Su Casa es Mi Casa
Some shots from the juried exhibit, Gimme Shelter, at Columbia City Gallery in Seattle, where I am showing my project, Su Casa es Mi Casa (video and building cards). According to the gallery’s website, Gimme Shelter “speaks to the many types of dislocation happening in society today both locally and internationally. Artists working in 2D, 3D and video address issues of homelessness, gentrification and refugee dislocation.”
My project focuses on twelve meandering months of sacrificing stability to focus on art by completing an MFA, showing work abroad, having difficulty trying to find employment during school and after graduation, and thus also trying to find a long term residence, especially where rising rent costs are prohibitive. Here, 26 surfaces slept in during that time are the focal point. Some while house sitting, dog sitting, renting cheap rooms briefly, or visiting far away friends.
The images are rendered in impermanent media in a style touching on the vulnerability and fragility of a dollhouse, yet in some cases are also reminiscent of an interior blueprint. They are primarily recollections from memory vs. photographic representations. Therefore, the room renderings are wrought with inaccuracies and omissions. Words are imperceptible in the disorienting layered monologue which ponders the meaning of “home” for someone who has accepted nomadism and expansion through travel and creativity over domesticity, yet longs for a place to settle down. The disquieting incompleteness and constant change provides comfort through spaciousness and balances the alternative by thwarting staleness. On the other hand, constant movement is contrary to the stillness needed to support long term goals. Therefore, balance must be found between the two, just as it is required to build a house of cards. The concentration, energy, and persistence needed to succeed during this period of transition is apparent in the tension of the monologue and motion of the builder and camera operators, Stephanie Reid and Todd Rychener.
Camera operation: Stephanie Reid and Todd Rychener
Illustrations, Direction, and Editing by Stephanie Reid
Video: https://vimeo.com/221571137
Detailed images of the cards: http://haikuflash.photoshelter.com/gallery/Su-Casa-es-Mi-Casa/G0000UW0W15mhFLE/C0000nFrmMwTH.y4
Mila Kunst and Lindner Project – Transart Institute – MFA and PhD Student Works – Summer 2014
Selected works from Mila Kunst Intermezzo #1
photographic works by Gabriela Gusmão
beautiful wooden floor inlay at Mila Kunst Gallery
photographic work by Sylvia Adamcik addressing our disjointed experience of the natural world
photographic work by Sylvia Adamcik
Drawing by Julia Hyde inspired by La Forêt de Soignes (The Healing Forest) in Belgium.
landscape painting by Christopher Huck
Selected works from Mila Kunst Intermezzo #3
sculpture by Lisa Osborn
Installation (sound, smoke, video, and vinyl cutout walkway walls) by Laurel Terlesky. Several women poignantly discuss the loss of their mothers and the gradual process of being able to grasp the finality of her passing away. For example, One woman remembers that took her two months to accept the fact that her mother was not just on vacation.
Installation (sound, smoke, video, and vinyl cutout walkway walls) by Laurel Terlesky
Installation (sound, smoke, video, and vinyl cutout walkway walls) by Laurel Terlesky
Installation (sound, smoke, video, and vinyl cutout walkway walls) by Laurel Terlesky
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Selected works from
Lindner Project Space
July 27, 2014
Lindner Project Courtyard
Jamie Hamilton book installation documenting his learning how to tightrope walk in New Mexico
film installation by Mikkel Niemann. This film diptych explores man’s competition with nature. On the left we see the artist fighting with his opponent. On the right, he sits in an outdoor installation and films periodically over a period of time so that the imposition he has created in the environment is eventually completely overcome by the elements which tear away at the homey looking wallpaper and wild animals who come and eat his apples.
remnants from a performance installation by Rosina Ivanova. The artist practiced a feat of strength and endurance by holding up weights, with both arms outstretched to her sides, for a long period of time. Occasionally, she rings an encouraging bell. She likens the experience to the efforts of travel and immigration. All the while, a boat travels through the water on the screen behind her to emphasize the connection.
