Small Talk @ Hudson Beach Glass

An informal panel discussion will be happening at Hudson Beach Glass on Saturday March 12 @ 5 pm.  The talk is being held in conjunction with the exhibit Small, on view now through March 20.  Most of the participating artists; myself, Claire Lofrese, Kazumi Tanaka, Kirsten Kucer, Deb Davidovits, John Allen, Susan Walsh, Greg Slick, Jill Reynolds should be in attendance and the talk will be moderated by exhibition curator Jennifer Mackiewicz. 

Eye Candy Friday: You'll spoil your dinner.

Ms. Rinnhofer's digital photo class at The Harvey School got an assignment this week:

Serve up your Eye Candy Friday for the week.

Ms. Rinnhofer has many talents.  Not the least among these talents is her ability to whip up a delicious and nutritious meal for herself and me, seemingly from thin air.
A certain egg and potato thingy that was last Saturday's lunch sported an uncanny likeness of a human skull.  I simply cut a potato into small pieces for teeth and Voila! a class assignment was born.  The students were charged with making faces with their food and photograph the results - like a table top Archimboldo.  The students then voted on the selections that are included in this post.  Here they are in no particular order. 

Anderson Greenwood

Armando Vazquez

Emily Silk

Emily Silk

James Underwood

Natasha Stein

Shovana Clarke

Maya Sank

My thanks go to the students for willingly contribute their work to this post.  Thanks to their teacher too for such nice lunches.

All Talk All The Time

I have, in recent weeks, been treated to and participated in an awful lot of talking.
Matthew Slaats and I are on the verge of launching our weekly art oriented radio program for Vassar College's radio station, 91.3 WVKR, which will also be available in podcast form.  The Dead Hare Radio Hour (our show) is responsible for a majority of this talkto which I've been privy...and that part for which it has not been responsible, I'm sure it will find a way to usurp in some way.

Here's a little rundown of what I've heard, and what you may end up hearing through the radio show:

Lori Grinker (left) with Sabine Meyer at Fovea

Feb 12 - Stephanie Heimann & Lori Grinker @ Fovea:  Lori Grinker gave a talk relating to her current exhibit of photos of Iraqi refugees at Fovea.  I interviewed both Stephanie and Lori.

Feb 15 - A triple header @ Vassar:  Matthew and I conversed while walking through the 150 years Later exhibit at the Francis Lehman Loeb Art Center.  While there we happened upon, and interviewed,  Katherine Newbegin, whose work, along with Tina Barney and Tim Davis, is featured in the show.  Tina Barney gave a talk on her career.  Ira Glass gave a talk and schooled a standing room only crowd on making radio and crafting compelling narrative (particularly timely for me.)

Feb 16 - Peter Iannarelli and Jill Reynolds came over to Kamp Maykr for sustenance and satisfying conversation as part of Angelika's Hole In The Head "salon" series.

Feb 21 - My first solo DHRH interview via Skype with Carolina Miranda.  A real treat, and a great way to get auger in this new interview based vocation.

Feb 22 - Matthew and I interviewed (also via Skype) Duncan McKenzie of Bad At Sports.  Lots of fun.  Plus, our talk with Duncan  inspired us to create and deploy (out of necessity) our first show "feature" which we'll calling the "Duncan McKenzie Working Blue Profanity To Sound Effect Conversion Chart" - we will be on drive time radio after all.  When needed for reference, the chart will be available on the DHRH site.

Feb 23 - I sat in on a talk at Bard CCS by Debra Singer, outgoing Executive Director of The Kitchen on the topic of archiving performance and art events.  The Kitchen is planning a 40th Anniversary Exhibit of selections of its archive...sometime this Summer.

Angelika and Peter on the couch at last night's talk.

March 2 - Peter Iannarelli and Angelika Rinnhofer spoke as part of a series of talks organized by the Beacon Art Salon at the Beahive.  Aesthetics and meaning in the context of contemporary art was the theme of the talk.....and I imagine I'll find a way of getting audio from that onto the air.

So much for the past, here's a bit of what's coming up:

March 5 @ 11 am - Jill Reynolds is giving a talk in Pawling, NY on her work and the work of other artists who are inspired by and use scientific concepts in their work.  This talk is held in conjunction with Jill being a 2010 DCAC Fellow.

March 12 - Small Talk (4 or 4:30ish).  A table top discussion at Hudson Beach Glass as part of the Small exhibit on view there now.  I'll be participating, and likely trying to record it.

Apr 9 - Fovea will be holding a panel discussion as part of Lori Grinker's exhibit.  Fovea is hoping to raise funds to bring one of the refugees, a young man named Ali, from TX to Beacon for the talk.  They could use some help making this trip happen financially.  If you'd like to assist, please visit the website to find out how to help.

