Thursday, November 28, 2013

Modelling Behavior: the opening of Crotch

When one has something to do in their mind, in art, you have to do it. If you're not an artist, you just don't have to do all of this. And if you can't sleep under your truck, you never amount to a damn anyway.

This quote, of De Wain Valentine, lifted from a an conversation with the artist on the national gallery of art podcast from is a lovely analysis of the imperative that rests at the base of the artistic impulse. 

It was this quote, and the better part of an episode of Bad at Sports (no. 416 artist as arbiter panel), that I was listening to on my morning commute which inspired me to follow through on a long harbored idea, and .

The art as arbiter panel discussion from the 2013 CAA conference largely dealt with alternative and unusual exhibition and curatorial projects.  I'm a sucker for this type of discussion,as might be surmised from some of my past curatorial and participatory projects.  I'm susceptible to a type of infectious spirit gleaned from hearing about how individuals have plied the infrastructure of their own lives and situations to design a platform of creation, exhibition and conversation for other artists. This is a type of cultivation I groove on.  Its a compulsion and can feel like a weakness.
The idea lodged free by these audio selections is Crotch, a project space nestled in the crotch of a maple (I think) tree in our back yard.  Crotch was born as a one liner as I was bringing kork to a close in 2011.  kork was a project space situated (for three years) in the office of Bailey Browne CPA & Associates in Poughkeepsie.  A relatively low impact manner of posing challenges to artists, kork provided me with a the privilege of witnessing first hand the generative processes of artists' responses. Crotch promised to be an even easier-to-manage endeavor, but it fell victim to my constant exasperation of my own impulse to cook up these schemes at the expense of my own studio endeavor.
 
The Crotch venue
By the end of that heady morning commute mentioned above, I hashed out the details and the resolve to make Crotch happen over the course of this coming year, lest I regret not having done it after some point when we have left this apartment and this town of Beacon.

The tree in question, which has become Crotch, has been the setting of several works and actions for us here at Kamp MAYKR over the past several years and I thought it the perfect excuse venue to build on. Crotch is available for visits in person, by appointment, but it will probably mostly be "experienced" via a webcam feed embedded on the home page of crotchprojects.com.
Crotch as the point of splitting, of branching out. Crotch as the embodiment of the crude, impolite, make-dirty business that is not discussed in proper company, or in towns that are working to regenerate and rebrand themselves as progressive, creative, tasteful communities attractive to the creative class.  Crotch as the point of departure for creative and procreative and impulses. Crotch as an acknowledgement of the erotic drive in all forms of making; art, place, baby, etc. 

Crotch is informal, private -with an option for publicness- natural, and slow.  Crotch moves on the pace of the changing seasons, and like our neighboring institution, Dia:Beacon, Crotch relies on rhythms of the day and natural light to illuminate its offerings. 

The webcam stream makes me consider the surveillance society we are in, in which so many of us offer up ourselves to surveiling. Also, another recurring theme for me is that of the nature of experience (primary, secondary, first hand, mediated, etc.), and the naturalness of what we frequently see and experience comes to us through a screen and is taken as a true experience and an accurate view.   The webcam's gaze is south facing, and much of the day, the tree of crotch is largely backlit by the sun. At certain times of the late afternoon the feed is bright and washed out by a cloud of glare.   Any particular artists work may be obscured by the limitations of this remote portal.  What can be gleaned is the context of that artwork's current setting.  The webcam's is a long look upon the slowly changing scene modified by the presence of one artist's contribution. 
Angelika Rinnhofer, My Period Piece

Crotch launched quietly in October with a work created, and surreptitiously placed in the tree, by Angelika. My Period Piece is a braid of colorful fabric emerging from the crotch and falling down the trunk to the ground. 
Although not really visible through the web cam, Angelika's ribbon of color activated the moss encrusted trunk....and gave the squirrels something to play with.



Crotch is currently occupied by a work by Matt Kinney; it's another example of the perk of instigating these kinds of projects.  We came home from lunch last Sunday, startled to find this milled piece of timber rising from the ground, strapped  to and at odds with the tree of Crotch.  Its a kind of Christmas to see these artists responses manipulate my surroundings and I feel myself the grand beneficiary of these efforts.

Matt's work is heavy effort and rigid tension but with a delicacy marked by the incandescent ribbon of yellow rope and strapping tethering the two poles.  The yellow rope glimmered in the Sunday Sun, linked to the slightly more earthy yellow leaves which have since been cleared from the ground by the lawn care guys.


