Two of Bowen’s kinetic sculptures, Fly Lights and Tele-Present Wind, are currently on view at Redux. Fly Lights, an orb containing house flies, is suspended from the ceiling in Redux’s first gallery. Encircling the sphere are spotlights aimed at the eye level of the viewer. The movement of the flies triggers the ring of spotlights to flash. Tele-Present Wind, located in Redux’s main gallery, consists of forty two dried plant stalks, each affixed to an electronic base. Part of the work is installed in the artist’s home state of Minnesota.

During the installation of drift, I stopped by Redux to ask Bowen a few questions about the works he was exhibiting in Charleston.

Rebekah Drysdale: The main components of Tele-Present Wind are installed in the gallery at Redux. Describe the off-site component to this piece.

David Bowen: This plant is called tansy, it’s an invasive species in Minnesota, and there is a single stalk, just like this one, in Duluth, Minnesota. It is blowing around in the wind as we speak. At the base of this tansy stalk, there is a device called an accelerometer, which measures x/y tilt. There’s actually one in the iPhone. [My recording device.] The plant stalk is blown around by the wind, which causes the accelerometer to tilt, and the tilt data is collected by a computer on the Minnesota side, and then sent to these devices in the gallery in South Carolina, in real time. The gallery installation is a recreation of the physical effects of the wind in Minnesota.

RD:  Tell me more about Fly Lights. Where do you derive your fly population?

DB: You can get anything on the internet. At Spider Pharm, Inc., you can get five grams of house fly pupae for five dollars. These flies were born in Arizona, came to Minnesota, and then I shipped them down here to South Carolina. These are some well-travelled flies. The idea here is that the subtle movements of the flies are being projected onto our scale. It is rather confrontational, the lights project into our space. These flies will live for about forty days. It takes a certain quantity of them to create the activity of the lights. If there weren’t as many of them, the lights wouldn’t be going off as frequently as they are. But they will die, and that’s part of the piece. As they die, the piece will start to atrophy.

A lot of this work is about contrast. I use natural and mechanical systems. As I work with both of these systems, what I continue to find more interesting is the unpredictable things that happen. Flies can behave in fairly predictable ways, whereas machines and robots, which you would associate with behaving in systematic, predictable ways, can have an unpredictable nature.

RD: Art has long been oriented towards the object, with an increasing awareness of process. In your work, object and process are thoroughly integrated. How do you begin a piece?

Bowen's Fly Lights installed at Redux

DB: Technology is becoming very accessible, and a lot of this stuff is DIY. I’m not really inventing anything new here, I’m just appropriating things like accelerometers, or ink jet printers, or light sensors, etc., to accomplish an end result. When I first started working with art and technology, I would get really excited about a particular sensor or a particular circuit board that I could plug into my micro controller and make it spit out ink. I would think, “that’s a cool thing, there has got to be a piece I can make around that.”

With these more recent works, I’m thinking more about the idea. I think, “I would like to create something that recreates the physical movements of the wind in the gallery space.” Then I just pull from a tool box or tool set.

RD: What are you working on now?

My most recent project is Tele-Present Water. It’s a wave form, and I have one going right now at Esther Klein Gallery in Philadelphia. It’s a very small undulating wave that pulls data from a NOAA data buoy in the Pacific Ocean. These data buoys are all over the world.

RD: How did you access the buoy’s data?

DB: Anybody can access it. You just get onto NOAA and pull data off of these buoys. You can get wind speed, wind direction, water temperature, outside temperature, surface depth, but you can also get wave height and wave frequency. I’m using that data in real time to articulate a sculpture that is, as we speak, undulating up and down in the gallery space in Philadelphia. It’s based on what’s accessible. It’s really amazing that artists, and I think there are a lot of us now, such as Aaron Koblin and Chris Jordan, are finding ways to use available data collections in their pieces. Due to the accessibility of the web, there is an ease in transmitting and finding data. Things like this weren’t possible ten or fifteen years ago.

RD: You have been selected for The Arctic Circle 2011 Residency. Tell me more about what that opportunity entails.

DB: It’s an ice class vessel that starts off from an island north of Norway. It’s actually ten degrees from the Arctic Circle. I will be spending two weeks aboard this vessel, sailing around the Arctic Circle with other artists and researchers. I will take an accelerometer with me, and mount it to the boat. The boat will obviously be physically affected by the waves, and I will collect data from that accelerometer and use that to articulate a sculpture. Basically, I will be collecting the physical effects on me. I have a good friend who has a sail boat, and when you’re on a boat for an extended period of time, you get acclimated to the movement. That effect is where Tele-Present Water came from, so that is what I will be doing for the Arctic Circle Residency. I’m hoping that the large-scale wave sculpture will debut in December 2011 at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Bowen’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions including: Brainwave at Exit Art, New York, NY, Artbots at Eyebeam, New York, NY and Data + Art at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. He received his M.F.A. from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis and is currently an Associate Professor of Sculpture and Physical Computing at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.

