A Special Event: From My Collection to Yours

I should probably mention right off the bat that the "my" in this post's title doesn't refer to things that belong to yours truly. Trust me though, this is a good thing; if you're a contemporary art person you probably aren't interested in a collection of Napoleon figurines and well-loved copies of Jane Eyre. Even if you were interested in the above-mentioned items, you'd have to beat me at a game of Risk to get them. 


*Ahem* Right.  Where were we?


"From My Collection to Yours" is the DCCA's Spring 2011 Fundraiser, and it's happening tomorrow night from 6 to 9 in the evening. There will be live music, a truly mouth watering menu (which I've pasted onto the bottom of this post in case you don't want to take my word about the "mouth watering" part), and gently used modern and contemporary art for *extremely* reasonable prices. Area collectors have donated items from their collections to the DCCA specifically for this fundraiser. These pieces, along with some truly fancy international trips, will be lots in a silent auction that will be held in the auditorium of the DCCA. Food, music, and maybe even dancing will happen in the lobby. 


DCCA Members: $40
DCCA Future Members: $50


I'll see you there!






The mouth watering menu from...

Jeffrey Miller Catering

Hors d' Oeuvres

Micro Cheeseburgers

Served On Mini Brioche Buns With Honey-mustard Ketchup and Micro Fries
 

Baby Lamb Chops

Dijon, White Wine And Rosemary Encrusted Baby Chops Cut Straight From The Rack
 

Sashimi Tuna Cones

Spicy Ahi Tuna Blended With Ginger And Cilantro In A Crisp Shell
 

Endive Fingers

Spread With Herbed Cheese And Sprinkled With Alfalfa Sprouts
 

The Love Note

A Phyllo Envelope Of Asian Pear, Goat Cheese And Caramelized Shallots
 

Indonesian Chicken Satay

Skewered And Served With Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce
 

Slow Cooked Duck

Juicy Slow-cooked Duck Served On A Fresh Corn Pancake Topped With Grilled Pineapple Chutney

Chow Fun
Choice Of Duck Or Shrimp

-Raw Bar

Iced Canadian Oysters & Top Neck Clams Hand-shucked To Order And Served With Lemon Wedges Cocktail & Mignonette Sauce

-Blini Bar

Buckwheat Blinis Are Pan-fried To Order And Offered With Sour Cream, Minced Chives, Melted Butter, Chopped Purple Onions And Fresh Salmon Caviar
 

-Creme Brulee Station

Ginger, Chocolate, Lavander And Vanilla Flavors

At the Horizon Line: Brain Fruit II and The Book

Sometimes the shiny and new exhibits make me forget about things that are already happening at the DCCA. Or, as in this case, they make me forget about the exhibits that are about to end. This past Friday, one of the DCCA staffers invited a few of her friends to the museum for Loop Night. While I was pleased to meet these delightful people, I confess that my pleasure in meeting them was of the selfish kind. Even if an exhibit is only up for a few months, seeing it everyday can deaden the impact of the art therein. Walking through the galleries with the staffer's friends made the exhibits seem fresh and new.

It had been a while since I peeked into the Constance Hennessy Project Space, but when I visited it with the DCCA newbies I was reminded again of how much I enjoy Jackie Brown's off-beat organic forms and spidery, vaguely sinister orange rods.  It had been less time since I'd visited the Carol Bieber and Marc Ham gallery to peruse the book show, but taking the time to stroll around and see the books through new eyes reawakened by initial wonder.

Unfortunately, just as I realized (for the second time) how much fun these exhibits were, I remembered that they were closing in less than two weeks time.

Enter this blog post. If you haven't seen Brain Fruit II or The Book: A Contemporary View yet, I highly recommend visiting the DCCA and checking them out. Both exhibits close April 17th, so your last chance to see them here is fast approaching. While The Book will appear at Towson University in September, Brain Fruit II will be gone forever after it leaves the DCCA. Well, sort of. Jackie Brown reassembles and reconfigures the piece, essentially creating a new piece altogether, in each location that shows her sculptures. So, you'll still be able to see the sculptures; it just won't be the same.

So, carpe diem! Carpe ars!  ...Or carpe whatever the Latin direct object form of "art" happens to be.

