Monthly archives: June, 2010

Artist News: Randy Walker

browngrotta arts is excited to present the work of sculptor Randy Walker at SOFA West 2010. Walker, who studied architecture, is known for his large-scale commissions using fiber and found objects to explore wrapped and woven three-dimensional space.

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Shimmer Frames by Randy Walker

His most recent public artwork, Woven Olla, was unveiled in Santa Fe on June 26th. The City of Santa Fe Arts Commission, in collaboration with the Santa Fe Public Library and New Mexico Arts, a division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, commissioned Walker in 2008 to create the three-dimensional, suspended steel and fiber artwork to hang under the main exterior entry canopy of the Southside Branch Library. The sculpture references a traditional Pueblo water jar, or olla, and reinterprets it on a scale appropriate to the community and the Library. Woven Olla marks the entry as a gathering place. The piece is an analogy for the Library as a container of knowledge, a resource no less precious than water.

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Construction and shipping of Randy Walker’s “Woven Olla” to Santa Fe

Walker’s work is found in public and private collections around the country, including in Minneapolis, St. Louis and Connecticut. He was a recipient of a Pollock Krasner grant in 2008. In creating his work, the artist seeks out or constructs frameworks that act as looms. These frameworks can be found in objects like saw or they can be architectural spaces. In Saw Piece No. 4 (Autumn), which is featured on the cover of the Summer issue of The Journal of Wealth Management, a salvaged bucksaw creates the armature for a web of nylon thread.

“I am ceaselessly fascinated by the possibilities posed by a single strand of thread held in tension,” Walker explains. “My work straddles precariously on several boundaries: solidity and transparency, structural stability and collapse, visibility and invisibility. I strive to create work that primarily engages our sense of sight by contemplating how light can define structure, surface and color.”

Walker’s dramatic Shimmer Frames, a series of five pieces each 6 feet tall, will grace the entrance at SOFA West 2010.

Technorati Tags: Randy Walker, Santa Fe Public Art, Santa Fe Public Library, Public Art


Exhibit News: Opportunities to see the work of artists represented by browngrotta arts abound this summer from New York to New Jersey to the Netherlands

Information Revisited: the Encyclopedia Britannica Project
Belskie Museum of Art & Science
280 High St
Closter, New Jersey 07624201.768.0286
Museum hours – Sat and Sun 1-5; other times by appointment

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Wendy Wahl Detail

 

extended through August 1st, 2010

Thirty-one international artists, including Wendy Wahl (US), transform books of words into works of art.

Holland Paper Biennial 2010
Museum Rijswijk
Herenstraat 67
2282 BR Rijswijk
070.390.36.17
CODA Apeldoorn
Vosselmanstraat 2997311 CL Apeldoorn055.526.84.00
http://www.museumryswyk.nl/hpb2010/hpb2010en.html

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Noriko Takamiya Detail

 

from June 8th through September 12, 2010

The 2010 Holland Paper Biennial is an exhibition of work by international paper artists taking place in two museums. A special selection of papers and books will be added to the usual range of products in the museum shop for the duration of the exhibition in Museum Rijswijk. The traditional paper fair will be held in the courtyard at the front of Museum Rijswijk and in the Oude Kerk (Old Church) opposite on Sunday September 12th. Jewellry and collage made of paper get special attention at this biennial. Closely related to these jewellery pieces, is the work of Noriko Takamiya (Japan). Using the traditional Japanese craft of basketry as her starting point, she develops new forms and techniques. She winds layers of thin strips of paper around each other, interweaving them into Escher-like objects. Three artists, Desiree de Baar (the Netherlands), Christophe Piallat (US) and Birgit Knoechl (Germany), have been asked to create installations using the dramatic architecture of the CODA building.


The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft
Fuller Craft Museum
455 Oak Street
Brockton, MA 02301
508.588.6000

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Lawrence LaBianca Detail

 

through February 6, 2011

Curated by Fo Wilson, this exhibition steps beyond the boundaries that currently exist among technology, art, and craft. The New Materiality looks at a growing development in the United States toward the use of digital technologies as a new material and means of expression in craft. Contributing artists include: Wendy Maruyama (San Diego, CA), Nathalie Mieback (Brookline, MA), Brian Boldon (Minneapolis,MA), Shaun Bullens and Cat Mazza (Providence, RI), Sonya Clark (Richmond, VA), Lia Cook (Berkeley, CA), Susan Working (Snowmass Village,CO), Mike and Maaike, E.G. Crichton, Donald Fortescue and Lawrence LaBianca (San Francisco, CA), Christy Matson (Chicago, IL), Tim Tate (Mt. Rainier, WA), and Mark Zirpel (Seattle, WA).