Bowen was selected for a solo exhibition at Redux Contemporary Art Center as the Featured Artist of ReceiverFest, which took place March 10th-13th in Charleston, SC. drift will remain on view at Redux until April 16th.

On Saturday in Miami, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov announced the first North American version of their Ship of Tolerance project, taking place in March of 2011 in Florida. The collaborative couple, who currently live and work in Long Island, New York, invite local schoolchildren to contribute drawings that are then sewn together in the formation of a ship’s sail. The seaworthy vessels are at once powerful and poignant. Previous iterations of the project have been completed in Siwa, Egypt; Venice, Italy; and most recently in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Crafted out of bamboo, wood, and cotton, the designs of the vessels have been guided by an ancient aesthetic which “performs and embodies a message of universal goodwill, friendship and hope,”(as stated in a publication by Wolfgang Roth & Partners Fine Art). The Floridian ship is scheduled to launch in the waters of Miami next spring.

Currently on view at Wolfgang Roth in downtown Miami is Someone Under The Carpet, an exhibition of previous works by the Kabakovs, along with textual and video documentation of past projects. In the second floor gallery, the viewer encounters what appears to be a human figure trapped beneath an expanse of carpeting. The trapped figure moves subtly, in a non-threatening but somewhat eerie manner. Adjacent to this installation are simple tables with the artists’ notes and drawings, catalogues of the Kabakovs’ prior works. The library-like settings offer an opportunity for the visitor to become more familiar with the vast oeuvre of this distinguished pair.

Someone Under The Carpet, which opened on December 1st during Art Basel Miami Beach, will act as the initial phase of Miami’s Ship of Tolerance, generating greater awareness of the ongoing project. The exhibition will remain on view until January 15th, 2011.

We continue this week’s coverage with Rebekah Drysdale’s review of Rainbow City.

Art Basel Miami Beach invades the shores of Dade County each December, bringing its legion of satellite fairs, pop up shows, performances, and, of course, parties. The overwhelming amount of activity can create cultural conflict for those who strive to see it all; dissecting the extensive programming is a waste of time. This year, I spent less time perusing the booths at the Convention Center and worrying about which satellite fairs to attend. Instead, I opted to embrace whatever came my way. Traveling with friends helps assuage my own art fair anxieties.

I attended Design Miami/ for the first time, due to its new and imminent presence on the P-Lot of the Miami Beach Convention Center, directly behind Art Basel. As noted by the fair’s acting director, Wava Carpenter, “There’s something magical about placing high quality design in such close proximity to high quality art; it’ll make for a very interesting conversation about the nature, boundaries and overlap between them.” Carpenter’s comment transcends this immediate comparison.

After touring the Design Miami/ tent designed by Moorhead & Moorhead, I took the shuttle downtown, where I encountered FriendsWithYou‘s environmental installation Rainbow City, a idyllic realm of childhood sounds, imagery and attitudes. Inspired by the Hindu festival Holi, Rainbow City consisted of forty inflatable characters, ranging in height from ten to forty feet. Their simple geometric design, pleasing primary palette, and repetitive sonic elements awakened a juvenescent spirit within observers of any age.

It is important to move past analysis of accessibility of these fair(s) in order to enjoy the present experience, for there remains some intrinsic connection amongst it all. As FriendsWithYou states, “Rainbow City invites spectators to participate in a responsive environment, offering an opportunity to connect physically and psychologically with an energetic yet ephemeral setting.” After all, is this not what we are all here to do?

Marc Blumthal, Stars Within Stars Within Stars, screenprint on inkjet print, 2010

Marc Blumthal‘s work is an investigation of individual and collective identity. His images, which reference the artist’s personal experiences as well as America’s history, address the nature of being human and the pressures of the past. Blumthal’s continuing series, Diary of An American, includes several images of American public monuments and memorials, which the artist has modified with a screen print overlay. Often, the overlay is abstract, and obstructs or obliterates a significant portion of the original photograph, prompting the viewer to question the broader cultural arrangements that shape our lives. On Saatchi’s online gallery, Blumthal bluntly states,  “I’m inspired by shame and guilt. My interests lie in Identity…[my] work addresses my personal identity and my national identity.”

