Kane Mayfield – Hello! from Mania Music Group on Vimeo.

Check out What Weekly’s story on Kane Mayfield’s Mobtown Microshow.

Christian Benefiel’s The efficacy of wishing

A stylized and subversive group exhibition entitled artNOW:Baltimore, curated by Alex Castro and Cara Ober, opened Friday at Washington College in Chestertown, MD. The exhibit was hosted at the Kohl Gallery at the Gibson Center for the Arts.

This colorful multimedia show includes works by Christian Benefiel, Leslie Furlong, Andrew Liang, René Treviño and Karen Yasinsky. It was a rather impressive gathering of award-winning artists who have exhibited internationally.

Curators Alex Castro and Cara Ober have facilitated an interactive cinematic journey through these vibrant experimental installations. With their narrative and evocative nature, these works present a collective story that Ober acknowledges is “steeped in the subtleties of modern experience”.

Entering the gallery space, one is faced with a grimacing seven-foot Godzilla, among the many colorful elements in Andrew Liang’s immersive Desert installation.

Liang’s installation consists of dozens of colorful paintings on board, cut and finished into tantalizing shapes arranged in lively juxtaposition. A closer look reveals portrayals of confrontational racial stereotypes and a world of stark contrasts, in which even the most fanciful storybook elements, such as pancake flying saucers topped with butter and syrup, are engaged in various modes of attack and retreat.

This subtle complexity keeps the viewer searching for the narrative, all the while projecting their own experience onto the outlandish elements so carefully imagined and crafted by the artist

Entering the equally colorful world of René Treviño’s recent work, one’s attention is immediately captured by the Bestiary series. This bright trio of mylar panels depicting antique, stylized animal forms in red, yellow and blue, is brought into full focus when set against the Propaganda series, which includes 56 works, each 14″ by 11″, installed in a grid on the central wall of the gallery.

The lexicon of Treviño’s work is a fascinating reliquary of iconic symbols, contrasting ancient Greek museum pieces depicted in black and white with Aztec calendars in rainbow colors.

Christian Benefiel with Treviño’s Propaganda series

A visual pinball game ensues in which the viewer must cope with trying to assimilate the vernacular and simultaneously make narrative and visual connections between juxtaposed panels, an arrangement Ober refers to as an “ongoing codex of subversive details.”

This piece, and the entire exhibition, is a lyrical example of bridging the gap between the cognoscenti of art and artists and those who are sometimes puzzled by such arcane content or mystified as to the inherent value in such experiences

The works of Karen Yasinsky strike a contemplative balance, between her elegant and glowing pointillist ink portraits and her hand-drawn video animation entitled Audition. This work suggests the exhibition journey is shifting to an introverted tone, almost beckoning us to make a willing escape from the boisterous and confrontational works in the front rooms of the spacious gallery.

Yasinsky teaches at Johns Hopkins University and at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and has shown her work in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Berlin. All of the artists here are notable for their reach and accomplishments and Yasinsky’s work, in particular, conveys the thoughtful qualities and immaculate craft that make this exhibition so remarkable.

Around the corner you’ll find Benefiel’s The efficacy of wishing, a fascinating and functional installation inviting the viewer to inflate an array of prosthetic lungs by blowing through an electronic apparatus resembling a wind-sock. The real thrust of the piece is the illustration of a how a seemingly insignificant wish can have a greater impact than anticipated.

Benefiel’s work carries a conceptual narrative within its spare, minimalist framework. It is every bit as optimistic as its more overt companions, perhaps even more so. The work manifests the ultimate expression of optimism, a wish come true.

“I am interested in the action that separates hope from optimism … and a methodical balance between tedium, activity and entertainment.” -Christian Benefiel

In the final chamber of the exhibition are the photographs of Leslie Furlong, likewise minimalist in both content and presentation. The photographs of desolate urban asphalt in her Parking Lot series yield a reverent though ironic impression of the decline of nature.

Also featured is her video, Tokyo to Osaka. Shot from a moving train, the camera’s point of view is displayed split between two channels on two side-by-side flat screens. Cityscapes and countryside pass by drawing us to the images as if to the windows of the train.

