Neo-Nomads: What travels with you? Catalogue essay by Aileen Wilson and Anne-Laure Fayard

WARD SHELLEY ADAM BRENT MCKENDREE KEY SANGBIN IM TRACI TALASCO KIM BECK EMILY HENRETTA

NEONOMADS: WHAT TRAVELS WITH YOU?

CURATED BY ANNE-LAURE FAYARD, BASEERA FOX KHAN, AND AILEEN WILSON

JANUARY 20, 2011 – FEBRUARY 26, 2011 AT BRIC ROTUNDA GALLERY, THE CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE OF BRIC ARTS | MEDIA | BKLYN

“DAY AFTER DAY, AN EVERINCREASING TRAFFIC OF HUMANITY SKIPS FROM CONTINENT TO CONTINENT, HEMISPHERE TO HEMISPHERE, THE CITIZENS OF A COMMUNITY BEYOND NATIONS, AND FOR MORE AND MORE PEOPLE, THE NOTION OF HOME HAS LITTLE TO DO WITH ANY PARTICULAR PART OF THE PLANET. IF THIS ISN’T QUITE WHAT WE’D IMAGINED HOME WOULD BE, WELL, MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE HOME HAS NEVER BEEN QUITE LIKE THIS BEFORE.” — PICO IYER

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t is said that there is no place like home. Exile, voluntary or forced, nomadism, packing, leaving, and moving are not new notions, yet technology and increased mobility have dramatically changed our perception of home. Neo-nomads, contemporary nomads continually on the move, change geographies, journey through urban life, and challenge traditional notions of home as defined space.

In doing so, they posit home more as a sense of place, a collage of all previously experienced homes, combined with memories of objects, moments, and people in much the same way as our perceptions in general are always imbued with our memories.

Indeed, as we move from place to place, we carry with us a few evocative objects—a book, a writing pad, a photo, an old sweater or an iPod with songs we like. We carry within us evocative places formed by the people we have met, discussions we have had, and sensations strongly felt. As neo-nomads change cities, their sense of home evolves; growing in some ways, shrinking in others. Location and space disappear amidst the loss of a fixed “home.” What matters is the process, the mobility, and the experiences and memories that build and combine to create a sense of home.

Studies have shown the importance of evocative objects. Objects develop a sense of identity, a sense of home. The psychologist and social scientist Sherry Turkle reminds us how embodied and situated we are, especially through the meaning we attach to everyday objects, despite our increased mobility or the fluidity of geographies. SANGBIN IM recognizes the mobility of both the viewer and cultural object. In the accumulation of objects depicted in a series of three photographs, IM acts as a virtual curator, combining images from multiple contexts and suggesting that these cultural objects, defined as masterpieces, are themselves cultural nomads. The artist’s work recognizes the de-contextualization of these ”masterpieces” as they are packed and moved, “transformed,”

he says, “to serve contemporary interests as they travel from all over the world to the cultural agora.”

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bjects are “companions to our emotional lives or as provocations to thought” (Turkle, 2007, p. 5). The power of objects or experiences, sometimes seemingly insignificant, was well captured by Marcel Proust in the experience of the little madeleine in The Remembrances of Things Past. The narrator suddenly recalls a vivid experience of childhood through the taste of a madeleine: “When from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.”

EMILY HENRETTA’s Decades echoes Proust’s exploration of how time shapes our perceptions and imaginations. Inspired by a childhood memory of her family home and her desire to recreate it, she peels back the different layers of wallpaper in a closet in her grandmother’s house.

By uncovering these layers, she highlights how feelings associated with home are created. Alternatively, in Support System, TRACI TALASCO explores the emotional weight of the homes in which she has lived. Here, she uses fragments of home to create a roller coaster form that alludes to fear, instability, and emotional turbulence.

In this exhibition curated by a team of artists and academics, global souls with varied intellectual interests, we ask what does one take and carry as a neo-nomad? We look more closely at contemporary nomads, anchored in the concrete realities of moving and packing but also car-

rying with them intangible objects, experiences, smells, sounds, and memories. We explore a central question for neo-nomads: How we are connected to our space through objects, memories, relationships, rituals, and increasingly, digital technologies? We ask whether home is where we live, or instead, is a sense of place, carried within us where ever we have lived and worked. It is this sense that allows us to feel connected and that becomes, as theorist Andreas Huyssen, suggests, “an embodied material fact” (Huyssen, 2009).

WARD SHELLEY’s Voyage Platform is a mobile architectural structure, “a nomadic vessel” that was quite literally home for the artist during its “voyage” though Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens. It is an embodied material fact, a structure that is re-built and re-invented as it moves through space. As Shelley states, ”architecture, purpose, and necessary behaviors are inextricably wound together. It is a closed system where the interdependence of every aspect is crucial and clear.” He reminds us how architecture and technology constitute socio-material practices through which we build not only physical, but also psychological and social spaces.