As part of his series My Father Had a Vasectomy, Blumthal combined several photographs in a digital collage to create Neighbours (2009-2010). The background images in Neighbours are found images of the four border states, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, which are rhythmically juxtaposed to form four photographic rows resembling film strips, each containing multiple images (see below). The strength of the piece lies in its powerful composition and its legion of cultural, political, and art historical references, both past and present. The artist states, “I began questioning my whole belief system and felt terrible to call myself an American, because of our dark history, manifest destiny, and the list goes on; there’s too much to be pissed off about, and when you finally open your eyes, it’s like you caught your partner cheating on you.”

The title of the work itself refers to the 1952 short film by Norman McLaren, Neighbours, which was inspired by the director’s anti-war sentiments towards the Korean War. Across the background images in Blumthal’s Neighbours, which all “point to a boundary and the lines between two people, nations,” the artist powerfully repeats Robert Indiana‘s Love sculpture. One of the most ubiquitous works of twentieth century art, Love was created in 1966 while America was in the midst of the Vietnam War. The proliferation of this iconic work, both with and without the artist’s approval, is due to its lack of copyright. Blumthal selected the Love sculpture because he felt that it “hypocritically reflects everything our nation represents.” Mr. Indiana’s iconic letters fuse to form a wall that weaves in and out of multiple frames, traversing various land and seascapes of America.

The power of this word and work mirrors the erratic nature of the sentiment itself, from the sincere, to the deeply superficial. In an era when various political leaders loudly profess their beliefs, Mr. Blumthal’s work subtely yet effectively sheds light on the shameful hypocrisy that is created when one’s actions are the antithesis of the “love” they preach.

The artist received his M.F.A. in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010. He has recently exhibited work at the International Print Club of New York and Leonard Pearlstein Gallery in Philadelphia. His M.F.A. Thesis exhibition was held at the Ice Box Project Space in Philadelphia.

The Spanish art collective known as Luzinterruptus creates temporary installations in various public spaces using low luminous light as the medium. Working at night, the anonymous artists deploy their light designs, transforming chosen environments into ethereal areas of intrigue. Luzinterruptus’ nocturnal situations elicit curiosity from passerby, prompting an enhanced awareness of shared presence.

For the Rizoma Festival in Albacete, Spain this past July, Luzinterruptus installed Floating Presences, which lasted for one week and consisted of eighty “lit presences populating the water…observing with all attention what passed by them. All living in harmony among fish, ducks, children bathing and also neighbors.” The eighty ghostlike forms floated down the river, emitting a mysterious serenity to those around, each elegantly embracing the age-old interaction between light and water. Floating Presences awakens an instinctive awareness of beauty.

Lee Gainer, "Cassandra" from Workin' Hard

Lee Gainer utilizes the time-honored representation of the dedicated employee, phone-to-ear, as the basis of her new collection. Backgrounds vary, depending on the nature of the organization and the duties of the associate. This snapshot, ubiquitous to the point of being absurd, suggests that a corporation places high value on customer service, and provides access to courteous, efficient employees with pleasant speaking voices and problem solving skills. This image abounded in nearly every industry during the second half of the twentieth century, and has become endearingly archaic. (Note: Coiled phone cord of land line.)

For her most recent body of work, Workin’ Hard, Lee Gainer culls photographs from various business websites and literature, printing the selected imagery with her HP Z2100 printer on 8″ x 10″ satin paper. She then alters the appropriated image with gesso and several layers of acrylic, carefully isolating the hand of the subject that holds the receiver. The artist’s modification of the casual office portrait draws attention to the prolific over-use of this image, challenging its validity as a marker of the white-collar system. Gainer’s socio-cultural observations “invite the viewer to consider the cultural expectations of social status, gender roles, age, race, morality, tradition, and sexuality,” as stated on her website. Each portrait in Workin’ Hard is given a first name as a title, subtly undermining the corporate pretense of “personal” service. The faces of the subjects are obscured.

Lee Gainer, "Jr." from Workin' Hard

Gainer’s past projects include Two Month’s Salary, a series which addresses the widely held wedding industry belief that a woman’s engagement ring should be worth approximately two months of the purchaser’s salary. Using this industry equation and the most recent salary data gathered from the U.S. Department of Labor and Payscale.com, Gainer presents twenty prints, each print representing a specific occupation (i.e. Radiation Therapist, Funeral Director, Patrol Officer) and some suitable ring choices. The occupation titles are listed in elegant script below nine engagement rings. View the series here.

Gainer’s work, simple in aesthetic and execution, prompts the viewer to decode visual data and reassess promotional images encountered in everyday life. The artist lives and works in Washington, DC and is currently a resident artist at the Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, VA. Her work has been featured in The American Prospect, The New York Times, and The Exposure Project.

