a sample of recently published text:
“I am interested in monuments as a kind of urban decoration,” says Mark Alice Durant, guest curator for the Baltimore Museum of Art’s experimental rotating exhibition space, Front Room. Durant’s exhibition, “Notes on Monumentality,” features the work of twenty-two artists spanning various media and time periods, two-thirds of which were plucked directly from the vaults of the BMA’s permanent collection. “It was a great opportunity to present works trans-historically,” says Durant, “so we can see how attitudes towards the monumental shift and change depending on the culture’s attitude towards its history.” Baltimore artist Deirtra Thompson’s video Monument features grainy black-and-white footage of cheerleaders. Only one minute in length and playing on a loop, the video shows members of the squad lifted into the air over and over again in an endless choreographed routine that becomes, as Durant puts it, “everything that a monument is not—ephemeral, flickering, and insubstantial.” Thompson’s video from 2006 is juxtaposed with more historical and literal odes to the monument, as in Philip Galle’s fanciful 16th century engravings of ancient statuary. On view until May 25, “Notes on Monumentality” re-contextualizes notions of the monument, a nice complement to the nickname John Quincy Adams bestowed upon Baltimore—“the Monumental City.” If you’re looking for an edgier urban decoration, don’t miss the BMA’s special event “Baltimore Ink: Patterns on Bodies,” presented in conjunction with the last installment of “Meditations on African Art: Pattern.” “We wanted to tie the historical perspective of patterning on the body with one that was contemporary,” says BMA deputy director of education Anne Manning, who helped organize the Baltimore Ink event. On the evening of May 31, tattoo artists, authors, and the editor of Skin & Ink magazine will lead a discussion on tattoo culture, culminating in a runway show and after-party that will be sure to shed new light on the role of body adornment and pattern in contemporary society.
With subtle tweaks of light, cleverly selected hues, and simple gestures, the three artists featured in Double-Take: The Poetics of Illusion and Light toy with the viewer’s perception. Curated by the Contemporary Museum’s executive director, Irene Hofmann, the exhibition explores how slight visual shifts can create multilayered experiences. A spinning wire sphere hanging from the ceiling confronts the viewer upon entering the exhibition. Made by Alexandra A. Grant, the wire comprising the large sculpture, Nimbus II, is meticulously twisted and shaped into words from Nimbus, a hypertext poem by Michael Joyce. Lit with theater lights, the sculpted words are projected as shadows that flicker against the walls. Mary Temple also plays with shadows. At first glance, a section of the museum appears to be bathed in late-afternoon sunlight streaming through a plant-filled window. It takes a few moments to realize that there is no window—this is Temple’s piece Southwest Corner, Northeast Light. The shadows are actually painted on the wall, yet a sense of calmness pervades, as if the viewer could soak up the tromp l’oeil sunlight. The work of Baltimore-based artist Bernhard Hildebrandt reconfigures art history concepts. In his film Un-erased de Kooning Drawing, sections of a de Kooning drawing that Robert Rauschenberg famously erased in 1953 are digitally restored. In his Untitled works, a white or black enamel painting is displayed next to a photograph of the same painting, creating a tautological reference to 1960s conceptual art. By juxtaposing representation with reality, Hildebrant asks the viewer to contemplate perception as it relates to genuine and fabricated experience—a theme that emerges from this innovative exhibit as a whole |
Locus Issue 4 March 2008 locusartmagazine.org Language Never Stops
A neon blue sign that reads, "THIS IS NOT KOSUTH," hangs at the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, MD in the exhibit, Double-Take: The Poetics of Illusion and Light. This Untitled piece by artist Bernhard Hildebrandt was made in 2007, but references 1965 — a time when art was undergoing a transformation from the materiality of minimalism to the symbolism of conceptual art. Hildebrandt's piece, made of capitalized blue neon letters, mimics a piece by Joseph Kosuth from 1965, made using similar blue neon letters. Part of the conceptual art movement of the mid 60s, Kosuth believed language was the only neutral medium that would enable him to present "true" ideas in his artwork, stating that art's existence as a tautology was the only way it could remain aloof from philosophical, subjective, and aesthetic presumptions. One of Kosuth's most well known pieces that resulted from his statements was a neon blue sign that reads, "FIVE WORDS IN BLUE NEON." Alexander Alberro, "Art Without Space," in ed. Lawrence Weiner (London: Phaidon, 1998), 98, reprinted in Jarrett Gregory, "Whitney Museum of American Art, Lawrence Weiner: AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE," (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2007). Joseph Kosuth, Art After Philosophy and After: Collected Writings, 1966 - 1990. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991). Melvin Bragg, The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language. (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2003). |
WACK! read review at radarredux.com
|
