MixedMedia

MixedMedia is all about appropriation – the process of selecting, manipulating, integrating “found” works into new arrangement, compositions. So when I came across the Walker Art Center + Soap Factory = Festival of Appropriation, I was intrigued!

On Thursday November 29, Walker Art Center will host a film collage presentation and Circuit Bending Workshop with Beatrix*JAR (Free Admission, both events)… The exhibition will remain on display throughout the month of November. There are a bunch of great artists participating – take a quick tour:

Andy DuCett, Kyle Fokken, John Grider, Erik T. Ritter, Chad Rutter, Ian Sorlie, Scott Stulen, Michael Thomsen, Asia Ward, Greg Carr, Eric William Carroll, Greg Gossel, Brant Kingman, Suzanne Kosmalski,Cory McNally, Coleman Miller, Mari Richards, Sheryl Tuorila.

I’m writing from the road in DC, so I’m going to be lame and just post this press release my guru-friend Richard Dana passed along while we gnoshed on pomme fritz at the Bistro du Coin in Washington, DC last night. Short is, he’s got a piece in a group show called “Presence” at (get this!) the Center for Modern Psycholanalytic Studies in the Village this month. I’m going to try and “be there” for the opening Sunday night with Dennis Kimambo – maybe you will too!

The show will include more than forty works in painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography by fifteen emerging and established artists.

The exhibition will be held from Monday October 22 through Friday, November 30, 2007 . A catalog is available online: http://www.cmps.edu/news_events/art_exhibition.html

The first in our new series of art exhibitions and screenings, this show will explore the sense of psychic presence in art. It was curated by internationally recognized artist Kenneth Feingold, who writes about the concept of the show, “The human figure, in one way or another, has been a focus of art from its beginnings; but rather than examining the figure
itself, here we look to focus attention on the ways in which the artists’ representations evoke familiar aspects of the interiority of the person and are able to evoke certain affective responses in the viewer. In particular, this group of works produces feelings in me that might be described as disquiet, a form of anxiety along the boundary of absence/presence, as if a sense of the presence of something which is absent or the absence of something which is present. “

“Presence” will include more than forty works by fifteen artists in a wide variety of media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography.

Here’s what they say about Richard (and its all true!):

He’s “an artist, independent curator and arts administrator based in Washington, DC. His work has been exhibited extensively regionally, nationally and internationally. Mr. Dana has had over 18 solo exhibitions and participated in over 60 group exhibitions. Selected exhibitions in the United States include the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), the Drawing Center (New York, NY), Tribes Gallery (New York, NY), the International Monetary Fund (Washington, DC), and the Washington Project for the Arts (Washington, DC). Internationally Mr. Dana has exhibited in Belgium, Brazil, Egypt, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Taiwan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. The artist is self-taught. He has a BA in Russian Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MA in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Before dedicating his life to art, Mr. Dana worked as a Soviet Affairs expert and international economist in Washington, DC.” Check him out at www.rdanaartist.com

Writing artist statements and coming up with clever titles for works is probably the least pleasant aspect of promoting one’s work and sense of purpose as an artist. You gotta be somebody; the works need context. Well, I tend to like to create an “atmosphere” with a body of work – something palpable, a space that exudes personality and meaning as the viewer encounters a collection of works. This is the hardest part about most *group* shows: they fail in their coherence. Artistic statements seem like an effort to overcome this incoherence. I hope to be able, one day, to dispense with the artist’s statement and look forward to the works standing on their own…

For now, here is what I’ve drafted…

In the Entrance
The works in this room are collages produced during “Peace Tiles” workshops in 2007. Peace Tiles are intimate mixed media works (paint, glue, crayon, etc) on wood panel that explore personal stories related to a shared theme. When combined, Peace Tiles produce vibrant murals that reflect the bonds we share through experience – unique and individual, and yet each one a part of “the whole.”

The tiles here were made by participants ranging in age from 15 to 60, spanning the world from Morocco to Senegal to Cabot. Known Peace Tiles murals have been exhibited or permanently installed in India, Switzerland, Los Angeles, South Africa, North Carolina, Senegal, Michigan, Louisiana, Lesotho, and British Columbia.

Since 2005 the Global Peace Tiles Project has been used to engage more than 2,500 young people around the world on issues affecting their lives. These include global HIV/AIDS and children in conflict. Depending on their purpose, workshops are structured to emphasize the creative/self-expressive, educational, self-advocacy, and therapeutic qualities of creative dialogue.

To learn more about the Global Peace Tiles Project or to get involved, please visit www.peacetiles.net.

About the Artist
The works on display in the dining room deal with archetypes, time, and narrative. Not that I’ve been obsessing over this lately but as I settle into my 30’s and I watch people I am bound to age, the idea that we are all these fleeting collections of rich experience and stories, the mythical qualities the “cycle” become more compelling to me. The works of “mystic” artists like Joseph Beuys, James Turrell, and even Andy Goldsworthy take on new meaning. Simple, enduring objects – particularly those produced by nature – become alternately whimsical and fetishistic fascinations. In many ways, the works here are also simple technical studies in texture and color.

I’ve been working in collage and mixed media for over 20 years. Right now I’m infatuated with the idea of “reinventing” collage by achieving more painterly qualities with the technique. In the past I have experimented with installation works and sound. Some of my work has been on limited exhibition in Washington, DC, the Dakar bienale in Senegal, and Egypt. I’ve studied at the University of Southern California, the Corcoran School of Art and the School for International Training. I blog (right here!) at www.mixedmedia.us.

This week Peace Tiles is represented at DesignMai2007 in Berlin through the generous efforts of the folks at socialdesignsite. Peace Tiles has a nice link from their home page and a lovely description within their profiles.

Just back from a wonderful two nights in Montréal where the wash of history, art, and commerce never ceases to reinvigorate my satisfaction with Canada. Of course, coming from a Vermonter, that might not sound so special: what expectations of culture can one hold for the least significant state in the Union? Quips aside, Montréal is a vibrant city on the rebound. Buildings going up everywhere, renewal in the old port section since the nuns started selling off bits of real estate, McGill, UQAM and Concordia attracting young talent across disciplines, the museums awash in cash … the reasons are many!

We opted to try out the Hotel Godin over the Hotel Gault, where we have stayed in the past, and overall were disappointed at the price-to-attention-to-detail ratio, but couldn’t have been happier with the location (around the corner from the Quartier Latin and just up the road from the McCord Museum) and the folks who work there. I don’t have tons of time to write just now, so here are some MM highlights:

• Charles Gagnon at the MCM
• Henry Saxe at the MCM
• Jon Todd had some compelling collage work at Saint Dizier
• Gary Taxali had some cool decks at Galerie Saint Dizier
• Joan Dumouchel had some interesting figurative work at Galerie Saint Dizier
• Dominic Besner showing dynamic, scarred works also at Saint Dizier
• Hamilton Aguiar had a few glowing and austere works on wood at Yves Laroche Galerie

And of course there are the current works on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art – more about those after I’ve slept a little more