Time in Bottles at Pentimenti

Traditionally, reliquaries are containers or vessels that contain items believed to be imbued with magical powers. During the last First Friday, the Graphic Conscience stopped in Pentimenti Gallery, which is presenting Tim Tate, Video Reliquaries, A Look into a Digital Mind, for the month of September.

Tate, a founder of the Washington Glass School, presents a series of digital videos contained in blown glass vessels (see images above, by the Graphic Conscience). The videos impart imagery such as large eyes, burning books, a naked man doing a handstand, or the viewer’s own face. Because of my background, I was particularly intrigued by the video of burning books. It had the feeling of memory, as if this video was the documentation of a significant event a for which preservation was necessary, perhaps to prevent it from happening again.

The images shift or are altered fairly rapidly, allowing viewers to speedily observe, then walk briskly to the next piece. This speed turns what could be very contemplative pieces almost into novelty items. I felt that if the film was shown at a more relaxed speed, more mystery would develop. Viewers will pause longer to observe and consider, creating an envelope of sacred space around them. For it seems to me this is Tate’s intention, to explore how a sense of the sacred can be found and applied to the media of the twenty-first century.

This is probably the most amazing aspect of Tate’s work, to take digital video, which creates a sense of distance between the artist and the viewer, and instill in it a relationship to a greater mystery. It makes me wonder what forms sainthood will take as technology progresses – some time in the future, will miracles happen online? Will the laying of healing hands adjust to allow viewers to simply visit saint’s consecrated websites? Or will the miracle be an even faster connection speed so that we can get online to find ways to get rid of our money?

Also on view at Pentimenti this month is work by Jacob Lunderby, The Smooth and the Striated, till October 18.

Sarah Palin on Museums and Librarians

Thanks to Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof of Arblog, and through them Artnet, for posting this article on Sarah Palin. She has a history of trying to ban books, slashing museum funding despite state budget surpluses, and attempted firing of officials who did not agree with her. To read the Artblog article, visit here. To read the Artnet article, visit here.

Philagrafika 2010 The Graphic Unconscious

The Graphic Conscience was inspired in part by the theme of the upcoming festival, Philagrafika 2010, the Graphic Unconscious. Around the world, biennials and international festivals are being launched, focusing over and over again on the same artists, the same curators, the same patrons, the same conversations. In the mind, there are several levels of awareness. Since Philagrafika has chosen to explore the unconscious applications of printed matter and contribute to establishing hierarchy in a democratic medium (which sounds more along the lines of ego), the Graphic Conscience will serve as a whisper in their ear, reminding them of printmaking's democratic origins. I have great hopes for Philagrafika, yet I fear that the art world/market will pressure them to get caught up in biennialist politics. This would result in their presenting few new discoveries among the artistic offerings, while simultaneously neglecting the Philadelphia print community that has supported them since their beginnings as the Philadelphia Print Collaborative.

Acting as an unseen presence in the printmaking community and the city of Philadelphia, this project, launched in the egalitarian world of the internet, will serve to discuss and critique the graphic arts and its hybrid forms. In the wake of the Graphic Conscience will appear printed ephemera directing those who discover these remains to this blog. Here they are invited to read, comment, and continue these dialogues.

Memory, Nostalgia, Film and Performance at Nexus

It was a rainy evening that brought the Graphic Conscience to the Crane Arts Building for a pair of Philly Fringe performances presented by “asNEXUS,” at the NEXUS/Foundation for Today’s Art. Despite having a name that conjures the sound of a sneeze, the two pieces presented, assembling minutiae and Wanna Kiss Myself, were hybrids of dance, sound, performance and finally audience participation. Dance and movement are not typically seen as graphic art forms, however, the negative spaces created by bodies in motion and the temporal marks of the human form while holding a pose belie this notion.

assembling minutiae

The first of the two performances, this piece describes itself as “an environment designed to explore the construction of memories…thought by neuroscientists to be a dynamic process reiterated each time a memory is called to mind, as minute aspects inhabit separate spaces in the brain and must journey together to form recognizable images.”

Several video projections created an environment for mullet-haired performer Emily Sweeney’s dance/movements (see above, photo by the Graphic Conscience). Most were projected towards the back walls of the performance space, with one at an angle off to the side. From where I was sitting, this angled projection eventually seemed to work, although I wondered about other parts of the audience. At the beginning of the performance multiple projections seemed gratuitous, but began to make more sense as the piece developed.