Jeanne Jo‘s diverse body of work, which includes video art, performance, sculpture, and collaborations with other artists, successfully evades categorization, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary culture. Often impermanent, her projects are theoretically sophisticated, aesthetically uncomplicated, and profoundly personal. After receiving her B.F.A. from the University of Nevada, Reno, Jo completed her M.F.A. in Digital Media at Rhode Island School of Design in 2008. She lives and works in Los Angeles, where she is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Digital Media at the University of Southern California, with an expected graduation date of 2014.

In her video series Ephemeral Interventions (2007), Jo performs simple activities in front of surveillance cameras situated around her Providence, RI. In the video seen above, Jo writes on a city street, at night, with powdered sugar. The ephemeral white text reads “When I look up from my mind, I see what you are:”, a fragment of poetry by Michael Collier. In this series, Jo inverts the function of surveillance by actively, as opposed to passively, providing content for the camera. The growing presence of surveillance in urban space, and the awareness of constant observation, has triggered a creative response from artists, most cleverly utilizing the mechanics of surveillance technology itself.

This simple but profound manipulation of chosen medium is seen in Jo’s more tangible works as well. Intrigued by the intersections of craft (specifically female  handicraft, i.e. crochet) and technology, Jo produces woven sculptures that reference the historical connections between the fields of weaving and modern computing. The Jacquard Loom, a mechanical loom invented in 1801, simplified the process of manufacturing textiles with complex patterns and was an important precedent to the development of computer programming, with punch cards controlling a sequence of actions. Jo’s knit sculpture, If a Mouth were to Whisper.. (2010), which resembles a giant cream-colored scarf, is a crocheted love letter, woven in alphanumeric code, with words spelled out in crochet knots. According to Studio Fuse art blog, the artist plans to engineer a computer program that would encrypt any text into a knitting or crochet pattern.

Jeanne Jo will be participating in The Business of Aura, an upcoming group show at Broadway Gallery in New York, opening on August 19th. The exhibition addresses the multiple interpretations of “aura” and seeks to reclaim a broader understanding of the term in contemporary practices. The Business of Aura will remain on view until September 10th.

William Powhida infiltrated the art industry with his unapologetic attitude, insightful drawings, lists of enemies, letters to collectors and curators, and other written and visual material that prey upon the “catastrofuck” of the art world. Merging his background in art criticism with his visual art practice, Powhida graphically dissects the complex capitalistic structure of New York art using graphite, gouache, watercolor, colored pencil, and incisive text. The artist has garnered much attention for his controversial cultural products.

How the New Museum Committed Suicide with Banality, seen above, depicts floating heads of several members and affiliates of the New Museum, suspended in the composition and surrounded by sharp and satirical handwritten text questioning the institution’s alliances and decisions. The drawing, which the artist describes as “a modest drawing about the New Museum‘s terrible decision to show a trustee’s private collection,” appeared on one third of the covers for Brooklyn Rail‘s November 2009 issue, fueling an ongoing debate about institutional ethics. Powhida was a regular contributor for the Brooklyn Rail for three years before he “decided he could no longer keep helping other artists develop careers,” and began concentrating on his own artistic inspirations.

The artist completed his M.F.A. in painting at New York’s Hunter College in 2002 and is represented by Schroeder Romero in New York and Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles. Powhida co-organized the group show Magicality, currently on view at Platform Gallery in Seattle until August 5th, with Eric Trosko. Magicality investigates the parallels between the disciplines of art and magic and includes Powhida’s series of thirteen prints, which double as talismans and hexes, entitled Ars Magica Portfolio.

The wilderness and wetlands that would later become the city of Miami ignited a utopian aspiration in one woman’s imagination, the aspiration to create a metropolis in the subtropical marshland. Cleveland native Julia Tuttle, the original owner of the land upon which Miami was built, moved to the Biscayne Bay region after inheriting land from her father in the late 19th century. Recognizing the need for transportation, Tuttle convinced American tycoon Henry Flagler to expand his railroad to this part of Florida. Initially, he declined her requests, but when the orange groves in that area survived the winter of 1895 and the rest of the state’s citrus crop was destroyed, Flagler allegedly saw the economic potential in Miami. The landscape was transformed.