| Urbanite: for Baltimore's Curious Recommended ART August 2007 Featured in the Black Box Theater at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden are three short videos featuring psychedelic mash-ups by New York-based artist Takeshi Murata. Cone Eater calls to mind rainbow-colored video games—if they morphed into a pixilated screen saver from hell. Monster Movie features a Chewbacca-like yeti, whose image transforms into fluid color—as if Murata used a digitized paintbrush to mix pixels directly on the screen. Lastly, in Untitled (Pink Dot), a mini Sylvester Stallone from Rambo points his machine gun at a pulsating neon pink dot, causing it to disintegrate into a liquid blur. Showing that even technology can lend itself to expressive art forms, Murata’s intricate videos will draw in the viewer with their hypnotizing swirls. |
| Locus Issue 3 June 2007 locusartmagazine.org Rebecca Nagle In the Baltimore Museum of Art's 2005 exhibition, Work Ethic, Austrian artist Erwin Wurm contributed a set of objects with accompanying instructions such as, "press your body against 6 oranges to secure then to the wall." I remember trying this "One Minute Sculpture" and being contorted for a moment against the wall of the museum with plastic oranges against my chest, stomach, arms, and thighs. Like Wurm, MICA student, Rebecca Nagle uses objects to push the boundaries of personal comfort zones to directly engage her viewers in an unspoken, awkward relationship. The catch, she accomplishes this without any physical interaction between audience and object. With "Face to Stomach," part of Nagle's "Body Connections" series, she creates a plaster mold that represents the negative space between an individual's stomach and another individual's face. Intended only to serve as a "how-to guide," Nagle includes a diagram with each of her pieces to show viewers how each plaster object can be used to fulfill its role as an unexpected connector between two figures. The diagram shows a figure standing up straight with the rectangular-shaped mold strapped to their belly. The standing figure faces another figure, who is on their knees, and shown with their face pressed against the mold. Compared to the standing figure, the figure on their knees is in an uncomfortable, almost sexually submissive pose, with only a small object separating their face from another person's belly and pelvic region. This pose that is suggested for two figures, when executed, physically becomes a temporary sculpture. However, the process in which these two individuals go about to achieve the temporary sculpture calls to mind a deeper psychological game. Nagle purposefully has one figure assume a passive position, the kneeling figure, and the other figure assume a more natural and dominant position. If these diagrams were carried out, a relationship built upon hierarchical tension would develop between two strangers or two close friends, as each decides who kneels and who stands. In actuality, Nagle's plaster pieces are too bulky and heavy for individuals to use to perform her "call to actions." On their own, without the explanation of a diagram, the pieces resemble unidentifiable portions of a larger form or body. Seemingly cut from a mannequin, these eerie, slightly off-white sculptures are incomplete puzzle pieces in need of another abstracted form to become a whole. The whole, in this case, is the implied negative space created by each plaster form, set in the shape of a stomach, face, thigh, back, or head. Consequently, the only way one of Nagle's "Body Connections" pieces can be complete is in the imagination of the viewer. By showing the viewer a fictional diagram and then requiring them to hypothetically act out the pieces in their minds, an invisible anxiety quickly builds between the viewer and the object. As the viewer starts to picture oneself carrying out the diagramed pose, he or she begins to form an unexpected relationship -- empathizing with an inanimate object. Nagle's "Body Connections" series has an un-assumed power over the viewer, enticing thoughts on temporary sculptures, ephemeral moments, unforeseen interactions and relationships, and holding the potential to connect two individuals in an awkward, symbiotic moment entirely within their own minds. Perhaps Wurm could have included a "do not touch" sign with his installation. |
Women artists have a history of using repetition in their work to investigate the outcome of combining tedious gestures with an obsessive array of materials. For example, Anne Hamilton's performances incorporate repetitive mark-making, Janine Antoni ritualistically licks and gnaws at slabs of chocolate, and photographer Sandy Skoglund creates fanatically detailed environments by gluing snack food to her subjects. These artists, along with their younger contemporary counterparts, create intricate sculptures and paintings that directly address feminist history, personal identity, and cultural backgrounds to examine the conditions and expectations evident in society. A recurring gesture can be as simple as twisting a piece of newspaper over and over again. For Maren Hassinger, this twisting motion is a predominant part of her installation works and is innately a part of her life as well. After giving birth, she became aware of twisted formations such as the bends in her umbilical chord and began associating her simple twisting gestures with that of a maternal figure worrying about her child. The twisting of newspapers thus became foremost a rhythmic gesture that could calm her when she was distraught. Another reason behind her focus on repeated knotting is her racial background. The hair