A portrait of the artist artists of the Hudson Valley...at least all of those vying for a spot in this year's Hudson Valley Invitational exhibit at the Dorsky. 

On Saturday, June 25, the Samual Dorsky Museum in New Paltz, NY is opening this year's installment of it's annual Hudson Valley invitational exhibition.  The theme this year is BEAUTY!  In fact, the exhibit is named "Excercises in Unnecessary Beauty."    One might think that the nature of beauty is a bit of a passe subject, perhaps even Unnecessary as the title implies, but in reality, finding, creating moments of beauty in life....even that which might not fit with traditionally established notions of what beauty is is what it's all about. 

Dorsky curator Brian Wallace joined us on the Dead Hare Radio Hour for episode #4 (Apr 11, 2011) to talk about the Dorsky's history, the annual invitational, and the inherent challenges of curating (read approving and rejecting and navigating the angst that can come along with that rejection) local artists for an exhibit like the Hudson Valley Invitational.
This year, the artists who made the cut are: Jane Bloodgood-Abrams, Hannah Raine Brenner-Leonard, Karen Capobianco, Amy Cheng, Vincent Connelly, Timothy Englert, Charles Geiger, David Hebb, Jim Holl, Sue Horowitz, Roman Hrab, Charise Isis, Lynn Itzkowitz, Michael Joyce, Iain Machell, Tanya Marcuse, Gilbert Plantinga, Susan Sammis, Bill Shuck, Charles Stein, Scott Serrano, Paul G. Stewart, Joy Taylor, Harry Wilks.

If you're still wondering about beauty, this video meditation on the subject by Hennessy Youngman makes the case for why beauty is still relevant in art and in society.



The reception for Exercises in Unnecessary Beauty is happening from 5-7pm on Saturday June 25.

The double edge sword of curating....

....Indeed, the curator can seemingly has the power to create life but at the same time is subject to the passions of an artist who refuses to be ignored...

The number of submissions facing Dorsky curator Brian Wallace last month as he embarked on selecting the participants of this year's Hudson Valley Invitational exhibit.

The Dead Hare Radio Hour episode from this past week (Show #4) features interviews with Greg Slick and Karlos Carcamo, former directors of the former gallery Go North, in Beacon, and current curators of the Illustrious Mr. X exhibit on view at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz.  At the end of  Show #3, Matthew and I spoke with a gentleman claiming to be the very Mr. X that Greg and Karlos claim to have invented.  Someone's not telling it straight.

Matthew and I also spoke with Dorsky Curator Brian Wallace on the history, present and maybe the future of the museum.
(The next evening I attended a talk on the SUNY New Paltz campus about Marc Chagall's time spent in the Hudson Valley during WWII and the grass roots efforts afoot to have a Chagall in the Hudson Valley exhibit at the Dorsky in the near future.)

During our conversation with Brian he mentioned the travails of the curator having to reject sizeable number of artists, possibly incurring their eternal scorn.  Part of this made it into the interview.  The theme for this year's invitational is Beauty.  It's funny that last year's exhibit, guest curated by Thomas Collins had the notion of Praxis, the joining of critical theories with practical applications, as an organizing principle and very, very few people submitted for it.  This says something interesting, though I'm not exactly sure what, perhaps that most people don't know what Praxis is and how it might apply to their work...or they're aware that their work simply doesn't fit that particular paradigm.  But apparently, many many people think they know something about beauty, and that their artwork obviously has something to say about it...

For those who might be rejected in this or any other exhibition selection process, I encourage you not to lose heart.  In fact, I found a helpful guide that you might apply in your future endeavors to catch the eye of some looksome curator.
As a service to artists everywhere, Hennessy Youngman put together this step by step tutorial for impressing curators.



Somethings to keep in mind, particularly when submitting for next year's Dorsky invitational. I'll just say here that I will not be responsible for any sort of fatal attraction-type stalking of Brian Wallace or any other curators perpetrated by unstable, overly ambitious artists..

