Now in it's seventh year, Windows on Main St. is a store front window based exhibit of artist installations. This year's exhibit, organized by Melissa Tatge and Hannah Anderson features the work of a whopping 40+ artists.
In the podcast, Our intrepid group strolls and chats about the Western half of the exhibit (stay tuned for the second half very soon).
This is an impromptu, rough and ready recording this week. I sought to not edit the recording....something foreign for those episodes I've been responsible for producing, so it's a little cringe inducing to hear so much of me...and to hear so much of me stuttering through my thoughts. If you listeners might feel the same, by way of an apology, I added a bonus treat to you dear listener, to make up for the lapse of neutral objectivity, we have embedded a special drinking game in this Episode. Here is the one and only rule: Each and every time you hear me utter the word 'Context' take a swig of your favorite cold syrup. You'll be wasted in no time.
I expect to conduct a second-half walk through of the exhibit next week....if you're interested in joining us, drop me a line.
If I have get the time in the next couple of weeks, I'll post some of my thoughts on this year's installment.
Some images (some of them bad) of some of the things we saw on our walk.
Teresa Marra at Bank Sq Coffee House.
Cristin Hughes at Mountain Tops Outfitters
Cayla Lockwood at Paper Presence.
Nicole Ganas
a bad photo of the sculpture at Global Home.
Myra Kooy at RiverWinds Gallery.
Myra Kooy at RiverWinds Gallery.
Allison Braun at Play.
Amy C. Wilson at Dream in Plastic.
Lynn Isaacson & Shannon Kahan at the Cup & Saucer Tea Room.
Lily Zand at School of Jellyfish.
James Westwater at School of Jellyfish.
Christopher Albert at Artisan Wine Shop
Beth Haber at Beacon Institute.
Chris Sanders at Zora Dora.
Erica Hauser's 2008 WOMS installation still up at Zora Dora.
This week's ECF is a belated stream of consciousness addendum to the ECF of the week before last in praise of the found object.
Our recent Art Book Club (ABC) selection was W.J.T. Mitchell's What do Pictures Want?: The Lives and Loves of Images; a really astute investigation of images (totems, fetishes, idols) and their presence and power society. It's well worth a read, or two. It's one of those reads that asserts itself as framing overlay for how you (I) relate to images. I also surmise that it's a book that due to the subject and structure is timeless in its relevance; it added a layer of insight and reflection on recent events in Egypt, Libya, Japan and the National Portrait Gallery and more distantly Iraq, as well as the even more quotidian visuals we encounter without noticing.
Mitchell articulates the essence of the found object in a way that I meaningful and recognizable, noting the very finding of which is, by nature a 'fortuitous circumstance'.
What better place, though, to locate the roots of the found object than in the foundling, a poor, orphaned creature that might just amount to something. The moment of finding the found object is the moment when one feels oneself to be pregnant or about to adopt something (which comes to the same thing). This is, I think quite distinct from the moment of finding the lost object (fetishism) or the sublime object of ideology (the idol), neither of which are capable of surprising anyone or of binging newness into the world.
The excerpt above, paired with a portion of a conversation I captured between Angelika and Peter Iannarelli as part of the Beacon Art Salon's Contemporary Artists on Contemporary Art series, in which Peter talks about his penchant for claiming authorship of found objects..even when those objects aren't lost crystallized the thought in my head that in some way, the studio is a place where conditions can be set in such a way as to create an instance - one that approximates that sensation of an object found.
I don't work in an overly determined manner in the studio. In fact, I leave a lot of room for randomness and automatism in the pursuit (unconsciously) of the found object. I don't think he'd agree, but when I visit Peter Iannarelli's studio, I see the mechanism found object cloning at work. But then, we're all just trying make personal discoveries...
So, slightly appropos of nothing other than through the stream of consciousness and fortuity of time, we come to the visual portion of your Eye Candy Friday serving.