That's it for now.  More is coming up.  I just needed to share this sliver of my last 2 or 3 weeks.  Remember, Dead Hare Radio Hour....coming soon.

James Westwater @ kork

Be sure to check in periodically to the kork blog to catch James Westwater's Evidence Bags which will be rotating on the board through the end of April.

Untitled (Mark Rothko 2), 2011

found items and rubber oval in 

zip closure polyethylene bag, 16 x 12 inches

Eye Candy Friday: Separated at Adolescence

My assistant editor for EFC came across these photographs (via twistedsifter.com) by Irina Werning that reunite her subjects with their younger selves by crafting present day recreations of their childhood photos.  Many of them are very funny and the detail of replication is pretty spectacular in some.

Extending a thread of thought....

So Werning's project is a sort of temporal displacement of twins within a self.  This photo by André Kertész (via the very fine artboobs) projects an expression of the simultaneously conjoining of the self over and over and over again.

Eye Candy Friday: Unprotected Techs

This week's selection comes to us via  Building the Perfect Beast.  Dead Drop is an offline file sharing network created by Aram Bartholl during his residency at Eyebeam in October, 2010.  The street level guerrilla  nature of this form of sharing and communicating is appealing.  I see a whole sci fi analog to the project, one in which a wormhole onto a plane of virtual space(information) can be accessed by the enlightened on an otherwise unremarkable streetscape.
I am given pause, however,  when I consider the prospect of laying bare one's USB port to any cyber sailor looking to dip his wick or some nefarious goodfornothing out for a cheap thrill who could, intentionally or not, give your computer scabies.
On the other hand, as the Bad Idea Jeans commercial says,  "....But then I thought, when am I going to make it back to Haiti."


Dead Drops 'How to' - NYC from aram bartholl on Vimeo.

Eye Candy Friday: Film-Strip Tease

Here is your moment of....Winter? For those not getting enough...
Angelika is working on a project part of which, since September, entails hanging strips of developed 35mm film from any vertical structure available in the yard.
This here footage was filmed in January on a day after yet another accumulation of snow and the wind was gently but persistently teasing image laden streamers..
The background audio is a podcast I was listening to at that moment of a talk by Pete Favat for the SVA Designer As Author Series.
Just so you know, this video is about 15 mins. long - and nothing really happens in it.  Enjoy.

Eye Candy Friday: Refined Sweetness

Ok. I've been vacillating over how I want to proceed with maykr over the past year or so, and I think I'm close to figuring it out - which will hopefully be taking shape over the not to distant future. What I can say now is that I am fully committing myself to reinstate Eye Candy Fridays.

This is Friday.  This is your Candy:

Up this week is the new Google Art Project which is a site that culls selections of works from 17 art museums from around the world. The site brings the google street view technology to bear on certain galleries and halls of some of the finest galleries out there.

There's never a substitute for viewing artwork in person, but this project goes along way in bringing the ambiance of some of these galleries home if you can't make to the actual locations. These works are seen in context with their neighbors.  Trolling through the galleries evoke a semblance of the experience of travelling through the physical spaces.  There are some galleries in the Met's section which are jarringly washed out, otherwise the quality of image is fairly decent.  I'm digging sitting here on the sofa, traipsing around the galleries of the Gemäldegalerie seeking out a few of the paintings that struck me when I was there the Summer before last.

I certainly don't need an excuse to be on the computer for any longer than I do already, but it can be rewarding time, as long as you're there. I expect to use the art project for my own research....which may well end up in some form in my work down the road.

I also expect the website will be informing future ECFs.

Meet yer Maykr: Marc Willhite

Buddy and collaborator of mine, Marc Willhite, will be kicking off the 2011 exhibition schedule at Ironton in Denver on January 14 with an exhibit of new work entitled Soft Descriptions which will run through February 19.

I snapped some photos on my visit to Marc's studio back in November 2009. I returned again in August of this year when I was able to see some candidates for the Soft Descriptions show in their nascent state.

work table

Over the years, I've looked at Marc as a metric against which I've measured my own development.
Marc and I met in our Freshman year of college. We had a drawing class together. Out paths diverted when I left college after Sophomore year.  He finished and went on to get his MFA while I did what I did - which was bot get an MFA.  Or a BFA for that matter.  We met up again a few years after college.  Though our approaches and experiences had evolved differently, a root commonality we shared from those early days allowed each of us to serve as a calibrated voice of critique for the work of the other.  I think this quality in our interactions has continued lo these many years.  The differences in process/practice we exhibit are clear indications of the divergence of our developmental experiences .  Marc is more conceptually and intellectually grounded than am I.  I get the ideas (eventually,) and I can get excited about them, but my response always comes, initially, viscerally.  (If my gizzard could read and reason, I could be unstoppable.) That said, his work at its base is also driven by intuition and it's often inventive.

pattern, color form.

a couple of works on canvas

Marc now has a website of his work at marcwillhite.com

In 2007 Marc and I collaborated to create the In the Spirit of the Text exhibit at the Curtis Arts and Humanities Center in Greenwood Village, CO.