of an African American woman is historically shown braided, dread-locked, or wrapped as a means of control. Keeping one's hair tame and regimented harkens back to Hassinger's limited childhood, when she was not allowed to dance or truly express herself as she is now able to through her art. The act of hair braiding is mimicked when Hassinger twists countless newspaper shreds. Her large newspaper installations confront race and class status as it relates to stereotyped images of women's hair. Twisting newspaper repetitively is also a means for Hassinger to use a subtle gesture to transform literal written culture, in this case the New York Times, into an ephemeral, poetic form. Unlike Hassinger, who focuses on gesture in her artwork, Maria Karametou concentrates on making sculptures that incorporate repeated synthetic objects - bobby pins and hair. By creating these obsessive sculptures, Karametou is referring directly to her Greek background, where flawless images of gods and goddesses populate historic beauty ideals. Her bobby pin pieces align multiple rows of pins, all in the same color, to form a large grid, evocative of textiles created in the Byzantine era. Karametou deals exclusively with Caucasian hair accessories -- using only brunette colored pins and hair. This is a means to mirror media's portrayal of Westernized beauty as the predominant social and cultural influence. These material objects that only enhance beauty, bring up the ever-shifting image women have with their bodies as it relates to the pre-conceived Westernized model. Every bobby pin she tediously glues down and every strand of hair she carefully places becomes a ritualistic metaphor for every woman who repeatedly brushes or pins her hair on a daily basis. Thus, not only does her use of hair materials relate to beauty rituals that are passed down from older generations and the media, she is also using her repeated materials as a means to reveal a very controlled and idealized vision of beauty, one that is evident in many constructs of society. Mary Walker and Breon Gilleran both have a background in sculpting with solid 3D materials, but incorporate textiles as supplementary materials into their work. Walker applies paint to wallpaper and upholstery, then stamps the wet paint onto her canvases. She combines these stamped layers of paint with grids, flower stencils, block letters, and squares, forming final compositions that resemble rich textural fabrics inspired by nature. Gilleran embroiders silk thread on linen in the shape of shadows from her steel sculptures. The final pieces resemble handkerchiefs, infused with a delicate DNA-helix-like pattern. Both women turn to small repeated gestures, Walker stamping and Gilleran stitching, because of its accessibility. The daily-ness of handling textiles and embroidery needles relates to a historical image of women performing household tasks. Instead of falling prey to feminine stereotypes however, Walker uses repeated stamping to infuse her paintings with patterns that mimic the natural environment while Gilleran's repeated stitching projects are another medium for documenting the organic shadows of her sculptures. Thus, although Walker and Gilleran both retain ritualistic domestic qualities while working with textiles, they both consider the slow process of stamping and embroidering a calming alternative to arranging heavy building materials and forging steel rods. All four artists have different approaches to how repetition is used in their work, but the unifying point in all their pieces lies in the consideration of social commentary and personal identities, especially in connection to contemporary female experience. Hassinger repeats the gesture of twisting a strip of newspaper, alluding to the natural world and her maternal anxieties. Karamatou repeatedly uses bobby pins and fake hair strands to create labor intensive sculptures commenting on stereotypical notions of beauty. Walker and Gilleran turn to working with textiles as a peaceful transition from handling 3D objects. By starting out small and using simple, repeated gestures, Hassinger, Karamatou, Walker and Gilleran are able to twist, glue, stamp, and stitch objects in a way that examines cultural significance on a larger scale. |
Urbanite: for Baltimore's Curious Recommended ART March 2007 Paper dolls are generally known as fun caricatures with trendy clothes. But for Arabella Grayson, they are an important source of history. From Aunt Jemima to Beyoncé, more than one hundred black paper dolls from her collection are now on display at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum in the exhibit Two Hundred Years of Black Paper Dolls: The Collection of Arabella Grayson. Dolls from the late 1800s depict black men in tribal clothing and “untamable” black women with crazy hair, dark skin, and brightly painted lips. Early-twentieth- century mammies stand by in unchangeable servant’s clothes, ready to help white girl dolls change into several outfits. Paper doll publishers began to issue dolls of influential black figures in the 1960s and again in the 1980s. But even today there are flukes that remind us of our not-so-distant past: The only black American Girl paper doll is a former slave. The snapshots provided by Grayson’s collection chronicle social and cultural shifts, revealing that although some progress has been made, stereotypes are still alive and well, sometimes held in place by an innocent set of dotted lines. |
Oliver Herring TASK Public Performance on Hirshhorn Plaza Saturday, April 29, 2006 |