Today's images come from the pre-MAYKR photo archive that I happened to be perusing through recently. I came across these images of an installation that Peter Iannarelli did in his studio at Spire Studios back in 2004, when Spire was still very much the beating heart of Beacon's art life (to my mind). This installation probably stands as the high water mark of Peter's Walmart phase. His studio was bedecked as a crazy post big box rave, complete with strobe lights streamers and giant shopping bag windsocks. Come to think of it, if I'm correct, it was a rave that sported only the sound of oscillating fans and rustling plastic. I was a majorly cool visual experience, and I treasure these photos of it. I feel fortunate that I uploaded these images two weeks ago since my external hard drive crashed to the floor last week, and possibly along with it, a substantial chunk of the unpublished MAYKR photo archive (along with a boatload of other data). I haven't yet had the stomach to really try to investigate what might be salvageable.
BTW, if you're looking for other treats in the found object category, look no further....yes, indeed, look further, but don't miss looking at......than Joy Garnett's Unmonumental series of images.
Alison Moritsugu, Paradise Revisited installation view, from left to right:
Big Pineapple (oil on panel, koa frame),King Cane (oil on panel, koa frame)
Early Warning repeat (digitally printed wallpaper)
Alison Moritsugu's work is included in the group exhibit American Story at the Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan MI. which will remain on view through January 2010.
I missed posting about Steve Rossi's participation in the Lilliput exhibit at Seton Hall which ended on July 23. Steve was represented in the exhibit in which no work was larger by 1.5" in dimension by two of his miniature chewing gum camouflage modules. A pdf version of the exhibition catalogue of the exhibition contains images of the work.
Shawn Trail and Jennifer Trail will be setting up house in Copenhagen for the coming year. Shawn has received a Fulbright Scholarship with which he plans, according to a story in LoHud.com, " to design and develop an electro-acoustic, midi-equipped zylophone."
The working portion of my Summer vacation, had me assisting my own little piece of Germany, Angelika Rinnhofer, with the installation of her two person exhibit with Beatrice Haverich at the Museum Industrie Kultur in Nuernberg, Germany. PDN Magazine sported one of Ms. Rinnhofer's images on the cover of July's "Fine Art" issue. The cover story covers the role of non profit galleries in the world of photography and includes some words of wisdom from CPW director Arial Shanberg.
Above and below, Angelika's collaboration with her seamstress mother.
Peter Iannarelli is one of the artists selected to participate in the 2009 Mohawk-Hudson Regional Exhibition by this year's juror Matthew Higgs. The exhibit will remain on view at the University of Albany's University Art Museum through August 8.
I'm taking part in the 10x10x10 exhibit in Ellenville this year. Instead of a singular installation in my given storefront location, I'm doing a series of consecutive projects through the run of the show which ends in October. The first installation TORRENT or FORRENT which will be on view for another week or so includes For Rent signs created by Todd Sargood, Erica Hauser, Heather Sardanopoli, Franc Palaia.
If you're a Beacon area artist and you've got something going on anywhere, send me the info, and if I can, I'll share it with your neighbors. Also if there's a postcard or other printed paraphernalia that accompanies any of your activities, please reserve a copy for the Beacon Art Postcard Archive.
An estimate on the Yamet Arts website claims that 1500 people turned out for the opening of For the Love of Art (every single time I go to type that phrase, I invariably type For the Love of Money). You've got one more weekend to check out the show if that's what you're intending, the show closes on Sunday. I'll be down there for some time on Sunday. Below are a few images of the exhibit, there are many more pics of the opening on Kate Vrimjoet's site.
Deb Davidowits
Matt Harle
Christopher Albert
Emil Alzamora
Michael Ricardo Andreev
Jill Reyolds
Eleanor White
Angelika Rinnhofer
works by Leslie Pelino and Nathan Margoni
Laura Moriarty
A view of the video screening room....I'm not sure who's work we're looking at here.
