Factory Square Fine Arts Festival!

If you have nothing to do this weekend, and if you have something to do this weekend (this will be better). Come see The Factory Square Fine Arts Festival.  Put on by ParProjects in Cincinnati, the event will be two days of Art installations, public interactive pieces and large scale gallery shows. Billed like a music festival it is being headlined by Ledelle Moe (see image below). With works by Robert Fronk, Jonathan Monaghan, J. Daniel Graham, UC's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP), Leah H. Frankel, Celene Hawkins, Mike Hoeting, Alexandros Lindsay, and Meg Mitchell. 

To see links to all of the artists work and further information visit the festival site HERE.

The festival will also include live music, food, and the "city flea". The large gallery shows and The City Flea (a city wide flea market) are held in the "American Can". The American Can the old factory responsible for casting all of the american can goods cans.  (They still have all of the old molds on display, as an entire wall piece).  Ledelle Moe will be in the main floor of the factory. So make sure to make the time to come up and see some fantastic work and mingle with some great artists. 

Experience!

One of the chief comments that I receive from recent alums is that they wished they had more "real-world" experience before they were out in the field seeking employment. In fact, that's what employers also seek! EXPERIENCE! To gain such field work, consider volunteering time at a local gallery or exhibition space. ArtTigers is a fantastic example of one such opportunity on our own campus. If you're interested in participating in this "student guide" program, please see art gal (aka Laura, our Gallery Director and Curator of Collections).

In addition to our galleries on campus, Scott County has a local museum, several arts spaces, and other cultural organizations that seek volunteers. Further afield, the International Museum of the Horse is particularly seeking volunteers to work in the galleries for their new exhibition "The Horse." Where are you interested in seeking experience? I bet there's an opp (as in "opportunity") for that!

In case you need convincing, consider that volunteers can connect people with art and objects in many ways: they provide one-to-one contact with visitors to galleries and they also engage with viewers, monitor the areas, and often provide important information (either informally or through an "official" tour capacity).

Please consider helping out your community by volunteering. Many times, if this project has a lasting commitment and involves an educative component, you may be able to seek academic credit for this internship/volunteer experience. Questions? Contact Dr. Decker

image from: http://www.mmfilmfestival.com/?page_id=4

UK PhotoDay 2011

Friday, October 21 will be the UK Art Department's second annual PhotoDay. Beginning at 9 AM and going until 9 PM (or later) there will be workshops, demonstrations, alumni presentations, vendor demos, portfolio reviews, and much more. I'll even be giving a presentation/workshop entitled Analog to Digital...and Back Again discussing processes and concepts for utilizing both traditional and contemporary methods of photographic image making.

If you're interested in photography at all, I would highly recommend you attend at least part, if no the entire event. Best of all, it's free. You can download a current schedule HERE. For directions and parking, click HERE.

Included with PhotoDay there will be a photography exhibition of student work. Again, don't miss this opportunity. Students may submit one matted work for inclusion in the "Kentucky Next Show." There are no application fees and all works will be exhibited. This would be a great investment for you and the Georgetown College Art Department as well. The deadline for submissions is the Monday after Fall Break. If you have work you would like to submit, bring it to me (Prof. Darrell Kincer) by 3 PM on that Monday and I will deliver it to UK for you.

To find out more about UK PhotoDay 2011, click HERE.

Hope to see you there!

look harder

I read an article over the summer which applauded the Metropolitan Museum of Art's study into what visitors really examine when they gaze at a work of art.  For "Get Closer", the Met used cell phone technology (what else?) to create a contest where viewers were asked to take and send in a photo of a detail, along with a photo of the full work, and a 50-word description of why they shot what they did.  Five winners were selected and pictures posted.  The author of the article, Judith H. Dorbzynski, believes the Met's experiment was "worthy"; its employment of social media to get people to spend more time with art is one she feels "should not only be repeated at the Met, but also replicated at other museums."

Thierry Geoffroy/ Colonel, “WE MUST “RETAKE THE RIGHT TO REREAD AND REORGANIZE THE REPRESENTATION OF THE WORLD”, 2011 Venice Biennale. Copyright Thierry Geoffroy.