In 2008 Marc had an exhibit at Pirate in Denver.  I posted some exhibition installation shots here.

In 2009 Marc created a work for kork in Poughkeepsie, NY.

In the foreground, you can see Marc's Dec 13th contribution to the 2009 kork Advent project.

collages on interior shots from magazines

Drape, 2005, scotch tape. at Echo

Marc's contribution to the 2005 installment of the Windows on Main St. Exhibit here in Beacon, NY

 Shots from 2010 studio visit:

mylar tape on wall

susan sontag

Here's the press release for the exhibit:

“Soft Descriptions” is Marc Willhiteʼs first solo exhibition at Ironton Studios. The work in
the exhibit is text-based and features a wide range of materials including etched glass,
neon, translucent push pins, oil on linen, latex on panel, ink jet prints, spray paint on
paper and direct carving into the gallery walls. The scale of the work varies from
discreet works of sixteen square inches to floor-to-ceiling, wall-size installation. It is a
formal exploration of the ways words exist, particularly in relation to how we visualize
and use them: a collection of textual depictions, “portraits” of words, terms and phrases.

The work for this exhibition is primarily rooted in Willhiteʼs interest in language. From
the artistʼs statement:

“Language is not so absurd, though our use of it often is. We are regularly
constructing realities incongruent with our experience. This project embraces this
characteristic aspect of our use of language (along with the reality that words are
subject to misunderstandings and misconceptions) and explores the arbitrary nature,
excessive possibilities and inevitable shortcomings of textual description.”

Willhite is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in Denver, CO. He has an MFA in
painting and drawing and an art history minor from the University of Minnesota, Twin-
Cities and a BFA from Colorado State University with a double concentration in painting
and drawing. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, been included in various
publications and maintains a collaborative practice with several artists working around
the U.S.

Personal Democracy Forum Panel on WikiLeaks, 12/11/10 12 pm

pdfleaks on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Meet yer Maykr: Lauri Lynnxe Murphy

Lauri Lynnxe Murphy has been a staple in the Denver art scene for some twenty years.  She's had her finger as a member/and or founder of a number of artist initiate groups and venues throughout the city.  Lauri is preparing for a change as she is shipping of to Ohio later in the year to embark on the MFA adventure.  In preparation for this pending event, LLM is holding an all out clearing sale this weekend in the wonder emporium she calls a studio.While in Denver last November, I stopped into the Curtis Park garage to pick up her kork advent contribution (Dec 3.) (Previously, in July of last year, LLM cultivated a heretofore unknown life form on the board of
Below are images from my brief studio visit:

 The space is pretty enormous, and although it has been shared among (three people, I think) there's no doubt that LLM's projects take up the bulk of the space.  The density of materiel and the breadth of projects made this joint feel particularly homey for me.

I likes me that herringbone pattern - in whatever form it takes.

I think this is when, overwhelmed, I started getting dizzy.

Several days prior to my studio visit,  LLM had an opening at Plastic Chapel which I was able to take in, accompanied, by chance, by fellow Beacon (and kork) artist, Elia Gurna.  The exhibit consisted of a menage of wall mounted roccoco wormlike tubers that had a very rococco quality.

On Colfax, a walking version of an LLM work in the micro blizzard that greeted us on leaving the show.

Lauri is currently organizing and curating the exhibit Objectophilia which is opening on June 30, 2010 and is part of the Biennial of the Americas being held in Denver during the month of July.

Calls for Artists: The Big Draw + WOMS 2010

First, The Big Draw: a fundraising drawing extravaganza for the Beacon Open Studios 2010.  The Big Draw will be a drawing marathon, party and live auction.  A handful of exquisite corpse drawings created by notable Beaconites will be auctioned off and a broad wide selection of 6"x8" 2D works will be available for $40 each.  Artists will be on hand drawing throughout the evening.
Deadline for submitting 6"x8" works for thee event is May 23.  Artists whose 6x8's are sold will  receive 50% ($20) of the purchase price.
Artists will also be on hand creating drawings throughout the evening.  If you are interested in drawing during the event, or submitting a piece, check out the submission info & form  
This event is not restricted to Beacon artists.  Anyone from anywhere are invited to submit work.

Remember, Beacon Open Studios is taking place on Sept. 25 & 26.  Artists interested in participating can sign up for the low low price of $20 until June 5th at which point the fee will rise.
I can tell you that both members of the maykr household will be participating this year...since one of us will have just finished her MFA, and last year's installment was so successful.