The non-archival orifice: panel discussion on Carolee Schneemann, Apr 10, 2010 2-4pm

On a trip to LA back in 2007, we visited took in the Whack! Art and the Feminist Revolution exhibit at MOCA.  I regret not having seen the exhibit when it later traveled to PS1 because my impression of the installation in LA was of an un-congealed mess and I may have had an improved perception of it in another venue.  There was a lot of great work by a range of notable artists which suffered by the wholesale lumping together of it with less successful work, all in the broader interest and exhibit.  Certainly, the purpose of the exhibit was to chronicle of the development of the Feminist movement through works of the time; perhaps more appropriate fodder for a book than an exhibit.  Nontheless, walking through the exhibit was an experience; one that was oddly like that of  visiting the Vietnam Memorial in DC.   Along with us in the galleries were visitors - obvious veterans of the time- walking through the exhibit with the air of making a pilgrimage to remember their comrades and their own experiences from the time of this struggle.  Although I found the exhibit overly nostalgic, I appreciated the programming choice in pairing Whack! with Andrea Zittel: Critical Space, and a MoCA organized exhibit of pre-fab housing at the Pacific Design Center called Some Assembly Required.  The web of domesticity/gender roles/lifemaking issues that ran through the three exhibits was broad, brilliant stroke -BTW, the Zittel show was majorly engrossing.
The one moment that highlighted my experience in Whack! which will stay with me forever is beholding the actual scroll that Carolee Schneemann used in her piece Interior Scroll from 1975.  I have often seen photos documenting the performance piece in which the nude artist reads from a long thin scroll of paper that she pulls from her hoohaa,  but was the first time I had privilege of seeing (and even pondering) this piece of ephemera.  It was impressive.
Narrow, yellowed and brittle looking and, if my recollection serves, with bits of clear tape to join pieces of paper to achieve the length of three to four feet; I was stunned by the decrepit nature of the artifact.  I don't know how long it rested up there inside her body, but the condition of this scroll immediately brought to mind the Dead Sea Scrolls - and they sat in their respective caves for nearly 2000 years and don't look much worse for wear than this holy relic from the 70's, which reveals much about the climatic differences between the vagina and the Dead Sea region.

Carolee Schneeman and her work, which is the subject of a survey exhibition entitled Carolee Schneemann: Within and Beyond the Premises at the Samuel Dorsky Museum in New Paltz, NY will also be the subject of a panel discussion tomorrow afternoon from 2 to 4 pm at the Rosendale Theater in Rosendale NY (408 Main St.)  The panel, which has been organized in connection with the exhibit will be populated by:  Emily Caigan (SUNY New Paltz Women's Studies), Maura Reilly (American Federation of Arts), Brian Wallace (Dorsky Museum), Linda Weintraub (independant scholar), Kenneth White (Stanford University) and moderator Patricia Phillips (RISD).
A screening of select film and video works by the artist will follow the discussion at 5 pm.  Admission is $6, $4 for students.  Call 845.658.8989 for more info.

T is for Thursday. T is for Talking.

If you like talking, and if you like listening to talking, then Thursday is your day. 

The habitat at Old Main Circle on the SUNY New Paltz Campus.

The Dorsky Museum will be hosting a Habitat for Artists round table panel discussion which will relate to the ongoing HFA project that has located several mini artist residencies in structures around the city of New Paltz.  The discussion will be moderated by Wall Street Journal writer Wendy Bounds and will include artists Simon Draper, Mercedes Cecilla, Sarah Haviland, Todd Sargood, curators Brian Wallace of the Dorsky Museum and Amy Lipton of ecoartspace, Shari Osborne, Trustee, Village of New Paltz and Richard Heyl de Ortiz, Director Historic Huguenot Street, New Paltz. 

This discussion will kick of at 7pm in the museum.

Also on Thursday night, I'll be among six Beacon artists who will be discussing various aspects of our work at the Barrett Art Center's monthly Artist Salon series which takes place the final Thursday of every month.  I'll be discussing the kork project space.  Also speaking on Thursday are Steve Rossi, Peter Iannarelli, Jim Zellinger, Kirsten Kucer and Lee Price.  The salon starts at 7pm.  The Barrett Art Center is located at 55 Noxon Ave in Poughkeepsie.

