Turns out a video clip and still photograph from the Kickstarter video featuring Danielle Sigler and Darin Rummel won Shag’s photographic “Kissing Contest”!  

Check out the Glenwood Arts blog HERE for more information including dates and times!

 http://glenwoodarts.wordpress.com/

Most of this article is romantic academic bullshit.  Yes.  But having gone through art school myself I find it refreshing to ponder alternative realities to the studio-artist rubric.  Me?  I’ll stick with wine, clay and psychosis.

http://openengagement.info/conference-information

Shelly Willis interview with Harrell Fletcher (pdf)

The works on view are larger in scale and primarily made of permanent materials such as cast concrete, clay and metal with only a few less permanent pieces constructed of earth, polyurethane and found objects.  Overall the pieces are engage with the space and site of the park.  The large installation by Ben Godward, Pangs of Self Awareness (You Are The One With A Decided Perception), seems to be a vomitious pile of color, texture and volume captured in a hovering cage.  Godward’s piece demanded the space in a loud way in contrast to Disenchanted Forest by Roxanne Jackson that seemed to discuss the world around it in a less blatant but still cynical standpoint.  In Jackson’s work a large, earth-colored Buffalo rises from the ground adjacent to a shriveled, rainbow-glazed ceramic unicorn.  Hidden amongst the trees The Disenchanted Forest does not exhaust romanticism but disregards the viewer and world around it in a absolutely wonderful way.  Smells like contemporary art to me.  Leave it out of the fucking gallery.

Socrates Sculpture Park: 32-01 Vernon Boulevard at Broadway
Long Island City (Queens), NY 11106.

http://www.streetartutopia.com

Recently, I wandered down to the dirty south, as I’ve heard it called, to find myself in Columbia Heights, Washington DC.  So I guess it may not REALLY be the dirty south, but I am not accustomed to being beyond the slick superficiality of New York City.  I showed up at the Redbat Studios opening of New Beginnings, an exhibition by Samson Huang.  Packed full of postmodern surrealist paintings teeming with sensual gesture, the 47 pieces span the artist’s life from 2006-2010 as he traveled around Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore staying in airports and hotels.  He reflects in his statement that the works are a metaphysical translation of his thoughts and emotions during this time… Hm.

I don’t know about anyone else but when I’m staying in hotels and or busy airports I usually want to strangle the slovenly man next to me, smack the screaming child, or screen the bed sheets for bodily fluids.  Regardless of my biases, I was intrigued to see that Huang has a vivid imagination while being stranded in such disparate locations.  Although packed full of stylized nudes, I found Huang’s non-representational works to be less expected than the human forms.  Cosmic Contraction (2010) and other works contain similar metaphors of balance, fluidity, tension, and the intermingling of the human condition but allowed the viewer to consider their meaning without being visually told as much.

In this strange setting of hard wood floors and hand-crafted fireplaces with an obtuse funerary vibe the art itself combined with the community to spark rather engaged dialogue.  The conversations veered and twisted between art, design, politics, and community building as I stumbled into multiple Rhode Island School of Design Alumni (Eric and David) as well as the critically astute architects Richard Loosle and Janet Bloomberg from Kube Architecture.  The instigatory properties of the works and the artist himself generated an aware, engaged audience that is rare to see – even by Chelsea standards.  I am excited to see what RedBat Studios does for their next exhibition.  Rumors on the street say that it will be a large group exhibition from multiple New York City and Philadelphia based artists.

Download PDF version of review here.

More information on the conference can be found below and here.

A video of instigated, non-explanatory local news media attention on my website here:http://www.leepatrickjohnson.com/public-art 

The abstract of my presentation can be found here.

No admission, open to the public and a lot of good ideas.  Check it out.

Collaborative Team: Nalini Abhiraman, Marc Choi, Andrea Abarca-Grimsley, Lee Johnson, Tamara Johnson, Andrew Fillmore, Lucia Lopez, Benjamin Peterson, Xiaowen Wu and contributor Janet Zweig.

_______________________________________________________________

CRITICAL INFORMATION:
MAPPING THE INTERSECTION OF ART AND TECHNOLOGY

A GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2011

SPECTACLES OF DISINTEGRATION
KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY NOTED WRITER AND SCHOLAR McKENZIE WARK

Conference Panels: 10:00am – 3:30pm
132 West 21 Street, 7th floor, New York City

Keynote Address: 4:00 – 5:30pm, followed by reception
SVA Theatre, 333 West 23 Street, New York City
All events are free and open to the public

Facebook Event Page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=147095515391871

School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents Critical Information: Mapping the Intersection of Art and Technology, an interdisciplinary graduate student conference examining the contemporary dialogue between art, media and technology. Sponsored by the MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department at SVA, the Critical Information graduate conference provides a critical forum for current scholarship exploring the juncture of media, theory, criticism, and the visual arts. McKenzie Wark, Associate Professor of Culture and Media at Eugene Lang College, The New School for Liberal Arts, will deliver the keynote address entitled Spectacles of Disintegration.

Wark has written extensively on media theory, critical theory and new media. His books include Virtual Geography: Living With Global Media Events (Indiana University Press, 1994), The Hacker Manifesto (Harvard University Press, 2004), Gamer Theory (Harvard University Press, 2007), and The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International (Verso, 2011).

The conference’s international roster of participants represents a wide cross-section of disciplines, ranging from visual and cultural studies to interactive media arts; criticism to curatorial practice; and performance art to art history. More information on the panels and papers, as well as the full schedule of events can be found at www.criticalinformationsva.com/schedule-2.

The MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department at SVA offers a two-year course of study leading to an MFA degree. For students who want to improve their writing and advance their knowledge of contemporary art, theory, literature, and history, this concentrated program offers seminars by practicing critics, editors, philosophers, poets, and artists. The focus in writing is on the essay as form, as well as on shorter forms of review, through intensive writing practicums.

School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City is an established leader and innovator in the education of artists. From its inception in 1947, the faculty has been comprised of professionals working in the arts and art-related fields. SVA provides an environment that nurtures creativity, inventiveness and experimentation, enabling students to develop a strong sense of identity and a clear direction of purpose.http://artcriticism.sva.edu

Time in my studio thinking (these are all materially-driven sketches) and some obsessions from the Met.  I’ve been getting ready for an upcoming presentation at the School of Visual Arts for a conference “Critical Information: Mapping the intersection of art and technology” as well as working on a grant I got from the Brooklyn Arts Counsel (SPARC).  Basically my studio time has been somewhat limited… BUT that is about to pass very soon (the conference is December 3rd) then full force into the studio work as I work on this body of clay-paint-plastic process driven, rather agitated work.  Large-scale Viola Frey platter-esque works are currently in progress.