Matt's work is an active force acting on the crotch, opening it up, maintaining it as a point of emanation.  I scheduled Matt to be the artist for November.  This current piece is actually his second effort.  Through a miss communication, his first piece was erected in on other spot on the property, a magnolia tree on the other side of the house.
Matt's initial gesture in notCrotch

This placement presented a dilemma for me.  I wasn't sure what to do. It happened. It exists as a manifestation of our communications and it was interesting because of that and it has value there.  It was in the crotch of a tree but it wasn't in Crotch.  Matt was relieved when i told him because he wasn't happy with the work anyway and was pleased by the opportunity to push another idea forward.   I think of that first attempt as a testament to the promiscous drive for an artist to make and do - that any crotch is a viable depository for those creative manifestations.   I hope he doesn't mind me showing this image of it, but I like that it is part of the process that brought this second piece into being.

Matt Kinney's piece will remain on view through December.  January's artist will be Matt Stolle.
If you're interested in visiting Crotch, send me an emaill at info at crotchprojects. com

Monday, November 18, 2013

UV Portfolio @ Matteawan Gallery: Images


In talking with fellow UV Portfolio participants at the exhibition opening at Matteawan, it was apparent that the great pleasure of being involved was broadly shared. The reward of being challenged and having one's process tweaked has been a refreshing pulsing charge.  From everyone I spoke with, I sensed that energized glow and an interest in continuing that shared studio experience.... 

The exhibit continues through Dec 22.  I believe Karlyn will add open hours on Sundays to her customary Friday and Saturday hours in December.


The other night, thinking about my prints, I began to consider my smaller woodblock as a machine. I designed it with a symmetry where I could to spin it between carving sessions, allowing for a doubled capacity for producing a variety of marks.  It was a machine made for creating chance.  A chance making machine. 



A couple of the results of my woodblock machine in action:




Below are images of a few of the prints I made which are at Matteawan Gallery (either on the wall or in the portfolio) and which are also available for purchase on the Totemic 17 website - along with prints of my fellow participating artists.

Saturday, November 09, 2013

UV Portfolio opens tonight @ Matteawan Gallery in Beacon, NY.

The exhibition of the UV Portfolio opens tonight at Matteawan Gallery in Beacon, NY.  The reception is happening from 6-9pm. 
I've mentioned this project in a previous post and last week Phillipstown.info did a write up of the UV Portfolio.  There's a UV Portfolio facebook group, and images from the project can be seen at the Matteawan website and the totemic 17 website.

The show will remain on view through Dec 22.

The whole thing has been thoroughly enjoyable, and it's been great to see what the other artists in the group have come up with.  I was over at the gallery Thursday night to help Karlyn with some of the installation and it was then I was able to take a peek at some of my colleagues' output.


In the studio:  Kimberly Loewe & Jeff White

On the press:  I played with spraying water on an inked block to get a varied layer of color.  Here you see that wet mixture bleeding through the paper, just prior to running it through the press.




I'll post images of some of the individual finished prints soon.  It's been exciting to see these things I made again since I spent relatively little time with them after completing them.  This is different from how I related to the paintings in my studio where they tend to hang around in state for extended periods of development, and I become so very accustomed to their presence.  Seeing these wood block prints again after just a short interval had the quality of the jarring excitement that comes from a lack of familiarity.  That feeling alone is a wee thrill.

The incidental offshoots of the creative process hold great interest for me and in this endeavor has reaped such stuff in the unconscious prints made on the newsprint I used as blotter paper and to block areas of the woodblock, both front and back as I was printing both sides of the block at times, to keep from making a mess with unwanted tranfers of ink to the press bed or paper.  Most of what makes them compelling to me is that they are the embodied platforms for future mutative actions.  Below are a few examples of these unintended impressions which I dig.


 

Thursday, November 07, 2013

Dead Hare Radio show # 43 is out...



Two weeks ago, I released the most recent episode of the Dead Hare radio Hour.  This one took a long time to get together, for technical reasons, and it's, by far, the longest episode thus far.  The matter at hand in this installment is the commemorating the 10th Anniversary of Dia:Beacon with a an audio project in which I asked several folks to record themselves reading yelp reviews of the museum.  More details on this episode are on the Dead Hare Radio Hour blog, or you can listen to the episode here:


Thanks to everyone who lent their voices to this project:
Ilka Omdahl
Cynthia Nalley
Fritz Zernike
Yoko Malbos
Olga Dekalo
Jack Siman
Jenna