(Re) Fashioning Fiber
Green Spaces NY
394 Broadway, 5th Flr
New York, NY 10013
646.783.8616

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Ceca Georgieva Detail

 

through August 13, 2010

Curated by environmental artist Abigail Doan, the works in this exhibit offer up new ways of thinking about “fiber” as a basis for how we might (re)fashion our lives, our patterns of consumption, and our personal style. Among the Invited artists and designers include: Abigail Doan, Atefeh Khas, Brece Honeycutt, Abigail McEnroe, Kaori Yamazaki, Mackenzie Frere, Melissa Kirgan, Meiling Chen, Michelle Vitale Loughlin, Renata Mann, Sibyll Kalff, Tara St. James, Tara Goodarzy, Xing-Zhen Chung-Hilyard and Ceca Georgieva (Bulgaria), who has creted jewelry of vegatation.


On View: Artists In Residence and Toe River Potters
The Bascom
Atrium and Education Gallery
323 Franklin Road
Highlands, NC 28741
828.526.4949
http://www.thebascom.org/future-exhibitions/5-exhibitions/22-future-exhibitions

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Lewis Knauss Detail


from July 24th through August 22, 2010

Artists in Residence: Matt Liddle, printmaker and bookarts; Holly Hanessian, ceramics; Lewis Knauss, fiber; Mira Lehr, mixed media; Tom Turner, ceramist; Phillip Garrett, painter. Toe River Potters: Norm Schulmann, Claudia Dunaway, Ken Sedberry, Mark Peters and Courtney Martin. Also at the Bascom: Stick Works: Patrick Dougherty’s Environmental Sculpture.


Faces & Mazes: Lia Cook
Textile Museum of Canada
55 Centre Avenue (Dundas St. W & University Ave., St. Patrick subway)
Toronto, Ontario
M5G 2H5
Canada
416.599.5321
http://www.textilemuseum.ca/apps/index.cfm?page=exhibition.detail&exhId=311

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Lia Cook Detail

 

through October 17, 2010

Faces & Mazes is part of Person Place Thing, which also features exhibits of the work of David R. Harper and Steven Schofield.  Cook, Harper and Schofield make work that is physically demanding and large in scale — wall-sized weavings of children’s and doll’s faces; sculptures of embroidered and taxidermied animals; and massive human figures made of textiles frozen in time. They draw the viewer into woven, embroidered and sewn narratives of nature, identity and history. As the faces in Lia Cook’s weavings fragment, a perceptual shift occurs, moving through a place of transition and ambiguity to reveal the physical, tactile nature of the constructed image.


13th International Triennial of Tapestry, Łódź 2010
Central Museum of Textiles
ul. Piotrkowska 282, 93 – 034
Łódź, Poland
042. 683.26.84

through October 31, 2010

Among the artists invited to participate are Nancy Koenigsberg (US); Aleksandra Stoyanov (Israel) and Anda Klancic (Slovania), whose work was “highly commended: by the interntional jury that includes artist Kyoko Kumai (Japan).


Intertwined: Contemporary Baskets from the Sara and David Lieberman Collection
Museum of Arts and Design
2 Columbus Circle
New York, NY  10019
212.299.7777
http://collections.madmuseum.org/code/emuseum.asp?style=browse&currentrecord=1&page=seealso&profile=exhibitions&searchdesc=Current Exhibitions&searchstring=Current/,/greater than/,/0/,/false/,/true&action=searchrequest&s

through September 12, 2010

Intertwined provides an international look at contemporary basket making, offering insight into the evolution of the basket from a useful object to a work of art and challenging the notion of what defines a basket. The exhibition includes more than 70 traditional and non-traditional baskets.  Among the artists whose work is included are:  Ed RossbachKatherine Westphal, Sally Black, Kiyomi Iwata, Dorothy Gill Barnes, Carol Eckert, John McQueen, John Garrett, Ferne Jacobs and Norma Minkowitz.


Newsflash: Eco-Art extended through June 22nd

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Eco-Art Installation at the Artifact Design Group

Our current exhibition, Eco-Art: Materials, Recycled, Repurposed and Re-Envisioned at Artifact Design Group, 2 Hollyhock Lane, Wilton, Connecticut, has been extended through June 22, 2010.  For more information call Artifact at 203.834.7757 or browngrotta arts at 203.834.0623.  Make a day of it and visit The Dressmaker’s Art and Andy Warhol’s Flowers at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich or Tom Molloy at the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield  through June 13th; assorted exhibits after that.