The genesis of this urban paradise is a historical narrative; a literary embodiment of a past experience. Solomon Graves (an alias of the artist Raul Mendez), asserts on his blog that “objects and stories belong to all of us, in the now and beyond.” In his enigmatic exhibition, The Society for the Preservation of Lost Things and Missing Time: Florida Arcane, the artist investigates methods of remembering, analyzing, and preserving the past. As the Society’s website states, “It is our Mission to Thwart the all too common Demise of Things./ Stories, Ideas, which may not fit History’s Master Narrative./ We crave the Archaic and Arcane, the Strange, the Paranormal…those Things imbued / with Magical Properties, the Folkloric, the Homemade, the Story-told, /the Other World-ly./Left-Field.” Need I say more? Florida Arcane, currently on view at the Miami-Dade Main Library, consists of objects, ephemera, archival materials, and other fragments from Florida’s past. The objects are combined with descriptive and imaginative tales, which reference notable figures in the early history of Florida, but have little to no historical fidelity. Mendez cleverly utilizes the venerable institution of the library, a venue for scholarly research, to bolster his exhibition design. A two dollar bill is inscribed with the unwritten rules amongst hermits and derelicts in the Florida Keys at the end of the 19th century. A collection of optical and aviation instruments once belonging to Jacqueline Cochran (a native Floridian), and other evidentiary relics are here as well.

The artist combines documentation and historical fiction in a series of color photographs depicting a concrete modernist structure curiously situated in the middle of a swamp (seen above on the left, click here for detail). The structure is described as Mr. J.E. Lummus’ Failed City in the Swamp. In the accompanying text, J.E. Lummus, an individual associated with building the City of Miami, is described as an eager entrepreneur, whose jealousy over Tuttle’s success with Miami drove his desire to erect “a world class city of industry and culture in the midst of a swamp” for himself. According to the story, the winter of 1895 halted construction, and plans were never resumed. In reality, the structure, which resembles an interstate overpass, is the Shark Valley observation tower located in Everglades National Park, as noted in the Miami Herald. The magical mixture of historical and apocryphal information infuses the dusty discipline of history with imagination and thought, offering valuable insights into our broader processes of cultural interpretation. A speculative and philosophical presentation, Florida Arcane is obscure and difficult, but simultaneously enjoyable and entertaining.

Merging documentation, fiction, and art, Florida Arcane prompts the perceptive viewer to question the construction of history and thus reality, both past and present. The curator deviates from established histories, igniting learning with imagination. At the opening reception on June 24th, Raul Mendez, a.k.a Solomon Graves, theatrically continued his mission to “destroy ideological darlings” while sitting at a desk in the exhibition area. His costumed presence, which now exists only as a photograph, reminds us that awareness of imagination is a principle, and potent, feature in the formation of reality. In the subjective space between his materials and information, Mendez invites the viewer to experience experience itself, rather than experiencing a description of reality.

Andreas Templin‘s multi-dimensional body of work includes sculpture, video, installation, photography, and urban interventions. His diverse practice is guided by a critical approach to the making of art; each work is the outcome of an insightful process that examines culture from a philosophical point of view. As the artist states, “The adult individual consumer is faced with the creative possibility of reinventing his identity each day, with the wide variety of enhancement products now available for use. The artist, too, must move with the times, and avoid being a fixed label, but use everything available to him.”

Templin’s technically simplistic, and somewhat disconcerting, video work, As if to nothing (9:54), consists of the constant display of earth’s qualitative statistical data, culled from governmental sources, accompanied by a recording of Anton Bruckner’s 7th Symphony. The emotional depth of the audio heightens the impact and immediacy of the dreary data display. Selected statistics include a tally of the world’s population, military expenditures, infectious diseases, and species extinct. The environmental data set “Ocean Oil Spills (tons)” holds particular poignancy in our current cultural moment.

This type of cultural insight, and perhaps critique, appears in Templin’s vinyl record album, Andreas Templin plays Bach, a recording of the artist whistling Bach throughout the city streets. This more playful form of artistic commentary was born out of the artist’s distaste with the “clean and highly competitive virtuoso-recordings” that exist of the German composer, and was recorded in the red light district of Amsterdam. The album cover was created by classical music photographer Felix Broede.

Templin, who lives and works in Berlin, is currently participating in the group show Consume at Exit Art in New York. The exhibition, which is a project of SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics), investigates world food production, consummation, distribution, and waste. Consume will remain on view until August 28th.

At six o’clock on Saturday evening in SoHo, Kathy Grayson and Meghan Coleman made public their intent to fill the hole that Jeffrey Deitch‘s trans-continental career move created in the world of New York art, which is no small undertaking. The two former directors of Deitch Projects opened a much anticipated new space at 104 Greene Street, aptly titled The Hole. The inaugural exhibition, Not Quite Open for Business, was directed by Taylor McKimens and showcases unfinished works by over twenty artists, including Nate Lowman and Rosson Crow.

