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Thank You!
Thanks to everyone who helped make this incredible and successful exhibition of new and experimental art on Governors Island during the summer of 2008!
Photo image: David B. SmithAnne Arden McDonald
"Layered, Buoyed, Tethered, Barely", 2008
Cyanotypes, fabric, and plumb bobs
Site specific installation with various dimensions
Concept: Cyanotypes from contact prints of Victorian childrens' dresses, doll dresses, lace, paper, and hair fill the ceiling to create an environment of delicacy. Plumb bobs contributes to the duality between weight and weightlessness. The installation references the importance of an era and general nostalgia.
Participate: Viewers are welcome to enjoy mood of the room, sit on pillows and draw on the paper covered floor, and scattered sketch pads. A dress is suspended in the air that invites viewers to crawl underneath it. The plumb bobs also function as a drawing tool. Viewers can gently move the string and let momentum draw for them.
Photo image: EMERGENCE
Asha Ganpat
"They Know All About Us", 2008
Red light, paper, and motion sensor
Site specific installation (under 4 separate radiators)
Concept: Series of installations will be hidden and only when triggered by human proximity will it be released to the viewer. The “they” in the title refer to the miniature watchers being caught in the act. Their cover is blown. Now “we” know about “them” as well.
Participate: When the viewer steps into the proximity of the motion sensor, they trip the switch and turn on a light which illuminates the floor beneath the radiator. Initially it will just seem like jagged light, but upon closer inspection, shadows become apparent.
Photo image: EMERGENCEAVANT CAR GUARD
(Zander Blom, Jan-Henri Booyens & Michael MacGarry)
"AVANT CAR GUARD at the crossroads of Critical Acclaim and Commercial Success II"
Site specific installation with various dimensions
Concept: The two works made specifically for the project talk in a reflexive way about the environmental impact our involvement has had on the project. They make honest statements about how we can reduce our environmental impact and they also comment upon the relational dynamics between first and third world contexts. These statements are coupled with a sideways homage to Johannesburg as the New York City of Africa.
Participate: Both artists and viewers are encouraged to actively consider the carbon footprint incurred when producing work for exhibition and when traveling to view works, respectively. Online tools will be used to measure artist and viewer carbon dioxide emissions, gauge ways to reduce those emissions, and then offset the remainder by planting trees. Active dialogue with AVANT CAR GUARD in South Africa is encouraged, please send them an email at info@avantcarguard.com and visit the following sites:
www.conservationfund.org
www.climitecrisis.net
Photo image: EMERGENCEBarend De Wet, Douglas Gimberg and Christian Nerf
"Acting on Orders", 2008
Poster and blog
Concept: De Wet, Gimberg and Nerf hate being told what to do. The motivation of this project comes from the fact that most people do not take responsibility for their actions and their lives. This trio has created a scenario that spans the Atlantic and crosses the equator to Johannesburg, South Africa where the viewer tells them what to do. The artists will follow orders like soldiers do.
Participate: For the full 9 weeks of the exhibition, visitors are offered the opportunity to "take command" and the artists will be "acting on orders". Visitors should email commands to:
museumofcontemporaryart@gmail.com
and action of artists will be posted on:
http://actingonorders.blogspot.com.
Photo image: David B. SmithEugenia Yu
"The Super 100 Aeroplane", 2008
Super 100 Wool fabric, batting, polycarbonate
60" x 48" x 36"
Concept: This fabric plane is made of Super 100 Wool, a high quality men’s suiting fabric. It can be set in motion like a flying paper airplane—one that unfailingly returns to its origin to once again be propelled forward. There are welt pockets designed to carry supplies for the journey. This moves forward, backward, and returns to its origin to be repeated again representing the rhythm of change, exploration, and discovery.
Participate: Take the handle and pull or push the plane. The piece will move with momentum in various directions and return to its original position.
Photo image: EMERGENCEJason Van Anden, Nat Hawks & David Liatti
"Dirty Dozen", 2008
Interactive software projection and sound
Site specific installation with various dimensions
Concept: For thousands of years, the oyster was plentiful in NYC. Governors Island sat in the middle of water teeming with the local bivalves. Humans moved in, polluted New York's water, the oysters became poisoned and eventually all but disappeared. In a way, the apple is to Eden as the oyster is to NYC - innocence lost.
Participate: Viewers will hear loud mumbles and noise coming from the room, but then, as they walk in, the oysters abruptly shut. After a moment the oysters will come back to life, at first tentatively. When left alone for a while they will cause quite a commotion.