Artist Talks & Performance today at the Dorsky Museum in New Paltz starting at 5:30pm

The Dorsky Museum at SUNY New Paltz will be hosting a gallery talk today featuring some artists involved in the Ecotones and Transition Zones on exhibit through September 6. The artists participating in the talk include Robert Capozzi, Lorrie Fredette, Dylan McManus, Laura Moriarty and Jill Parisi, Dana Duke, Susan Miller, Itty Neuhaus and J. Gilbert Plantinga.

The talks will take place from 5:30-6:45 in the Alice and Horace Chandler Gallery and the North Gallery.

Ryder Cooley in her tree, playing a saw.

At 7 pm, Ryder Cooley will be presenting an interactive tree serenade. Visitors are encouraged to participate by bringing musical instruments.

It's highly unlikely that I'll be able to make it to the talks.....I can only hope that someone might videotape it. I'm particularly interested hearing more about the collaborative project created by Capozzi, Fredette, McManus, Moriarty and Parisi.

Ecotones and Transition Zones at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in New Paltz

One view of the gallery with Michael Asbill's Practice Vessel in the center.
Ecotones and Transition Zones opened on Saturday at the Dorsky Museum in New Paltz. It's an enjoyable show with work in a wide range of media. The show manifests the artists' relationships to the environment - environments of all sorts. It's a call and response of an elemental kind; the artist brushing up against his or her own setting. The implications of which circle back into a broader environmentalist statement, but not didactically so, and the benefit here is that any statements here are personal and exploratory.


I neglected to get the information on the artist hanging from the ceiling playing a saw.
Ryan Roa and Darren Jones presented documentation in the form of a website and a brochure of an expedition the duo made along the Delaware and Hudson Canal. The website (http://www.jonesandroaexpedition.net/) is viewable in the gallery via a computer terminal.

Robert Capozzi is exhibiting photographic works that appear as sequences of film frames. He is additionally represented in documentation of a broader collaborative project called Field Notes: States of Mind. For Field Notes: States of Mind, Capozzi, with Laura Moriarty, Dylan McManus, Jill Parisi and Lorrie Fredetted embarked on a temporal and spatial exquisite corpse. The group rented a studio at the Barrett Art Center in Poughkeepsie. Each artist spent a week in the space creating an installation, then deinstalling that installation, leaving one element in the space that would the next artist would have to respond to as he/she moved in to create a new installation. The work was orignally executed to be included in the Graphica Creativa 09, a triennial exhibit of print media in Finland. Here at the Dorsky, the project is traced via a video, photographic documentation and a book. Capozzi's blog features some details of the project.
The Field Notes project is the highlight of the show for me conceptually, although there is a lot of strong work.


The photographic documentation of Field Notes: States of Mind - a collaborative project by Bob Capozzi, Lorrie Fredette, Dylan McManus, Laura Moriarty and Jill Parisi.
Conscience, 2008 by Jill Reynolds.

Heather Hutchison's plywood and plexi boxes. The work on the left is No Wind, No Waves, 2006. I didn't catch the title of the diptych on the right.





Simon Draper's interactive Habitat kiosk.Dar Williams will be performing a benefit concert with Nick Panasevich for ecoartspace and the Habitat for Artists project at the McKenna Theater in New Paltz. The McKenna Theater is located on the SUNY New Paltz Campus. The concert takes place on Sat, May 27, 2009 at 7 pm. Tix are $25.oo.


Ryan Roa's No Cares, Many Worries includes trash can palms with a trash bag hammock and monitor of a sunset/colorfield image.




Wayne Montecalvo's video installation TRUCKS, 2008.

A portion of the works by Itty Neuhaus
Franc Palaia's Lead Lot and Chromium.


Emily Putoff uses used motor oil an glass beads to create the imagery in her Twilight 2007-2009
Outside the museum, some scultpure students' art carts or, as the students have named them, clusterfucks or clusterf*cks.