This piece evolved through projections of several performers in brightly lit spaces illuminating Sweeney’s movements. As the performance continued, she seemed to wrestle, fuck, embrace or seek some sort of ghost or invisible presence. The projections and the droning tones of the accompanying sound performance appeared to embody memories that continue to haunt Sweeney, something relived but not willingly remembered.

At the end of the performance, Sweeney stood in a column of light, and then returned to the fetal position in which she had begun her movements from. It did not feel that Sweeney’s performance came to any resolution with her ghosts; instead it seemed to suggest relief with having escaped the past.

Wanna Kiss Myself

First presented as a film, Wanna Kiss Myself was shot as a site-specific dance/performance in an emblematic Philadelphia row home. Various dancers move through the narrow hallways, stairways, and barely seventeen-foot wide spaces of typical Philadelphia row home architecture. More than anything, I think I enjoyed the site-specific nature of the piece. Director/dancer J. Makary sporadically retained and covered up the knickknacks and chatchkes that define and clutter up our lives. I actually enjoyed the movements more when the clutter was present; it transformed the adolescent pretentiousness of the piece to something more profound.

I was bothered by her sporadic choices to not reveal – they seemed chosen at random. I kept expecting the dancers to pull away the white sheets or paper that was obscuring the objects, but perhaps Makary chose not to just because that would be too predictable.

Makary’s genius may be her ability to imbue the slightest movements with the tension of a grand plie. The film alternates between this controlled rigidity and then releases of oomph and vigor. At the end of the film, she returns to this tautness then allows it to gently dissipate.

After the film, Makary, accompanied by a vibrating goat, came on stage to do a smartass meta performance with barely-willing audience participation of which the documentation will be on display on Nexus’ website and in its gallery from September 11 till October 3. Makary explains that because something she referred to as the “Trans-National Arts Something Important” was coming to Nexus, they needed something “really good” on display in the gallery for when they came. As comfortable as Makary appears before the camera, her live performance felt a little forced and short.

I see a great future for Makary, but I believe that she needs to develop more ease with a live audience. That said, I am interested to see what the eventual exhibition will evolve into, how it will embody Makary's ability to manipulate friction, subtlety, and ironic wit.

The 66th Members' Exhibition of the American Color Print Society

While trying to sneak in some last minute summer reading before the September rush, I recently visited the main branch of the Philadelphia Free Library. While there, I took the opportunity – as anyone who ever visits there should – to breeze through the wing of the West Gallery and to see what’s on display. Until September 5, it’s the 66^th Members' Exhibition of the American Color Print Society.

Like most organizational member exhibitions, the work is the show varies from the somewhat amateurish to impressive examples of the medium. As a printmaker myself, I was most affected by prints such as Elizabeth H. McDonald’s monotype Bird (see above, photo by the Graphic Conscience). The monotype medium can be splotchy and lackluster, but in the hands of the right person, it has an immediacy that cannot be duplicated. According to the accompanying text, McDonald explains that her one of kind pieces evolve through almost a collagraph means of creation. What drew me in most what the sense in her work that the process takes over, and the artist becomes a mere conduit for the creation of the work. Printmakers know that when the work starts cooking like that, it’s real good.

Relief was well represented in the exhibition with impressive reduction and multi block examples by Natalia Moroz and Anthony Lazorko respectively. I’d like the opportunity to see more work by both of them.

In the intaglio field, some of the work felt disappointingly imitative of Mary Cassatt or Katsushika Hokusai. While I can understand the desire to be like such graphic masters, I feel that there is a difference between evoking the similar feelings and simply mimicking. That said, ACPS members Stephanie Nicholson and Yuji Hiratsuka provided stunning examples of the medium.

Ironically, the print with the strongest presence in the exhibition was a tiny – I’m estimating three by two inches – piece by Herbert Appelson. Unlike some of the etchings, it was suggestive of work by Käthe Kollwitz without being derivative. Between the two figures in his print is a feeling of narrative, a dynamic that intrigues. Despite its tiny size, it is bold enough to carry and hold a viewer’s attention.

The quality of the prints aside, the installation of the exhibit felt a bit stretched to cover all the cases of the West Gallery. Very few of the prints had a strong enough presence to hold an entire case by themselves, or even with one other print. I couldn’t help thinking there could have been more consideration of the installation. However, the exhibition text broke down the processes used by the artist in easy to understand bits of information for those who are not members of the cognoscenti.

To see images of the exhibition – some slightly out of focus – please visit here. To learn more about the ACPS, check out their website.