Curators Alex Castro and Cara Ober congratulate the artists

Such a poignant moment of departure makes the experience of artNOW:Baltimore all the more compelling, as the viewer turns the corner and goes back to the beginning. Once again I found myself immersed in a brightly-colored cavalcade of whimsy and fanciful impressions of a bleak and believable future. And even after I circled through the nautilus of this exhibition for the third or fourth time I still found myself surprised at what I was only then discovering.

I highly recommend making the trip to Chestertown to see this stunning, world-class exhibition, which continues through March 30.

The Kohl Gallery is located inside the Gibson Center for the Arts on the Washington College campus, 300 Washington Avenue, Chestertown, MD, 21620.

The gallery is open Wednesday and Thursday, 1 to 5 pm, Friday, noon to 6 pm, and Saturday and Sunday noon to 5 pm.

Jen Davis, December 18, 2009, photo, 2009

Mary Mattingly Wearable Portable Architecture, 2011

The exhibit features pieces spanning a variety of mediums including photography, video, and recycled materials. When you first enter the space, you’re greeted by a large, spidery structure by artist Mary Mattingly, which is made from multiple costumes combined and transformed into a shelter. Wearable Portable Architecture is a pop-up private space in a world where “existence is increasingly rootless and contingent.” The camouflage sleeves and hoods that dangle off the sculpture aren’t exactly wearable, but at least it makes good use of resources.

Patrick McDonough, installation view of Awning Studies: Florida Ave. NE, Trinidad neighborhood D.C., 2011

Awning Studies by Patrick McDonough has a similar meaning behind its two awnings– like any you’d see in a Baltimore neighborhood– which are fixed to the gallery wall. Here, McDonough pokes fun at how people make the distinction between public and private spaces. (As it turns out, awnings are rather useless as far as privacy goes.) For his ongoing project, McDonough has also installed awnings in trees, over water, and in other doorless locations to emphasize that fact.

Vin Grabill, Frontier, video still, 2010

Artist and MICA faculty member Nate Larson attended the opening reception on February 2nd and gave a talk Friday, February 10th about his work. His collaborative series with Marni Shindelman, Geolocation, is a collection of photographs of places associated with tweets tracked by GPS. Larson said the reception was a hit and that feedback was positive.

“With our series, we’re interested in the amount of digital noise out there and how quickly it fades,” Larson says. “With something in the ballpark of 50 million tweets a day, we see our work as memorializing and preserving a small fraction of them them that say something to us about contemporary life, politics, and the culture in which we live. We’re also interested in pushing the boundaries of privacy– what people are willing to disclose online for an anonymous audience and how location-based services could link the virtual to the physical.”

Nate Larson and Marni Shindelman, Broken Into, archival inkjet print, 2011

Some of the tweets in Geolocation are unintentionally funny. Others, a little eerie:
“Omg! My house just got broken into & they took all our electronics “
This tweet is accompanied by a photo of remnants of a house near the mountains, with a single chair sitting among the debris.

One of Larson’s favorite pieces is also one of the most prominently placed works in the gallery that uses images of the room itself. Panoptic Panorama #1: I am standing in an empty room by Seattle-based James Coupe is a 360-degree view of the gallery captured by five cameras that serve as a glaringly obvious reminder that we are constantly being watched. Rather than capturing movement, however, the cameras instead filter out any footage containing movement, which makes the gallery appear to be almost empty. It’s a little creepy– suggesting that a watchful government could make it as if you never existed.

The evening of the opening reception had many other highlights, as well, with live music and several MICA undergrads from the EDS class to see their hard work come to fruition. Led by faculty member Jeffry Cudlin over the course of two semesters, students brainstormed, researched, and planned for the exhibition before eventually fleshing it out. The issue of privacy– or a lack thereof– was a theme that really resonated with the students.

“All of these issues are at the forefront of how we live now,” Cudlin says. “They directly affect a group of students who are eyeing the current economic climate and trying to navigate a world in which all activities could be regarded as suspicious—and monitored accordingly.”