When their originally planned exhibition fell through mere weeks before the scheduled opening, Grayson and Coleman decided to make the best of what others might deem an impossible situation. They solicited their artists to “Give us an incomplete piece…Give us a drawing that you just cant bring yourself to finish from your flat files. Put half your makeup on and give us most of a performance!” In a press release littered with intentional “typoos,” Grayson and Coleman clarify that this is not about the process of the artist, or the deliberate incompletion of work, but about “being caught with your pants down and your lipstick smudged and your armpits sweaty because you didn’t have time to take a shower before YOUR FIRST GALLERY SHOW.” A personal and self-deprecating tone replaced the more traditional formality of this document. The opening was a straightforward and unpretentious debut for Grayson and Coleman, making up in energy what it lacked in polish.

The unfinished theme pervades, and the space resembles a construction site overtaken by creatives. Painted scrap lumber, an industrial ladder, bare studs and unfinished sheetrock share the space with art. Works on paper are mounted with thumbtacks. A half painted logo contributes to the the display’s impromptu, work-in-progress quality, disarming the viewer and generating unlimited interest in future progress.

Not Quite Open for Business will remain on view until August 14th. As mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article written by Erica Orden, upcoming exhibitions include a solo show by Mat Brinkman and an installation by Kenny Scharf and the collective Dearraindrop. Other projects in the plans for The Hole include a book store in the back room of the gallery, Holey Books, and a dating service for artists, purportedly titled Hole Lotta Love. We’ll keep you posted.

Installation View, Halsey Institute, photographs by Rick Rhodes

Call and Response: Africa to America / The Art of Nick Cave and Phyllis Galembo recently opened at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, South Carolina. The exhibition brings together the work of two American artists intrigued by the formation of cultural identity and individual experience within a society. Drawing inspiration from the rich ceremonial traditions and elaborate guises of African nations, Nick Cave and Phyllis Galembo create objects that are visually captivating and conceptually charged. Cave’s imaginative Soundsuits and Galembo’s photographic portraits of West African masqueraders prompt the viewer to regard the world in terms of connection and community.

Installation View, Halsey Institute, photographs by Rick Rhodes

Upon entering the Halsey, one is struck by the mystical presence of Cave’s Soundsuits. Cave, a former dancer and current Chair of the Fashion Design Department at the School of the Art institute of Chicago, combines his experience in modern dance with his expertise in fiber textiles to create his Soundsuits. The first soundsuit was constructed entirely of gathered twigs, resulting in a subtle rustling sound when worn; thus, the name. The kaleidoscopic costumes reference the ritualistic garments worn by Galembo’s subjects, the people of Africa whom she has spent decades photographing. Cave’s sculptures, anthropomorphic assemblages of materials such as dyed human hair, plastic buttons, beads, sisal, sequins, fabrics, feathers, and other natural ephemera, are layered with personal and cultural associations. The disparate materials are masterfully woven together by the artist, ornamental embellishments create undeniable tactile and visual appeal for the viewer; the soundsuits incite a collective sense of awe.

In the adjacent gallery, Phyllis Galembo’s photographic portraits chronicle masqueraders from various West African countries, including Benin, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso. The masquerade is a meaningful mode of cultural expression for several African groups, and Galembo presents a straightforward observation of individuals within particular cultures. Galembo’s work is a field study on these regions, a modern documentation of their ancient ceremonial traditions. Disguised as animals, spirits, or ancestors, her subjects enact ancient legends and stories, but the artist captures them in stasis. Galembo, described as a “photographic hunter-gatherer” by writer Emma Reeves, incorporates her subjects’ natural surroundings in detailed compositions that highlight the garments, the accoutrements (i.e. a staff to connote authority), and the occasional glimpse of a bare, or sneakered, foot of a masquerader. Galembo elegantly achieves a personal encounter with a masked individual, and successfully conveys this engagement to the remote viewer.

Courtesy of Phyllis Galembo and Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Call and Response: Africa to America will remain on view at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art until June 26th. The exhibition is taking place during Spoleto Festival USA, an annual performing arts event held in Charleston, SC every spring. The Halsey’s sincere presentation of Cave’s soundsuits and Galembo’s photographs offer an exciting visual arts alternative to the citywide performing arts festival.

Adam McEwen‘s project, I Am Curious Yellow, radiated from Nicole Klagsbrun’s booth due to the artist’s boundless, but contemplative, use of the color yellow. McEwen chose to work with yellow because of the color’s ability to be vile and unpleasant, but also soothing and cheerful. His solo installation at Armory consisted of carefully selected objects placed alongside loaded imagery; jerry cans, a large yellow swastika, and several over-sized obituaries beneath glass, written for world champion runner Caster Semenya, were on display. Everything, even the carpet in the booth, was saturated in lemon yellow, with some white areas, and beaming in the bright lights of the fair.