Selected works from Lindner Project Space
Alternative Maternals
August 9th, 2014
a beautiful dance performance with a rocking chair about motherhood by Jeca Rodriguez
amongst other objects, book artist and Columbia College professor, Miriam Schaer displayed throughout the gallery, baby clothes embroidered with stinging quotes such as, “Your child is the best art work you have ever made. You don’t need to make any other art,” and “Your not having children is the biggest disappointment of our life. These clothes were put on baby dolls and photographed for her book, “The Presence of Their Absence”. To see more of her work, visit: http://miriamschaer.com/
a haunting performance, “The Maternal Line” by Valerie Walkerdine which is about learning to speak with ghosts by allowing them to have a way to speak, even if they do not exist, their memory still exists within us. Her work posits how art can help us what is being transmitted to us. How can we feel with the other as the womb conveys sound? She often uses threes in her work, for example a performance will begin with 1) a lost spirit not at peace, 2) entering the underworld as a half-being, 3) release. Her opening to this performance was to slowly walk through the gallery towards the winding staircase leading to the basement, all the while singing solemn atavistic sounds similar to Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance. When she reaches the ground floor, a projection of close ups of dancers moving around on the ground is screened behind her. Suddenly, the image is flipped to look like they are crawling around on the ceiling. Valerie sings and shouts eerily as if in turmoil. A new scene forms and the focus is on a torso shot of a young woman in a red leotard being pushed back and forth between other dancers in black. They gradually work her into a frenzy until Valerie screams and pleads for it to STOP! STOP! The scene fades away into white with a blurred figure dancing there. Now in a white leotard, Valerie dances in front of the screen, which creates strange juxtapositions between her brightly illuminated limbs and her silhouette. The mood lifts as she boisterously sings, a song about her Chiquita being sweeta, singing to her burro and how people will think her a fool. She stated that she uses songs that are important to her mother and grandmother in her works, so maybe this playful song was one of their favorites.
photo collages created by Deborah Dudley ~
postcards from Brain Candy series by Deborah Dudley working in conjunction with her daughters
Hamburger Banhof Museum, Berlin – July 31, 2014
All images copyright © 2014 by Stephanie Reid
We didn’t see the entire museum, but instead spent a good deal of time in the upstairs film installation room and the following exhibition:
The End of the 20th Century. The Best Is Yet to Come. A Dialogue with the Marx Collection (part of the museum’s permanent collection from Erich Marx)
Warhol of Joseph Beuys with diamond dust
Landscape of Beuys’s basalt sculptures
a giant Mao painting against Mao wallpaper in a room of violent images – Elvis with guns, electric chairs, knives, a car accident death, pointy-toed spiked-heeled pumps
A film room 1920 William Kentridge from South Africa “Journey to the Moon” brought back to mind the films that inspired me to begin film making in the early 90’s. Special effects in the pre-digital era required a great deal of experimentation and imagination. Almost a century later, they are still effective as poetic storytelling devices. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPf63b6Glz8
A variety of Rauschenberg’s works such as Pink Door, Mule Deer, and collage prints described by John Cage as looking at several TV screens, on different channels, simultaneously
A Cy Twombly room featured several works including “The School of Fontainebleau” and “I am Thyrsis of Etna”, but my favorite of his works being shown was, “Empire of Flora” with its exciting treatment and colors of flowers. It has the sense of playing in a garden, getting ones hands dirty, pulling weeds, bumblebees, blooms and water streaming from a hose.
This wing ended in an Anselm Kiefer gallery where the astounding “Lilith amroten Meer” commanded serious attention but only after visiting his less weighty work “Ways of Worldly Wisdom: Armenius’s Battle” on the side wall.
Rachel Whitereed – Untitled with Thomas Struth – San Zaccharia time lapse photograph
The last exhibition we visited was the reason we came to the museum that day. Our film teacher, Anna Faroqhi, had to bow out of instructing our film workshop because her father, the film essayist, Harun Farocki, had died during the residency just a couple of days before the class was scheduled. We wanted to honor his memory by going to see his exhibition. The Hamburger Banhof was showing several of his works at the time, so instead of class we went to see some of his projects. On either side of the viewing room entrance two small monitors, and a viewing bench with headphones, invited visitors to relax and take in the show. However, the first essay was “Inextinguishable Fire”, a disquieting reenactment of the development of napalm at the Dow Chemical Plant and the atrocities committed by its use. **WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK. It gets a gory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JBbgWSBTdA
That foyer lead to a large room with four screens staggered throughout and showing the shorts from his, “Serious Games” series. These films explore different phases of soldier training from video game simulation, a live action simulation which took place in a small fabricated village with actors pretending to be the inhabitants, the creation of the video games, and post traumatic distress therapy. I found the post traumatic distress therapy to be useful in developing a conversation to have with my teenage brother should he still be considering joining the military.