Yesterday, I saw a notice for Photography Calling,  a project exhibition on view now at the Sprengel Museum in Hanover, Germany.  Among other things, it said:   "Museum and artists should not let social media dominate the field of collecting the history, images, feelings and interactions of human activity."

These two takes on museums' and artists' use of social media seem at opposite ends of the spectrum.  I am very glad to know that like Thierry Geoffroy / Colonel and myself, there are a few contemporary artists and museum folks willing to engage in the debate, rather than dive headfirst onto the "facebook, twitter, youtube, etcetera is unquestionably great" bandwagon.  It is interesting to note, however, that social media is being used to market this exhibition as evidenced by the exhibition notice's front and center links for easy posting.

Piggy and Flashback

What seems like yesterday but was a few years ago now Darrell and I took 15 students on a graduate school tour on Fall Break. I would echo Boris's comments on this being a great time to visit graduate programs.
Our trip a few years ago went to SCAD in Savannah Georgia, UGA in Athens Georgia, and Clemson in South Carolina.  SCAD was Darrell's Graduate program and UGA was mine.  We got to tour around all the towns and programs giving students an experience that would help not only make decisions about their future, have some bonding time outside of Georgetown, but also they got to see an insane amount of art and design work.  This year SODAH's (the Georgetown Chapter of Kappa Pi) trip is going to be in the spring much like last year.  Hopefully next fall we will take another whirlwind grad school program trip for all those that can make it.

A little walk down memory lane.

first floor tour of a Design building at SCAD

Liz and Ada Beth trying not to get blown away on the beach in Savannah.

Student work (silkscreen and letterpress)

Everyone getting a look at Martijn Van Wagtendonk's installation called "headway" 

You can click HERE to see a video of the piece in action.

Georgetown BA Clemson MFA Kara Renfro sporting her Georgetown pride.  

Ciera looking around the upstairs of the clayton street gallery in Athens.

Fall Break plans: Consider visiting a graduate program?

Fall is a great time to visit that MFA or PhD program you have heard good things about. See about its former alums, faculty, the scene and locale. Let me suggest New Orleans for the upcoming weekend, not only because of my ties to the University of New Orleans (UNO), which I will briefly showcase below, but for all the cultural offerings this city presents, given the resuscitation efforts and the related magnet-effect, in terms of attracting visual artist, it has produced. At the New Orleans Museum of Art, for example, Wayne Gonzales show opens tomorrow, Ogden celebrates its 10th anniversary, see the "Art for Arts Sake" programing all over the city's art districts, and that's just for starters--

UNO MFA badge buckle, designed and produced by an alum sometime in 2003-04 (Tim Hailey)

Obviously, graduate experience is situational, ongoing and will only grow fuller, or for some, let's be honest, lesser. Here are a few "must see" artists, with their recent work:

Christopher Jahnke http://www.chrisjahncke.com/

Michael Greathouse http://www.michaelgreathouse.com/

Dan Tague http://dantaguestudio.com/ (some of you may remember Tague's Visiting Curator Lecture in 2006)

These three are my peers, but please see others (link here). I would gladly discuss any of them further with you.

Long-time Painting Professor Jim Richard (pictured center left, next to me) at his NYC exhibition in 2006. Many UNO alums were in attendance, representing various generations: Gonzales (on far right), for example, the early-80s and Halley (left), the period of only a few years earlier. Many, not just the ones mentioned above, have either taken their work to great heights or carved-out distinguished paths otherwise, which, either way I suspect, could hardly match the art ambition one might have had driving-up Elysian Fields or Lakeshore on their daily commute.

Enjoy the break!

Fall Break plans?