McEwen has written pre-need obituaries for living celebrities before, employing traditional newspaper format with impressive impact (the artist used to write actual obituaries for London’s Daily Telegraph). Other past projects include his pencil on graph paper text message series. For these pieces, he copied the content and screen appearance of texts from his Nokia phone onto paper and presented the paper replicas of the digital missives in graphite frames.

Also in New York, The New Museum opened an exhibition curated by Jeff Koons on March 3rd, Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection, which will remain on view until June 6, 2010. The New Museum, and others, offered discounts to visitors during Armory Arts Week.

Among several concurrent art fairs taking place throughout the city last week, Independent generated a great amount of intrigue. Founded by New York gallerist Elizabeth Dee and Dareen Flook of Hotel in London, and held at X Initiative in Chelsea, Independent presented 40 galleries and was less regimented than the Armory Show.  Independent‘s website declares “Hybrid Forum Comes to New York for Art Fair Week.”

Artists Space (New York), Michael Werner Gallery (Berlin | New York), and mitterrand+sanz (Zurich), were among the participants whose collaboration and presence were requested via personal invitation from the founders. This not only differed from the exhibitor application process at the Armory Show, it suggested a re-evaluation of the art fair mode. Elizabeth Dee also had a booth at Armory for her gallery.

In 2009, Horowitz embarked on The Marc Horowitz Signature Series, for which he signed his name on a map of the United States and drove that route, stopping at 19 towns along the way. He documented these adventures in short webisodes. In Nampa, Idaho, Horowitz established the first Anonymous Semi-Nudist Colony (complete with complimentary jean shorts and ski masks). In Battle Mountain, Nevada, he pitched an idea to local politicians that involved changing the name of the town to something less pugnacious, suggesting the gentler alternative “Tender Pie Hill.” Other notable projects include Google Maps Road Trip and Talkshow 247.

In December 2009, Horowitz participated in a panel discussion as part of Art Basel Miami Beach‘s Video Art Program, “Video Art and Mainstream Distribution,” curated by New York’s Creative Time. Short films from The Marc Horowitz Signature Series were shown prior to the discussion. DailyServing’s Rebekah Drysdale was able to ask him a few questions about his past projects and future pursuits during an interview conducted over Skype in December.

Rebekah Drysdale:  At your discussion in Miami, you mentioned you studied painting at the San Francisco Art Institute after leaving the business world. Do you think the tools you are using now, such as YouTube and Google maps, are the new media for this generation of artists?

Marc Horowitz: I think so. Painting and drawing will never die, obviously, but with the advent of the internet and the accessibility of video and broadcasting, I think that there is going to be such an insurgence of artists using these media.

RD: Your work engages the public, but seems very personal as well. What is the most influential encounter you have had in the making of your films?

MH: Omigod, there are so many of them!

RD: Can you pick one or two?

MH: The most memorable project is probably one you have never seen before. It was one I did while at the Art Institute, called Free Ideas. I went down to the corner of Market and Powell streets in San Francisco, where they turn the cable car. There are all kinds of tourists and homeless people there, the Seven Galaxies guy, preaching about the end of the world, religious people, preaching about God, and then there was me. I had two blank white sandwich boards that I made. I was handing out blank sheets of paper saying “free ideas.” People were confused. Most of the business people didn’t want to deal with me. One guy came up to me and said I was doing God’s work, for whatever reason. Several tourists thought that I was always there and wanted to have their pictures taken with me. Homeless people wanted me to write letters to their family members, so we would, and when we were done, they wouldn’t have their address. Kids wanted to have paper airplane throwing contests. I honestly think that project was what got me started in most everything I’m doing now.

RD: How did Free Ideas influence your later works?

MH: It was just taking such a simple idea as a blank sheet of paper and putting yourself out there in the world with that one element and then seeing what happens. I think that notion informed a lot of my projects after that. The Dinner Tour is the simple idea of dinner, at its least common denominator. Driving your signature across the United States is just a signature, something we use everyday. The Google Maps Road Trip was me and my friend wanting to take a simple road trip together, but not having the time or money, so we had to do it virtually.

RD: Tell me more about the experience and execution of the Google Maps Road Trip.

MH: The Google Maps Road Trip was a fascinating way of seeing America. It was also a really great way to get to know Peter (Baldes). In 2003, he e-mailed me saying I should have a blog. I had no idea who he was and why he was contacting me. Nevertheless, I immediately called him up because he put his phone number in the e-mail. We talked for a bit and he seemed nice enough, so we loosely kept in touch. I didn’t actually meet Peter in person until last year at a friend’s wedding. So all in all, we had only spent about twelve hours together in-real-life before we executed GMRT, and then we shared 40+ hours together “driving” across the country virtually. For me, it was like the Dinner Tour, except I got to know a single person, Peter, much more in depth.

