been a good idea to prevent artists from leaving the confines of the parish to venture out beyond the fringes of what is deemed acceptable, and in doing so, break the posted speed limit. It doesn't make for work necessarily better or stronger, it makes for work that is essential, healthy, and instructive even for the choir.

In order to accomplish this though, you need bright intelligent individuals at the helm, willing to step up the game for everyone's betterment. Art is not unlike other fields of research: would you ask a scientist to pace herself in finding a cure for cancer? Of course not, that would be absurd. To think that a museum and the peuple who come to visit are not equipped to deal with contemporary ideas and the artists who furnish them is equally as absurd. Teri Sowell, the museum's director of collections and exhibitions, clearly understands the necessity to expand and not contract.

If there is an Institutional Critique to be made, which in essence, is one of the main goals of Goeltzenleuchter's exhibit — a fact clearly stated in the show's title "Institutional Well Being: An Olfactory Plan for the Oceanside Museum of Art" — emphasis on the word plan, as in a plan of action to be taken presumably against or for some cause, the show then is a complete success. It has come to remedy the sort of mentality, as myopic and shocking as it may appear, that Russe epitomizes in such a broad definition of today's modern museum. I'm all for provincialism and restraint when appropriate. I can do away with a lot of "shock art" and ideas that run amok or are simply lazy. I am at heart, a true populist willing to break down barriers between art and the public through dialogue.

It is difficult to accept however, Russe's mother-knows-best approach to governing a museum and Goeltzenleuchter's devil-may-care approach to making art, when there has been no clear attempt to "explain" either method to a public put before le fait accompli. Art should always be at the service of the public and not in service of its own interests. A cultural institution is not merely a showcase for avant-gardists, but has a direct line to the populace it's serving. In doing so, it has a larger responsibility to frame an artist's work - however obscure or difficult it might be - within a context that corresponds or at least attempts to address, the failures and successes of the artist's process in an effort to better relay that experience to the public. Art cannot feed off of its vitals forever. Let me explain.

Goeltzenleuchter's work presented in all its clinical sterility is intentional. It is cold, sometimes austere but it's not clinically dead. You can poke holes in the ideas and their execution, this is true, but only if you're unwilling to accept the show's theatricality of the absurd (a sort of Muzak for the senses through smell), its position as anti-art (against its commodification, bottling the experience as opposed to buying a derivative), and its subversive humor. None of which is difficult to understand with a moment or two of reflection on the part of the viewer. This is not a requirement of course, and maybe we shouldn't have to think at all while looking at art, but it would mean missing the whole point of the exercise if we didn't. What is missing is art's ability to communicate clearly its intent or message — we're not talking 17th century Poussin here — but 21st century contemporary art left to its own devices combined with the public's general unawareness of contemporary art practice, which ultimately results in stand-alone containers of individual thought in a form or shape we call art.

And that form is the key to the art's understanding. If art is about ideas then everyone is a conceptual artist. My point is this, sometimes, the art needs a little extra help in bridging the gap between itself and the viewing public. It may not be the artist's fault or responsibility that I do not "get" his work, the true art experience according to John Dewey, occurs when the artwork and I meet for the first time, in the same space with very different experiences which are only enhanced through an exchange of information and knowledge. The artwork in other words, does not speak unilaterally, it is as much a receptor as it is an emitter.

How does this relate to Goeltzenleuchter's exhibit? A crucial element to the show's conductivity I believe was perhaps poorly placed. I'm referring to the pitchman-like video that concludes and summarizes the rather obscure graphs, charts and olfactory experiments one enters upon in the first half of the exhibit. Placing the video at the end of the exhibit is like telling a story that is too long, the delayed gratification in knowing the outcome, dampens the excitement and the interest of the beginning. Getting to the point by placing the video at the beginning of the exhibit, I'm convinced, would have heightened the viewing experience and the understanding of the artist's intent and would have avoided the unwarranted and unnecessary intellectual flounderings of the museum's president of the board. This isn't to say that the artist by doing so, would have given us all the clues — Goeltzenleuchter is far too clever and in control to allow us this luxury — it would have however, allowed us to find some of our own, on our own, by pointing us in the right direction. There's certainly nothing wrong with that.

You can read Robert Pincus's complete review of Goeltzenleuchter's exhibit here.