Albrecht Durer

Ah Durer.

Albrecht Durer.

As a printmaker, his name just says it all. One of the true rock stars of art history, of all time, someone who should be nominated to the Great Artist Hall of Fame. One artist that I am truly and literally capable of throwing my panties at out of admiration. Though currently on view at New York’s Museum of Biblical Art, I felt that would be somewhat inappropriate.

On view at MoBia until September 21, 2008, I jumped at the opportunity to kowtow before 150 or so of some of the greatest contributions to the graphic medium. I'm not sure what insight I can provide for such an artist that has not been said before. The show itself is relatively poorly lit, probably to protect these works on paper. I wish that the exhibition text had clarified if what was on view were originals or restrikes. For a show that focuses on Durer's religious imagery, I was surprised at how much information the exhibition text provided on Durer's financial savvy. It was through his prints that he became well known, creating for his time an accessible, reproducible art with explanatory text in the vernacular language of craftsmen rather than Latin.

During his lifetime, Durer left his good ol'hometown of Nuremberg to travel twice to Italy and once to the Netherlands. His work is now considered by critics to reflect these influences, a form of cultural blending that stands across time as a Renaissance powerhouse, influencing some of the big names like Raphael and Titian. Through crossing boundaries to unfamiliar territory, Durer learned how exposure to new ideas and new understanding can find illuminate reflections of your own cultural identity.

I left MoBia visually drunk and wheeling on an excess of fine line and apocalyptic visions. However, I can't wondering, what if the United Nations stocked artists, and whenever there was a conflict, artists from both sides were sent across borders to learn about the culture of their enemy. There would be misunderstandings at the onset, sure, but perhaps such exchanges could lead to clarity. And when the artists return, their work is displayed, revealing the influences of the other. A new form of diplomacy -- it might be worth a try.

Reading Between the Rings; the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony

In the 2004 Olympics Opening Ceremony, Philly was representin’, as our own MattyBoy Hart was on the director's team. For this 2008 round, props go to Zhang Yimou.

As a graphic conscience, the celebrated references to historical Chinese mediums such as papermaking, calligraphy, and printmaking in an event watched by a large portion of the world population made me cheer (see image of movable type, from the Official Site of the 2008 Olympic Games). Though such things as handmade paper and printmaking are now considered art forms, at their invention, they were the height of technology. And, despite all our technology today, paper in particular is still its basis. It takes the form of our money, our marriage licenses, the deeds to our homes, our insurance forms, and all contracts too important to risk in an email black hole or computer crash. So it was exciting to see their origins hailed, and recall that these origins are really the origins of modern society.

It goes without saying that China underwent an enormous amount of construction and design for this event. During the ceremony, one of the American commentators mentioned that the dancers in the electrified green costumes were originally in black. In rehearsal, Zhang Yimou decided he didn’t like the affect, in three days, he had two thousand green costumes. As a conscience, I remembered another Philadelphian, Jeff Gammage, who commented in his book, China Ghosts, (2007) “Alongside of highways we saw tons of dirt being pushed and shaped – and not an earth-mover in sight. No machinery, just a hundred men with shovels, and down the road from them, a hundred more.” (Page 102). I can’t help wondering, who slaved for three days to make two thousand costumes of a different color? Moreover, who were the unrecognized construction workers who built the extraordinarily beautiful Bird’s Nest Stadium, and did they even have power tools?

I’ve always been blown away by the material sensitivity, feeling for light, and restraint of certain Asian artists. Artists such as Xu Bing, Rie Hachiyanagi or Sun Young Kang have the ability to evoke both the transcendental and the mundane, saying exactly what they need to express without clutter. It is this ability that I find lacking in Western minimalism, which seems hollow and plastic in comparison.

Zhang Yimou addressed both the past and the future in his ceremony. He referenced the threat of global warming towards the planet in his ceremony, and went on to imply that through openness and coming together and supporting one another, we can solve problems. The Olympics has brought attention to China as a place of human rights violations, but we should not discount solutions to problems that might be found there and in their philosophies. As threats to the environment continue Zhang Yimou and other artists of Asia and Asian descent’s ability to create works of art with material sensitivity and harmony to their environment becomes more and more important. As we consider our future, perhaps we should take these ideas into consideration.

To see images of the Olympics, including the opening ceremony, visit the 2008 Olympics Official Site. More images of the opening ceremonies can be seen on this video on YouTube.