The technical aspects of the project get a little complicated, but basically we left my house in LA and began driving together to Pete’s place in Richmond exclusively on Google Maps. For nine straight days, we “virtually drove” across the country by zooming in all the way on Google Maps and continuously pressing the Google Maps arrow keys eastward. We broadcast the entire experience live on googlemapsroadtrip.com. This meant that folks were able to not only see and hear us as we traveled, but also join us in a real-time chat room. Just think of it as an invitation for someone to hop in the backseat and ride along with us for part of the adventure.

RD: It sounds like your interaction with Peter during the Google Maps Road Trip was similar to what travel buddies may experience on a real cross country road trip. Do you think virtual travel will become more popular?

MH: Google Maps Road Trip is very lo-fi and basic. I would love to see it be implemented in schools. You could have an American fourth grade class travel around Europe, and (time zones permitting) they could travel with European students. They could go back and forth and talk about the things that are local to them. With the accessibility of Flickr photos, YouTube, and Panoramio (Google’s photo program), you can see all kinds of stuff you wouldn’t otherwise see. You can even bring up peoples’ live broadcasts while you are traveling. So, yeah I definitely think it is the start of something.

RD: In terms of your creative process, it seems that projects like The National Dinner Tour or the Marc Horowitz Signature Series would require much more planning than something live like the virtual road trip. Do you prefer to work with a plan or broadcast live?

MH: The Dinner Tour involved a serious amount of logistical planning more than anything else. Getting places on time, setting up dinner dates, etc. And I had no help. It was just a one man army. But that was a not-for-broadcast type of project. It was more experiential. Then I did the Signature Series, which was highly planned. A lot of it was written. We had to have all of the props, the locations secured, etc. It was a different way of working for me, but I really enjoyed it. Through all of the planning, there was still a lot of room for chance because we were doing the project in public, and in that way it felt very improvisational, like my previous works.

After that, I did Talkshow 247, where I broadcast myself live for three months, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week on talkshow247.com. This project about destroyed me. There was always a live audience chatting away, commenting on my every action. It made me feel like I constantly had to be entertaining an audience that wasn’t even physically there. I really just wanted to live my life, but it became addictive to look at the chat and see what the audience was saying, and then do things to make my life more exciting. I didn’t really like that. So, to answer the question, I would much rather do some more planned out projects in the future, like the Signature Series. That is the direction I want to head with these projects.

RD: What type of work do you show in galleries?

MH:  I had some shows in Europe that were mostly drawings and sculptures because it is really hard to sell video art. It’s almost impossible. At some point, you have to make a product if you want to make a living as an artist, which is weird, you know? I did a show in Italy, called More Better. In it, I had made a drawing on how to make a helicopter out of a disassembled brick house and GMC truck. Really futile stuff, like a remote control bearskin rug. I made a suit of armor out of kids’ shin guards that is designed for people with a fear of sharp objects who are on a budget. Also included was The Tragedy Car Series, drawings of cars dedicated to terrible moments in history. For example, The Titanic Car.  The drawings are interesting to me because I can really go way far out there, without actually having to execute these proposals. For a show I had at Nuke Gallery in Paris, I did a series called At Least You Don’t Have it This Bad. One of the drawings is a guy with circular saws for hands, and he’s trying to eat chicken McNuggets. That stuff is more fantasy-based. It’s really one big joke, they’re one liners. I like that.

RD: What are you working on now?

MH: I’m about to launch a new project called The Advice of Strangers. I’ve been working on it for about a year, but haven’t told anyone about it yet. Basically folks will be able to vote online on all my life decisions, small to large. Should I comfort the girl across from me who is crying? Do I tell my mom she should work out? Should I eat the noodle that fell on the floor that my roommate jokingly offered me? Should I start looking for a new place to live cause my landlord is an asshole? Do I move in with my girlfriend? Each decision will have a time constraint depending on the magnitude of the choice. And when the poll closes, I’ll post photo and/or video documentation of what happened as a result of the poll so people can see how their vote has effected my life.

The website for the project is www.theadviceofstrangers.com. If you are interested in participating, please check the site for the launch date.

RD: Your work certainly has a refreshingly witty appeal. Is there one last thing you would like DailyServing readers to know about you or your practice?

MH: A big component of my work is my blog, www.ineedtostopsoon.com. I am always posting fresh stuff there. Another thing that I am really into is Twitter. I’m so addicted to it. I’m using it as sort of a diary! You can follow me at www.twitter.com/marchorowitz.