Jackie Brown, Brain Fruit II, 2010

Susan White, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 2010

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In Depth: Atropa Mandragora

Alicia Bailey, Atropa Mandragora, 2003,
Glass book with box, pages etched and fired
glass, coptic binding, edition of five, box dimensions
10" x 8" x 3", courtesy of the artist

I often find myself talking with either visual people or literary people (or, as I like to think of them, "look people" or "book people"). Because of this, I've had many occasions to hear arguments in favor of, in turn, the supremacy of the image over the word and the supremacy of the word over the image, especially in terms of communicating ideas. The "look people" will tell you that there is no purer or more effective way of communicating than to come upon an image and, in one instant, see and know everything that you need to know. "Book people" will scoff at this naïve approach to knowledge and argue that a logical and linear approach laid out in textual form is far superior to any image. I'm not sure how well the more extreme individuals in each of these groups would deal with Alicia Bailey's Atropa Mandragora. Ms. Bailey's piece takes the best of these two approaches to communication and forges them together by binding plates of glass that have been drawn and written upon. This collapsing of two disparate elements into one is not limited to the visual and the literary. Ms. Bailey's piece uses the medium of glass and the genres of prose and illustration to fuse and blend divergent forms and ideas until it becomes impossible to tell one from another.

Atropa Mandragora takes its name from a plant that has featured prominently in folklore for centuries. Harry Potter fans will not be surprised to read the roots of the mandrake plant resemble human bodies. While the form of the mandragora root does not resemble humans as literally as the plants described in Ms. Rowling's books, there is an undeniable resemblance between humans and mandrake roots. While, certainly, the mandrake/mandragora offers up paths into creation stories and the weirder bits and pieces of folklore, it also draws our attention to the idea of multiplicity--the idea that one thing can be many and vice versa. In addition to being both plantlike and human in form, the mandrake has acquired a reputation for being everything from an aphrodisiac to an hallucinogenic capable of inducing a coma. Quite a powerful plant, don't you think? The hallucinogenic properties, in addition to summoning up images of the psychedelic sixties, reveal the mandrake's status as a symbol of multiplicity. When hallucinating, one can mistake any ordinary object for an infinite number of other people, places, and things. Indeed, given the mandrake's reality-bending powers, it isn't hard to understand how many of the legends surrounding the plant came to be. Simply ingesting a mandrake root can cause a person to lose touch with reality and enter a state of...*ahem*...expanded consciousness--or, as the look and book people might say, a new way of receiving ideas.

In Depth: Empire

Arden Bendler Browning, Empire, 2010, Gouache and flashe
on Tyvek, Courtesy of the Artist

The world is becoming more and more like a computer--or is it the other way around? With the rising popularity of internet maps that allow a person to virtually "walk" through an area that could be as close as two feet away or as far as half a world away, the lines between reality and virtual reality are blurring at record speed. In its turn, technology has left an indelible mark on how we move through the world. As we walk along a street, it is possible to check one's workplace, one's home, and any number of virtual spaces. Our consciousness is not unlike the window of an internet browser that contains many open tabs. In such a world their is an infinite potential for expanding one's consciousness. Simply put, we see and are capable of seeing more than we were even as little as ten years ago. At the same time, we overlook certain details; certain treasured moments that can only be enjoyed when one's is fully immersed in one's immediate surroundings. It is this balancing act of consciousness that Arden Bendler Browning explores in her painting Empire.

The word "empire" usually brings to mind a powerful political state that is comprised of a variety of smaller territories. This description, however, can be applied to anything from a county to a country. Empires have a little something extra that makes them stick out from all of the other political  units. That something extra is usually a reputation for conquering neighboring political states and the existence of an all-powerful emperor. Browning's decision to name this piece Empire, then, is an interesting commentary on what it means to be conscious of one's environment. There is an implication that the very act of experiencing or seeing an environment--to codify and identify individual elements--is an act of conquest.

In Depth: Sluts and Studs

Nava Atlas, Sluts and Studs, 2008, Clothbound flag book
with pigmented inkjet pages, Edition of five, 14" x 32" (open)

It seems that the subversive spirit of the book mushrooms has taken root here at Artistic Novelty. Or, at the very least, it has spread to other books in The Book: A Contemporary View. In contrast to the broad spectrum of subversion to which the book mushrooms are relevant, however, Nava Atlas's flag book Sluts and Studs specifically confronts its readers with the markedly different words and dialogues that have come to define men's sexuality and women's sexuality in western culture. This confrontation causes us to question the validity of each group of terms and the extent to which they are a balanced representation of sex among the sexes. It becomes clear, and rather quickly, that said discourses aren't very balanced or fair at all. While this point will not be new to anyone who has ever been a part of any social scene, Atlas's presentation of the subject gives her viewers the opportunity to examine just how much--or how little--progress has been made in closing the ideological gap between discussions about male and female sexuality since it first appeared.