Next, Windows on Main St is coming back for its sixth year.

Deadline for project proposal submissions is July 1.  As I understand it Ty Marshal has handed over his share of the reigns to Katy Peace, but  Melissa Tatge is still involved in the inner workings.  The exhibit will be taking place from August 14 to September 11.

Creative Process Dialogue at the Beacon Institute, April 8, 4pm.

I'll be moderating a talk with artists Erica Hauser and Ian Wickstead tomorrow at 4pm at the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries.  The talk is part of a series accompanying the exhibit curated by Linda Stewart, Water, Water, Everywhere. 
The Beacon Institute is located at 199 Main St in Beacon.  The next Creative Process Dialogue is scheduled for Sept 18 featuring Peter Brauch & Shawn Snow and will be moderated by Carl Van Brunt.

As the kork turns...

There are yet a few moments left this weekend to engage in a bit of remote viewing of Matthew Hereford's kork project, Highland Path, while it is still on the wall in Poughkeepsie.

Up next on kork:   Unfolding the mind of Robert Lomblad.

Eye Candy Friday: It takes two, baby.

It's been a long while since I posted an ECF post, but this Vernissage TV vid of the opening of this John Wood and Paul Harrison exhibit at Von Bartha Garage in Basel CH tickled me, so rejoice and have a good weekend.

Remarks by Ron Haviv on Haiti Jan 12, 2010 at Fovea via Adrian Eisenhower

Adrian Eisenhower's short video about Fovea includes a few moments of Ron Haviv's remarks from April 10, 2010 on his experience in Haiti immediately following the earthquake in January. Haviv's Haiti photographs will be on view at Fovea through June 10, 2010.  A limited edition book/box of 16 photos of photos by Haviv has been created to raise funds for relief efforts.

This video, other short documentaries and other projects can be found at Adrian's blog On People, places and process.

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.

The Age of Exploration: Up River, April 2-5, 2010

A homemade, two person, tide and paddle powered vessel is scheduled to set off today on the Hudson River at Tivoli, NY and head north to the Troy dam.  On board the vessel will be artist Marie Lorenz and curator Diana Stevenson as a project by Lorenz called Up River and represents Stevenson's thesis which is part of the Spring line up of Bard Curatorial Studies Thesis Exhibitions.  A new round of graduate exhibitions open on Sunday, April 11 from 1-4pm.
Between today and April 5, the pair will be posting photos taken along the exploration on an hourly basis.  One can subscribe to the trips rss feed plugging into one's url:  http://www.marielorenz.com/inprogress/?cat=25&feed=rss2 , into your feed reader.  One may also choose to follow along on the Up River page of the artist's website.  There is also a facebook fan page for the project.
This project is a more subdued and, I expect, precise endeavor than Swoon's Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea which barrelled down the river in 2008.
The duo will give a lecture and slide show on the expedition on May 6, 2010 at 7:30 at the Tivoli Town Hall in Tivoli, NY.

Nava Atlas at Abecedarian Gallery in Denver, April 3

The work of New Paltz artist, Nava Atlas is included in a three person traveling exhibit called In Retrospect: Artists' Books and Works on Paper.  The exhibit will open at the Abecedarian Gallery in Denver on April 1 and run through May 8 .  The opening reception will be held on April 3 from 6-8 pm.  Nava will be in Denver to give a presentation at the gallery 5 pm, prior to the opening reception.  The gallery is located at 910 Santa Fe

Nava will also have work included in The Edge of Art: New York State Artist Series at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse NY from Apr 17- July 11. 

Kork: Matthew Hereford, through April 30, 2010

As if unwilling to relent to the very notion of spring and vivacity it embodies, Mother Nature delayed by several days the installation of Matthew Hereford's installation at kork earlier this month.  "Highland Path" is testament to the coming of a new season. 
The work is a sort of visual onomonopoeia.  It is what it looks like.and it looks like something real.  And it is real; real components are playing themselves as if in a walk on roll in a sitcom in the formation of a fictionalized representation of a view of itself, of nature.
The scale is a little disorienting.  This is a God's POV and  the size relationships between elements and composition engender a frenetic blurring and refocusing of the eye as it works to discern what is in the fore and what is receding.  It's this constrained view finder onto a distant pastoral scene lends the entire kork board a sense of receding.  Even as the work itself is a dimensional and additive amalgam of collaged elements, the work as a whole functions as a negative; a removal of the constructed office interior to reveal that natural scene through or within the wall mounted portal.
 

The components of Highland Path were collected during the many walks Matthew takes in the Hudson Highlands. 
Maybe it's just me, but the more I look at this work, the more I get the sense  of time and space folding in on itself over and over again.

Matthew Hereford's work will remain on view through April 30, 2010.