Looking for something to do over fall break, consider these opportunities:

Opportunity #1: Air Fest 2011 is in need of your community support! This will be a fabulous day! Join the fun & volunteer! As a volunteer you will view the show & activities for free, receive a T-Shirt & have access to the VIP hanger for food & beverages! Volunteers will work in shifts so you are not working all day & can enjoy the show! You do not have to work as a group..you can come alone or bring a friend! Gain volunteer hours for yourself! There will be many areas to work in such as; parking, volunteer registration, VIP area, etc.To volunteer please contact: Laura Green, Manager, Georgetown-Scott County Chamber of Commerce, 160 E. Main St. Georgetown, KY 40324, 502-863-5424 or Cell: 859-338-2633

Opportunity #2: Photography fans, come to the U of L for a day of lectures and discussions on the nature of photography as history and document. Brought to you by the U of L's Center for arts and culture partnerships (the same hub that coordinated last spring's public art and the city...yay) This program asks: "What are the relationships between photography, history and documentation?" The conference brings together authors, photographers, curators and scholars to explore these connections and more at an October 14th University of Louisville conference. The event is in conjunction with the Louisville Photo Biennial. Speakers include Shelby Lee Adams, longtime photographer of Appalachia; Pulitzer Prizewinning photojournalist Lucian Perkins; Matt Wrbican, Andy Warhol Museum archivist; Tom Rankin, director of Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies; and Molly Bingham, photographer and filmmaker noted for her work in Iraq, Rwanda and Eastern Congo." Info online here.

postmodernism is...

...dead (as of September 24, 2011), according to Edward Docx in his article of the same title for Prospect Magazine.  How so?  Well, it was a week or so ago that the Victoria and Albert Museum opened the exhibition, "Postmodernism--Style and Subversion 1970-1990".  So, if you're like me and have had difficulty for years trying to understand exactly how to define postmodernism, then you're in luck because it's apparently over and an esteemed museum will pinpoint exactly when it started, ended, and what it was.

Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, 1917

 

 

 

 

 (Interestingly, Docx suggests that Duchamp, among other modernists, planted the seed for postmodernism, so perhaps the V&A's title timeline is a bit off.)

Seriously, to my mind, this article is a great read; it outlines some of the ideas behind postmodernism, which like so many other "styles", (in art/architecture, dance, music, literature), was a reaction to previous one(s), namely modernism. Per Docx, "Postmodernism was a high-energy revolt, an attack, a strategy for destruction."  Yet because it attacked everything, folks became increasingly bewildered and in doubt as to what constitutes great art.  And, as Docx argues, using artist Damien Hirst and his diamond skull, For the Love of God, 2007 as a prime example, "artistic success has become about nothing except money...".  In other words, postmodernism's removal of criteria results in the market being the only thing left. And this notion leads to Docx's point about what has replaced postmodernism now that it's dead:  "The Age of Authenticism."

Damien Hirst, For the Love of God, 2007

The rise of new media and digital art forms seems at odds with this assessment; however, I for one am right in there with Docx's argument that social media has resulted in "...a secondary reverse effect--a universal yearning for some kind of offline authenticity."  

Thoughts?         

New friend in town

I would like to introduce a new friend to the Sculpture Shop at Georgetown College.
Through years of grant seeking and writing I am happy to annouce we are the proud owners of a SawStop Table saw. For those that dont know what this means...you can watch the video below.



The SawStop table saw can tell the difference between wood and your hand. It is the safest tool in the shop, which is a good thing because table saws are often perceived as super intimidating.  This neat trick is not one that can be tried or displayed. Each time the saw is stopped (like in the video above) it requires a change of blades ($90) and a new brake system ($80).  So no parlor tricks or messing around. It is based off of a simple principle of current control. If something absorbs electrical current i.e. your finger/hotdog/wet wood/metal it will set off the brake.
         As far as I know we are the first educational institution in the state of Kentucky to have a SawStop.  It also doesn't hurt the excitement that it is such a beautiful tool.  To see the real deal tested on a finger you are welcome to watch HERE (3:50 is the action) no cut whatsoever. The hotdog was the first generation and the cut could be covered with a bandaid now they dont cut you at all! Amazing. So be sure to drop by the shop and check out the new kid in town.

Fresh off the truck

Fully assembled with the help of Daniel Cantu and Terrell