Upon exiting, a compilation segments of at least three of films could be filmed on the other monitor. of his 1995 film “Interface” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsA5E5qIgm4 , which gives a first hand look at how the artist worked in his editing room while comparing and contrasting film and video; “Workers Leaving the Factory in Eleven Decades” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPGSmvtmaWY, which touches on the historical uses of the factory as a control mechanism for the population; and “zwischen zwei Kriegen” (between two wars), which can be ordered along with his other works at the online video data bank http://www.vdb.org/artists/harun-farocki. I urge you to take some time to familiarize yourself with the catalogue of this prolific artist and eloquent, insightful writer.
SomoS Gallery Berlin – Transart Institute MFA Students – Open Frame Popup Show
All images copyright © 2014 by Stephanie Reid.
SomoS is on the 1st floor of corner building in the Kreuzberg neighborhood of Berlin. It is a large space flooded with soft natural light and a relaxing gathering room with bar in the back. The show on August 2, 2014 featured artists from 1st, 2nd, and graduating MFA classes, as well as, work from artists represented by tète gallery in the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood. Putting work in the show was optional for students and were were asked to bring simple, fun works. First year students were told about the show shortly before it happened, so our work was either made in Berlin or was work that had already been brought for presentations at school. Considering how impromptu it was, I think it turned rather well! Sadly, I did not get images of all the work in the show, but this is a sample.
Here is the description of my piece (first of images below) which I created for the TI workshop, World as Sculpture. The assignment was to bring a sculptural artwork you have made but feel is not quite complete, then discuss how to make it more sculptural using modeling. I had previously made a set mixed CDs for a Leo friend in Los Angeles. I titled the compilations, The Moon and a Lantern for more mellow tracks and The Sun and a Lion for more upbeat tracks. The compilation titles were named specifically after the cover art illustrations I drew for them, using scribbled circles for the heavenly orbs and the origami folding line pattern for the object not seen in the drawing, but referenced in the title (lantern and lion). To see those images, visit: https://haikuflash.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Other-Illustration-and-Mixed-Media/G0000xdw0IFgWFaE/I0000qtO9L770Cqw/C00000PRsirHYLFo
and
https://haikuflash.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Other-Illustration-and-Mixed-Media/G0000xdw0IFgWFaE/I0000v75gIs.daRA/C00000PRsirHYLFo
Along the same lines, I created this illustration created for a world music compilation I also selected the songs for. I infer three-dimensionality by layering origami fold lines for a pine tree on top of the world map image. In response to the exercise, I stated that to make it more sculptural, I would fold (model) the illustration into its intended shape. The pine tree can then be set upon the circular song list that normally lies under the CD, to transform from packaging design to sculptural artwork.
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The Earth and a Pine Tree, CD compilation and foldable cover art by Stephanie Reid
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Layered and cutout paper illustration of Earth with pine tree origami folding lines
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Track list
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The Earth and a Pine Tree, song selection and folded cover art
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painting by Lindey Anderson
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prints by Liz Carré
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positive film by Beau(ty) Baco
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photo montage by Analia Sirabonian
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translation = bad dog. This installation shows all the products the artist, Deborah Dudley, used to try to get the smell off of her dog after it had bothered a skunk.
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marriage cocoon performance by Mariana Rocha and José Drummond
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marriage cocoon performance by Mariana Rocha and José Drummond
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marriage cocoon performance by Mariana Rocha and José Drummond
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unraveling the marriage cocoon performance by Mariana Rocha and José Drummond
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gold painted lava rocks by Marion Wasserman
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watercolors by ? with ivy dance performance by Claire Elizabeth Barratt
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ivy dance performance by Claire Elizabeth Barratt
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ivy dance performance by Claire Elizabeth Barratt
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mixed media works expressing a turbulent sibling relationship by Jaye Moscariello
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embroidery and oil on paper by Kelly Reyna Mackh, whose work expresses the experience of raising an autistic young son
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markings by KJ Schumacher
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remote crucifix by ?