The book unfolds to reveal a pop-up grid of words in blue, words in hot pink, pictures in hot pink, and pictures in blue. Give yourself ten points if you can guess which color goes with the men and which color goes with the women. The pictures themselves are from the early-to-middle twentieth century, the times of screen idols and planes decorated with pin-up girls. While it isn't clear where the pictures of the men originally appeared, it's a fair bet that the women's pictures were originally used as pin-ups. On the inside of the front and back covers the words on the grid, still in their representative colors, are accompanied by their dictionary definitions. Words relating to women alternate with words relating to men. Troublingly, words with negative connotations alternate with words with positive connotations. Can you guess which words are positive and which are negative? I thought so. Give yourself ten more points.

The pictures, after you've read the words and definitions, are troubling. Each of the men is shown from somewhere in the vicinity of the collar bone and up. There isn't anything particularly sexual about these depictions unless one counts a glint in an eye here and there. If anything, the expression of these mens' faces is self-assured and confident. Despite the lack of sexuality in the pictures, they are paired with words that identify them as sexual beings. The women, in contrast, are shown from the waist or the breasts up, sport elaborate coiffures that are in just enough disarray, and wear, well, very little. These images are meant to be alluring and, though the women in them are often confident and self-assured, their confidence isn't really the point of these pictures.

Panoramic View: Perforations

Bonnie Crawford Kotula, Perforations, 2011, electrical
circuitry, wood, mixed media, Site-specific installation for
the DCCA.

Perhaps it's the darkness.
Perhaps it's the pulsing lights.
Perhaps it's the lure of trying to figure out what prom dress that balled up piece of tulle came from.

Whatever it is, there's no denying that there's something fascinating about Bonnie Crawford Kotula's installation, Perforations. Kotula has transformed the DCCA's E. Avery Draper Showcase into a slice of the galaxy as seen through her eyes. Miniature sculptures that are reminiscent of satellites hang from the ceiling by threads that have been rendered invisible by low lighting. Pulsing light emitting diodes ( or LEDs) on the sculptures illuminate pieces of tulle and other bits and pieces that have also been suspended from the ceiling by thin strings.

These basic elements combine to form something riveting. The play of light on the suspended objects is hypnotic, especially given that the rate at which the lights pulse changes depending upon ambient light levels. Because each light is suspended by a string, all it takes is for a viewer to walk by to completely redirect the light. Even the viewer's position in the gallery can completely alter the system of pulsing lights.

There is an interesting push and pull at work between the viewer and the art work. Usually, art affects the viewer. In this installation, however, the art and the viewer affect each other. We are made aware, as viewers, of how our attention and contemplation can change an object. The changes in the lights' pulsations are a visual manifestation of the attention we give to the work. In this way, Kotula has made the abstract concept of attention into observable phenomenon.

Given this interaction, it may be fair to say that the fascination of Perforations lies in the opportunity to become aware of the processes at work in our own minds.  Kotula has acknowledged her belief in the long-lived idea that light can be equated with knowledge. In her installation, various lights affect and change each other, creating something new in the process. This process acts as a microcosm of how we move through the world and how neural pathways are formed in our mind. Each new experience--or change in illumination--alters how we think and how we interpret the world around us.

It is the fascination and wonder behind this process that transforms stray pieces of tulle into a riveting piece of art reminiscent of celestial bodies. Because the installation will never be exactly the same one moment as it was another, the piece represents infinite possibility as it exists on a human and celestial scale.

A Special Event: Art on the Town

It's that time again, art fans.

Tonight marks the first "Art on the Town" event of 2011 and, in case that isn't enough to get you excited, it's also the launch of the DCCA's revised membership program. To celebrate the latter, the DCCA is giving Art Loop attendees a $5 discount and a free DCCA tee with every purchase or renewal of membership. The discount will only be offered tonight, so be sure to stop by the membership table and join up! We'll be the people shivering and smiling just inside the door.

In addition to our swanky revised membership program launch, the DCCA will have so many artists here discussing art, form, and color that you'll swear you've caught synesthesia. Jennilie Brewser, Jeffrey Stockbridge, Ted Carey, Roase Reeder, and Amee Pollack will all be here to talk about their work. Of course, there's always the possibility that they'll talk about each other's work, too, which can go two ways... The potential for monumental human drama is almost too much to bear!

If all of the above isn't enough to convince you to come out and join us, I'll offer one final incentive:

We have candy.


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