The Dorsky Museum's annual regional invitational opens today in New Paltz. Ecotones and Transition Zones, curated by Brian Wallace examines the relationship between environment and culture. Here's the line up of artists participating in the exhibit which runs through September 6, 2009:

Michael Asbill
Robert Capozzi
Robert Capozzi / Lorrie Fredette / Dylan McManus / Laura Moriarty / Jill Parisi
Ryder Cooley
Dick Crenson
Simon Draper / Habitat for Artists
Dana Duke
Beth Humphrey
Heather Hutchison
Tanya Marcuse
Susan Miiller
Wayne Montecalvo
Itty Neuhaus
Franc Palaia
J. Gilbert Plantinga
Emily Puthoff
Jill Reynolds
Ryan Roa
Camilo Rojas
Thomas Sarrantonio
Ida Weygandt

A free gallery tour will be given tomorrow, June 14 from 2 to 3pm. Tomorrow is also the final day to see the Dorsky's other exhibits: Bradford Graves Selected Works, Analog Catalog: investigating the Permanent Collection, Eva Watson-Schutze Photographer (this show has some stunning portraits.)
Simon Draper's Habitat for Artists is included in the exhibit and will have a presence in the museum, on campus and throughout New Paltz during the run of the exhibit. HFA is seeking proposals from artists interested in working in one of the diminutive studio spaces in public areas around New Paltz for three week periods. visit HFA's blog for contact info.

Call for Artists: Hudson Valley Artists 2009 at the Dorsky Museum, New Paltz. Submission deadline April 17

The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art's annual exhibit of regional artists is coming around again this summer and submissions for consideration are being sought. This year's exhibit will feature work that explores connections between culture and environment.
Museum curator Brian Wallace will select approximately twenty artists/artist teams from the mid-Hudson Valley and organize an exhibition that will feature artwork, information, presentations, activities, and other projects that will connect global issues such as sustainability, ecological awareness, and bioethics to our immediate surroundings. The exhibit Hudson Valley Artists 2009: Ecotones and Transition Zones will be on view from June 13 - Sept. 6, 2009. Submission deadline is April 17. More details can be found at the Dorsky Museum website.

Museum curator Brian Wallace will select approximately twenty artists/artist teams from the mid-Hudson Valley and organize an exhibition that will feature artwork, information, presentations, activities, and other projects that will connect global issues such as sustainability, ecological awareness, and bioethics to our immediate surroundings.

New Paltz is an ecotone, a place where overlapping natural and social ecologies – the river and the mountains, the cosmopolitan and the rural – exist in a fragile tension. The artworks and art historical narratives associated with this region suggest the great opportunities (and responsibilities) that area artists, residents, and visitors have to visualize and act upon opportunities to contribute to a better world.

Key terms: intensive speciation and accelerated mutation; wide margins and slow transitions; thick thresholds and overlapping domains.

GUIDELINES/INFORMATION

The exhibition is open to all emerging and mid-career artists living in Ulster, Dutchess, Orange, Sullivan, Columbia, and Greene Counties who have not yet had a major one-person museum exhibition and who do not have an exclusive contract with a commercial gallery. Students are not eligible. There is no application fee.

Artists are invited to submit a maximum of six images of work created since the beginning of 2006. Traditional media as well as audio, video, film, etc. welcome. Brief proposals (100 words, 1-2 images) for new work, presentations, performances, etc., related to the exhibition are also welcome.

Slides or CDs equally welcome; VHS /DVD cued to a 2 minute sample accepted. For each work, clearly indicate artist’s name, artwork name, date, materials, and dimensions.

The submission package must include image captions, artist’s biography/CV, contact information, and SASE for return of materials. It may not be possible to review incomplete submissions. All materials will be returned.

Artists participating in the exhibition will be responsible for the delivery of selected works to the museum; works must be ready to install (proposed new works will be dealt with upon acceptance). Artists will also be responsible for the return of work at the end of the exhibition.

*One component of the exhibition, Habitat for Artists, will offer temporary studio space in repurposed structures in several locations in New Paltz; if you would like more information as it becomes available, put "HFA" and your contact information, including email, on a separate sheet.