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Andrea Spaziani and Allen Ferguson talk Nicolas Cage
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Ethiopian funerary robe installation by Konjit Seyoum
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Asher Mains and Konjit Seyoum share experiences relating to her installation
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landscape print by Gabriel Deerman
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film still by José Drummond
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Intentional Water by Honi Ryan
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Honi Ryan and Abdullah Khan review their notes after playing a relational game together
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SomoS bar
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colorful VW car outside the gallery
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willows on the Spree
Andrea Spaziani sent postcards to participants who had previously expressed interest in her community dance project. Each card had a one sentence description of a type of dance that could be performed. During the course of the opening at SomoS gallery in Berlin this summer, she performed her own versions of each instruction.
To end the night, attendees were treated to a live performance by Transart advisor, Lynn Book, of the Dada vocal sound piece Ursonate (primeval sonata) written and developed by Kurt Schwitter between 1922 and 1932. The poem was a favorite of Transart Institute co-founder, Klaus Knoll, who suddenly fell ill earlier this year and passed away just before the summer residency began. Book honored his memory by flawlessly guiding us through sublime and sometimes comical soundscape.
Berlin Gallery and Studio Tour – Summer 2014
During the Transart Institute MFA Summer Residency in Berlin, we were given insight into the art world there by going on a gallery and studio tour on July 26th. The tour was organized by the school’s Initiatives Coordinator, kate hers RHEE. This was an excellent way to begin the program. Most Berlin galleries set up at the major art fairs such as Cologne, Miami, Basel, and Hong Kong. All images copyright © 2014 by Stephanie Reid.
Gallery Tour
Gallery Stop 1: Esther Schipper
Exhibit: “Paper Work” featuring works by Ceal Floyer and Karin Sander created with office supplies. The former artist created a series of gradated circular ink blots make by pressing grey pens onto the center of blotting paper sheets until the pens are out of ink. Whereas the latter artist utilizes objects such as a hole punch, clips, or tabs on A4 paper to design patterns.
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Gallery Stop 2: Kühlhaus Berlin.
This is an approximately 18,000 sq feet historical building that was a cooling station before refrigerators were readily available. The courtyard in the photo below, with the whale hovering in the air, used to be a market and train station where people could come and buy foods that had been kept fresh in the kühlhaus. Several people recently purchased the warehouse for cultural activities and are remodeling the building to code, for example, by building cement stairs vs. wooden ones. The Berlin Art Prize, an annual art competition between local contemporary artists, was held at the Kühlhaus earlier this year.
However, the four-story exhibition on display while we were there was of student works from the school of high art, Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee in the GDR (German Democratic Republic), or East Germany. It was explained that arts funding is highly competitive since the conjoining of East and West Germany because now there are two major art schools in Berlin, the other being Akademie der Künste, in the West, which has a history going back to the 1600’s. None of the works had labels, therefore I am unable to provide the names of the artists whose works are shown here, except for a sculptural installation in front of the building which is the result of a performance given by Elena Kaludova. Elena wore a t-shirt with the slogan “STOP BORING ART!” printed on the back so that it could be read as she drilled holes through the wooden sign. The sign had the words “BORING ART” carved out of it. The artist drilled through most of the letters until only the “O” and “R” were left intact.
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Gallery Stop 3: Schwarz Contemporary run by Ann Schwarz
This exhibit was of works by several artists represented by the gallery.
Postcard of outdoor installation, 2200 K, by Monika Goetz
photograph of paper by Holger Neihaus
painting by Fee Kleiss (left) and photo of paper by Holger Neihaus (right)
delicate “stencil” paintings on white kite fabric by Henrik Eiben
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Gallery Stop 4: Wentrup Galerie by Jan Wentrup
The gallery currently represents 13 artists. Works by several of those artists were on display.