Anne Percoco, Indra’s Cloud—Keshi Ghat; Vrindavan, India, 2008

While it’s true that many Americans are struggling to deal with a certain lack of freedom from a watchful eye, a curatorial statement for the exhibit makes a point to distinguish between shelter and privacy– only one of which is necessary for survival:

“Those in developing countries that make up the majority of the world struggle to create the best shelter they can, while those in more developed countries have the more luxurious concern of the loss of privacy.”

Put that way, it kind of gives you a whole new perspective.

The Under Cover exhibit runs through March 11 in MICA’s Fox Building’s Decker Gallery, 1303 W. Mount Royal Ave.

Keith Perelli, Evacuate, oil on paper on wood, 2005

Dr. Finius J. Nodnol III, Esq., checking in after a truly Wonder-Full weekend at Area 405.

The Winter Festival of Wonders began when it organizers, David London & Jeramie Bellmay, applied for a “Think Big” Grant from the Station North Arts & Entertainment District, designed to bring new artists and audience to Station North to experience and contribute to the cultural phenomenon taking place there. In accordance with the goal of the grant, I would like to offer a Dr. Nodnol official Mission Accoplished. 

By final count, over 700 visitors came through the doors of the three day event, including fairies, elves, magicians, wizards, sorcerers, tricksters, freaks, jugglers, and at least one leprechaun!

The Wizards Ball started off the event, with music by Aligning Minds and Kilowatts, and a variety of roaming performers and personalities – some hired, other who just showed up for the festivities! The Show of Magic was filled with laughs, mystery and the unexpected. Telesma delivered with a bang and allowed us all to share in their trance! My very own Sunday Circus ended the event with 7 acts each of whom would have stolen the show if they were not all in it together!

The Mystery Marketplace was a huge success, and the daytime workshops provided the opportunity for many, both young and old, to walk on a tightrope, juggle, belly dance, hoola hoop, learn magic and make music, as well as enjoy a lecture on the history of the Sideshow by James Taylor of Shocked and Amazed Magazine, and supplier of the festivals Cabinet of Curiosities.

Many of the visual artists were on hand throughout the weekend, including Joel Dreamm, Ben Tolman, EMP Collective, Rebecca Nagle, Brian Baker, Heather Joi Baker, Ed Gross, Chad Ellis, Philip Laubner and Toby Verhines.

All in all, the magical creatures came out of the woodworks this past weekend and converged at the Winter Festival of Wonders to celebrate Wonder, Magic & Play – those things that remind us all just what it means to be alive.

We were fortunate to have Philip Laubner on hand to document some of the magic. Please enjoy his short photo essay below!

Until next time, unless I see you in your dreams,

Dr. Finius J. Nodnol III, Esq.

www.DrNodnol.com 

David London, Operations Director for Winter Festival of Wonders

Jeramie Bellmay, Art Director of Winter Festival of Wonders

Stewart Watson of Area 405

Robin Gunkle

Paco Fish at The Wizards Ball

Heather Joi Baker at The Wizards Ball

Bubble Faerie Jennifer Stephens

Carl Stevens and the Scoposcope

 Janet Spahr plays the Hang during Saturday’s Mystery Marketplace!

Tightrope Workshop with Charm City Movement Arts

Jennifer Stephens with Third Eye Open

A Visitor to the Cabinet of Curiosities

David London performing at the Show of Magic

Denny Haney performs at The Show of Magic

Jeramie Bellmay paints Ian Hesford and Jason Sage of Telesma

Ian Hesford, Joanne Juskus, Jason Sage and Bryan Jones of  Telesma

Brian Jones of Telesma

Cabinet of Curiosities provided by James Taylor’s Shocked and Amazed!

James Taylor and Burlesque Queen Cherríe Sweetbottom in front of Ben Tolman‘s “Jump”

Kaela Marie Land hands out Free Cotton Candy at Dr. Nodnol’s Sunday Circus!

ellen cherry performs in Dr. Nodnol’s Sunday Circus

Dr. Finius J. Nodnol III, Esq. and Dylan Kohler (BROS)

Bagoas performs in Dr. Nodnol’s Sunday Circus