Panel talk on the Floating Foundation of Photography at Dorsky Museum, March 12, 7pm

A view of the Taking a Different Track.....exhibit from Feb 13, 2009
The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in New Paltz will be hosting a panel discussion on March 12 at 7pm. The discussion is titled Taking a Different Track: Maggie Sherwood and the Floating Foundation of Photography and accompanies an exhibit of the same name curated by Beth E. Wilson on view through April 8.
The panel will be moderated by Wilson and will include critic A.D. Coleman, photographers Bob D'alessandro and Eva Rubenstein and Stephen C. Shoen, former education director for the FFP.

The weekend that was..

Friday night: From Left to right, Tom Wolf, Sara Pasti, Beth E. Wilson and Brian Wallace giving acknowledgements for the exhibits at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art.
I did more socializing this week than my hermititious self is equipped to deal with naturally.
The whirlwind started on Friday Evening at the Samuel Dorsky Museum at SUNY New Paltz.

Peter Iannarelli's work at the Dorsky.

Bradford Graves at the Dorsky Museum.

Steve Rossi's gum casting material.
On Saturday afternoon, I was back in the Habitat at Van Brunt Gallery, conversing with Steve Rossi (he has a new website) and watching him cast chewed bubble gum. Later that evening I stopped into Fovea in the middle of a talk given by Anthony Suau whose work is on exhibit. One day earlier, one of Suau's images was named as the World Press Photo of the Year for 2009.
Beacon was very much the global village all day as international types converged on the city for various events like the panel discussion on Burma at Mt Beacon Fine Art. I spoke a bit Isreali born Avner Levinson is exhibiting his sculptures at the Iron Fish Gallery. Go North was awash with Estonians of every shape and size, inlcuding various members of the Estonian Press for Marko Maetamm's opening at the gallery. Here's the Go North tv segment produced by Estonian National Broadcasting.

Avner Levinson's sculpture at Iron Fish Gallery.

Marko Maetamm's opening night at Go North and Erica Hauser's Valentine's Day Cupcake extravaganza just next door.



One of Jill Reynold's pieces at Sunday's opening reception for For the Love of Art in Peekskill.
A crush of people made their way down to the Hat Factory in Peekskill for the opening of For the Love of Art. It was a mob scene for a while, and I saw several of the same folks I saw in the previous two evenings, along with a lot of strangers. A highlight of the reception might have been the band kickin out jazzy intrumental renditions of power pop hits from the Eighties, like Eye of the Tiger and many other favs I can't remember.
I'll be posting more images shortly.....which reminds me, I'm several months behind on updating the flickr page. Everything in due time.

It's a snowflake at the Hudson Fisheries Trust on Saturday night.

Opening receptions at Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in New Paltz, Feb 13, 5-8pm

The Samuel Dorsky Museum in New Paltz will be hosting three opening receptions on Friday, February 13 from 5-8pm. All four exhibits will be on view through June 14.
The exhibits are:
Eva Watson-Schutze: Photographer. Curated by Tom Wolf.
Bradford Graves: Selected Works. Curated by Brian Wallace.
analog catalog: Investigating the Permanent Collection. Organized by SDMA curator Brian Wallace with SUNY New Paltz faculty David Appelbaum (Philosophy), Gregory Bray (Communications and Media), Ann Galperin (Graphic Design), Yoav Kaddar (Theatre), and independent designer and theorist Stuart Henley (Bath, England).

A fourth exhibit, Taking a Different Tack: Maggie Sherwood and the Floating Foundation of Photography, curated by Beth E. Wilson which opened on January 24 and will remain on view through April 8,2009.

Gallery Talk: Denise Markonish at the Dorsky Museum, Sept 4, 7pm

Denise Markonish, MASS MoCA curator and juror for exhibit, Hudson Valley Artists 2008: The Medium is the Message will be taking part in a conversation about her work and her approach to creating the exhibit.
The talk will be held Thursday, September 4, at 7:00 pm in the Chandler Gallery at the Samuel Dorsky Museum in New Paltz, NY. The Medium is the Message will be on view through Sept 7th.

Call for Entries: Samual Dorsky Museum

The annual regional juried exhibit at the Samuel Dorsky Museum is coming around again. The Museum is accepting artist submissions for the Hudson Valley Artists Series 2008: The Medium is the Message. Deadline is April 9. Mass MoCA curator Denise Markonish is the exhibit's juror. Details and submission guidelines can be found at the Dorsky's website.