Photo image: David B. SmithJohn Krill
"a sound machine", 2008
Found and bought objects
14" x 5" x 9"
Sculpture
Concept: The work plays with the tension / expectation that modern culture expresses toward the machine and the symbolism of the progress of technology. The work also presents the participant with the surprise of fulfilling the self-fulfilling prophecy that 'Something Will Happen'. Man's dependence on technology is comforted by the knowledge that it is encountered in a 'sound and non-confrontational' state.
Participate: Participants are able to chose to remain in tense anticipation of the piece's activity or flee for more stable surroundings.
Photo image: David B. Smith
Michael Alan
"Porthole to Draw-a-thon", 2008
Drawing photocopies, sculptures, video feed and decoupage furniture
Various dimensions
Concept: Existing drawings envelop the space and encourage the creation of new drawings. The installation is a mental link to a playful yet dark world of childhood curiosity and interpretation. The overall piece taps into the energy of a children's room, where you are free to draw whatever you understand and don't understand.
Participate: Experience the Draw-a-thon on Governors Island in a concentrated participatory setting. Nick Greenwald and Matthew Brennan from Draw-a-thon Theater have put pieces in from our collective. We will perform a costumed show and hand out paper and pencils to spectators on Sunday, June 29th at 4:00 PM. Come draw!
Photo image: David B. SmithMonica Müller
"Creatures Who Live in Our Plants", 2008
5 Lightboxes and several pots with plants
Various Dimensions
Concept: Governors Island is a whimsical place. These pieces place little creatures from cereal boxes, chocolate eggs, and 50 cent vending machines into a new habitat. They have found a new home in plants inside Building 14. The photographs capture and document them, bringing them to life.
Participate: Viewers are welcome to take a creature and give him/her a new home. If so inclined, they can give something back in exchange, perhaps welcome a new creature to the habitat.
Photo image: David B. SmithPeripheral Media Projects (Garrison Buxton & Ray Cross)
"The Hive", 2008
Vinyl and paper silkscreened pieces and pushpins
Concept: This piece is a giant geometric puzzle that is an open playing field where the viewer can exercise their vision and play a part in creating a large-scale installation. It is a collaborative art piece that grows, evolves, and takes on new meaning with each additional input and feeling. It grows like a bee hive as new combs are added, symbolizing the creative and constructive potential all of us possess.
Participate: The installation has several existing pieces that are already in place. Viewers can place hexagonally-shaped pieces, roughly 12 inches in diameter, with varying arrangements directly on the wall with pushpins. From that point forward, the people that venture to the piece will be able to activate it in their own way.
Photo image: EMERGENCESaviour Scraps
"Porch Songs: Into the Shade", 2008
Rope, yarn, clothing and textiles
Site specific installation (front porch and 2nd floor)
Performances Saturday 5/31, Sunday 6/22 & 6/29, Saturday July 26
Concept: Donated, used, and recycled fabric is woven into the installation that creates fantastical environment. Textiles can reference powerful, personal and collective memories, where they serve as a medium to explore the cycle of creation and exchange.
Participate: Viewers are invited to bring pieces of fabric (this could be in the form of old clothing, curtains, etc ), cut them into strips and add them to the off-loom weaving. Fabric is also supplied on the porch for weaving. Weaving is simple and intuitive (over one rope, under the next, and so on). They are encouraged to pay attention to color blocks, shaping and shading.
Photo image: EMERGENCETara Parsons
"Fork it Over", 2008
Paper and scissors
Site specific installation with various dimensions
Concept: Fork It Over is about the cost of the current war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It deals with the literal sense of the price of the war (the most recent numbers indicate $822 billion, with expectations of it surpassing $1 trillion), but also with the cost on the lives, livelihoods, and quality of life of all of us. Military families mainly carry this burden.
This war is quickly becoming one of the most expensive wars the US has ever fought, with the inflation-adjusted rate of WWII being the only larger amount. We are each personally getting “poked,” and asked to shell out for a war that could be seen as unconstitutional. Is it possible to fill the room with 822 billion of these paper forks? Or even 1/1000 of this figure? (Each fork representing a $1000 note.) 822,000,000 is a number that is impossible to imagine as a number that could actually be represented-- and that is part of the point of this installation, it is impossible to create this amount of a simple handmade object.
Having the content of this installation be about the Iraq war is important because it is situated on a former military base. Site specificity is a central aspect of my work, therefore the fact that the space that I am using is a kitchen space, and the fact that it is on a military base are both drawn out in the piece.
Participate: Visitors are encouraged to add to the installation by using the provided scissors to make more of the fork cutouts. The forks can be placed anywhere in the room. Viewer participation is important because we all, in some way, are bearing the cost of this war.