Main gallery – Axel Geis’s photo realistic chandeliers painted from different angles on highly glossed canvases. The viewer stands in the middle where the light fixture would normally be so that the subject and object are reversed. How strange to be scrutinized by a light fixture! This is an excellent example of “assemblage” mentioned in the World as Scuplture Workshop section of my post here: https://haikuflash.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/course-sampler-transart-institute-mfa-and-certificate-summer-residency-2014/
Gregor Hildebrandt creates many of his artworks from cassette tapes. In some cases, as with this piece, he glues the tape to a canvas and before peeling the audio tape back off again, he applies pressure through footsteps, scratching, etcetera, so that the emulsion stays on the canvas where he has effected it. Those works are named after the music that was recorded on the tape. This one is titled “Neues vom Trickser (Toco) IV” by the band Tocotronic.
Another piece by Gregor Hildebrandt. In this work, he cut a print of a still frame from the movie “Eyes Wide Shut” into small rectangles that fit inside of cassette case spines then displayed them in a wall organizer.
Peles Empire are two female artists, Katharina Stöver from Germany and Barbara Wolff from Romania who both currently work in London. The goal of their collaborative team is to copy the rooms of the Peles Castle in Romania and present it in the new ways. The castle already consists of copied, mismatched styles from Baroque to Art Deco. The artists are then creating copies of copies to a microscopic level. The replicative nature of their work can then be described as sculptural as discussed in my World as Sculpture Workshop blog linked above. Here, a photograph of marble is used as a paper mâché landscape onto a cement sheet.
another angle of the Peles Empire slab
Here photographic images of Peles Castle are used as wallpaper on cement sheets. Layers appear to be torn away to reveal another texture and/or image underneath.
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Studio Tour
HB 55 (Herzbergstrasse 55) Räume der kunst (rooms of art). This historical set of buildings used to be a margarine factory.
1) Aleks Slota was our tour guide and has a studio here. He explained that he uses a megaphone to recite speeches that were written but never read, out of his studio window. One example was the speech written in case the U.S. astronauts never returned from their first trip to the moon.
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2) Art photographer, Ivonne Thein, makes commentary on the fashion world and beauty, sometimes through jarring imagery. http://www.ivonnethein.com/
from Ivonne Thein’s Thirty-two Kilos series
from Ivonne Thein’s Thirty-two Kilos series
from the Second Skin series
video of a woman dressing into and undressing from a flesh colored body suit
A hidden camera behind the black box on the wall displays a live action, out of focus video of the person standing in front of it, thus rendering them indistinguishably.
postcard from Ivonne Thein’s Proforma series which appears to be human bodies seamlessly joined with mannequin heads or possibly just their faces. This is the most subtle and effective commentary on airbrushing / Photoshopping models that I’ve seen to date.
Her work was one of the primary inspirations for my first post-graduation project, Dissolve, here: https://haikuflash.wordpress.com/2016/07/15/a-collection-of-photography-on-the-theme-imperceptible-self/
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3) Louise Gibson is a sculptress from Scotland currently working in Berlin at a studio near a scrapyard. She recycles discarded clothing and electronics by embedding them in resin castings, then when dry, she cuts them into shapes. She also melts, morphs, and varnishes large appliances and building materials into blobs of color and sheen (see bottom shelf in image below). 
Spaces Between – An art show by Teruko Nimura
Teruko Nimura opened her solo show, ‘Spaces Between’, at Testsite this Sunday. Not only was the show lovely and fun, but the gallery space is gorgeous.
These images are teasers to encourage you to visit the exhibit in person. Not all the works are included here, so you have to go there to see them.
http://www.fluentcollab.org/testsite/index.php/projects/index/27
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- Origami cranes make great shadows!
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- The artist gets a hug and the curator, Emily, chats with a visitor.
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- Variations on Hello Kitty
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- Party Kitties
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- Hand dyed fabric banners hover over reliefs of Maneki Neko (Japanese lucky cats).
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- enough cranes for good luck + red in the living area = good feng shui
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- a reflection of the centerpiece in a glass table
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- A labyrinth leads the artist through a quest for identity inherent with contemplating our roots. A photorealist drawing of her grandfather’s funeral is embedded in the visual journey.
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- Sculptures created by Teruko of traditional Japanese icons arranged on a spiral of unryu (oon-ree-oo) and fabric petals. Her technique makes them look like stone, but they are unfired clay with a buffed slip over them. Impressive!
HaikuFlash 