Openings tonight in Garnerville and at Dorsky Museum

The group exhibition The Society for the Preservation of Artistic Diversity: A Celebration of 4 Years of the Crit Group opens tonight at the GAGA Arts Center in Garnerville, featuring the work of Joanne Howard - Pam Marchin - Chris Randolph - Lynn Stein - Joel Carreiro - Polly King - John Rosis - Jackie Shatz - Laurie Steinhorst. The exhibit runs through May 4, and a reception will be held tonight from 5-8pm.
Here's a map and directions to GAGA.

Also tonight, The Samuel Dorsky Museum at SUNY New Paltz is opening three exhibitions: Beat and Beyond: Photographs by Allen Ginsburg, A Discerning Vision: 25 Photographs from the Collection of Howard Greenberg and Reading Objects 2008.
The three exhibits open this afternoon with a reception from 4-6pm. The Beat and Beyond and A Discerning Vision exhibitions run through June 22 and Reading Objects will run through August 31.

Uncanny Valley opens at Dorsky Museum, June 23

Susan Magnus, Peter Iannaralli, Will Walker and Laura Moriarty are among the artists whose work is included in the Uncanny Valley, at the Samuel Dorsky Museum in New Paltz. There will be an opening reception on June 23 from 6-8pm. The exhibit runs through Sept. 9

Today's POJO has an article on the exhibit.

The Dorsky will be opening several exhibits tomorrow, and there are a few other events scheduled in addition to the reception. Here's the line up:

3pm - Gallery Talk by Interpreting Utopia
co-curators Ariel Shanberg, Executive Director, Woodstock Center for
Photography and Brian Wallace, SDMA Curator.

4pm - Gallery Talk: The Arts and Crafts of Byrdcliffe by
Carla Smith, Executive Director, Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild.

5pm - Performance by exhibiting artists Isabelle
Lumpkin and George Quasha.

Call For Entries: Uncanny Hudson Valley at the Samuel Dorsky Museum

This opportunity comes by way of Sara Pasti:

The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art is pleased to invite
emerging and mid-career artists living in Ulster, Dutchess, Orange, Sullivan,
Columbia, and Greene Counties to submit artwork documentation for this summer's
Hudson Valley Artists 2007: The Uncanny Valley, opening Saturday, June 23 with a
reception from 6 - 8:00 p.m. The exhibition will continue through September
9, 2007.

This year's exhibition takes as its theme the "uncanny” that
sense of unease brought on by contact with an image or thing at once familiar
and strange. Museum curator Brian Wallace will review all work submitted in
response to this call and organize an exhibition of recent artwork from diverse
viewpoints and including a wide range of media that explores psychological,
perceptual, historical, and literary aspects of the uncanny. Wallace
notes, "As I've familiarized myself with work by artists identified with the
region ranging from the anonymous (to us) early residents of the area to
19th-century painter Ralph Albert Blakelock to former resident Gary Hill to
contemporary photographer and Catskill resident Susan Wides (whose work was on
view at the SDMA last fall), I've come to realize that there's something both
strange and strangely familiar about this part of the world and about much of
the artwork made here, whether or not it responds directly to the physical
landscape. I hope my curiosity about this sense of the uncanny resonates with
emerging and established artists in this area: I look forward to the chance to
review documentation of art in all media (photography, painting, video, sound,
installation, sculpture, etc.) submitted in response to this call for
work." Artists are invited to submit documentation of up to six (6)
works created within the past five years: all media painting, photography,
sculpture, installation, printmaking as well as audio, video, digital, film,
etc. The Uncanny Valley is open to professional artists who have not yet had a
major one-person museum show and are not currently represented by a commercial
gallery. Students and employees of SUNY New Paltz are not eligible.
Submission guidelines are in the pdf. documents below or
can be downloaded from the museum's web site at www.newpaltz.edu/museum under
Exhibitions/Future.
The completed application and other materials are due
Tuesday, May 15. Notifications of acceptance will be mailed to artists Friday,
May 25.
For additional information call (845)
257-3844.