In the essay, “Promenades: Urban imaginaries, reinventing our cities and [searching for] a sense of home” (Fayard and Wilson, forthcoming), we draw upon experiences of having lived in Europe, Asia, and the United States. We describe city walks, urban promenades in our cities past and present—cities we were brought up in, cities we have lived in, and those we currently call home. We experienced some of these promenades together walking in Brooklyn or London; others were re-constructed and re-imagined as we emailed each other. Through these promenades, we suggest that our perceptions, practices, and memories of previous places are intertwined with the present to construct a sense of place, which is never completely here or elsewhere.

MCKENDREE KEY examines the city in her video 176 Clinton Place to Lafayette, as a series of interconnected spaces where the boundaries between public and private are blurred. This piece she says, “speaks to the ongoing dialogue about gentrification in Brooklyn—a dialogue that encompasses race, class, issues of property ownership and personal boundaries, architecture, and urban planning.”

The works presented in this exhibition remind us that as we live in a place, or move from place to place, we always carry with us and leave behind evocative objects. As neo-nomads change cities, their sense of home evolves—growing in some ways, shrinking in others. Home is never here or there, but it is the ongoing experience of imagining, dreaming, and creating a sense of home.

hile our original conversation centered on the evocative objects that travels with one in the material practices of packing and moving, as we worked with the artists on the exhibition the focus shifted slightly from mobility and objects to iconographies of home and a sense of home. It might be that domestic forms like wallpaper as in Emily Henretta’s installation, or toys created to define notions of home as in McKendree Key’s paintings of children’s building toys, or the house itself—constructed, deconstructed, and easily assembled and reassembled as in Adam Brent’s installation, Everything is uncertain, have become the “evocative objects” we take with us, imaginations of home rather than real homes. It might also be that the ‘nomadic vessel’ itself or the ‘homes’ that are constructed/deconstructed are in themselves, suitcases.

— Anne-Laure Fayard and Aileen Wilson

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For KIM BECK, self-storage sheds become surrogate homes when a person travels and moves. In her work, she reverses the question “what travels with you?” to “what do you leave behind?” As one boxes up books, dishes and bedding, one also boxes up a part of the self to wait—maybe endlessly—for the person to assume that self again.

In ADAM BRENT’s work the house itself is literally packed and moved.

The artist says, “(I can) either roll up or roll out the rug and take it or leave it. I can make my place and establish a comfortable surrounding just as fast as I can make an exit.”

KIM BECK Self Storage, Public Storage, StorageUSA—these humble utilitarian structures form the basis for this installation. Generally appearing in clusters, the storage buildings in this work are rendered from multiple perspectives, accumulating in large cut-out drawings.

These surround stacks of unassembled cardboard sheets, die-cut to fold up into a perspectivally-cut storage building.

ready to assume that self again. In my drawings, the sheds are layered and drawn from multiple angles, causing a sense of displacement or dislocation. Classically proportioned, these utilitarian structures are always blank façades, hiding whatever histories, memories or secrets are stored inside. This opens up the way for temporary or permanent change as the past is tucked into boxes, making way for reinvention.

In this work, the storage units become surrogate homes when a person travels or moves. Called “self-storage,” it’s as if the self is boxed up along with the books, dishes and bed until the person is

This photograph illustrates a 2004 project by Beck, who will create a new site-specific installation for the exhibition.

Self Storage, Public Storage, StorageUSA, 2004 Corrugated cardboard, paper, graphite, and animations Size variable Indoor site-specific installation at Plane Space, New York

ADAM BRENT I make work about domesticity, place and memory. I often employ a language of suburban architecture in my sculpture to explore ideas of childhood and challenges of everyday life at home. Peeks, platforms and various appendages are joined together to mimic back decks and house additions. Iconic objects such as houseplants, doilies ,and braided rag rugs instill a sense of intimacy and familiarity.

My work is modular and can readily collapse. The materials used are mixed, sometimes include digital media, and combine to paint a familiar feeling. When I make rag rugs, carve in text or care for living plants, I am finding role players

in a larger domestic portrait that loosely develops until the work feels complete.

My recent work references the quick, spacious, and leisure-oriented architecture associated with the post-war housing boom. The A-frame house is an easily identified example from this period. The structures I build are raw partial enclosures, each revealing the manner in which they were constructed. Blurring boundaries between interior and exterior, they are about projection as architecture and the human scale.

This photograph illustrates a 2010 project by Brent, who will create a new site-specific installation for the exhibition.

I’m OK with it, 2010 Colorfin plywood, pine, glass, houseplants, cotton, paper custom rugs, braided coasters, and aluminum, 108 x 96 x 144 in.

Site-specific installation at the Islip Museum Carriage House, 2010.

EMILY HENRETTA When I was 9 years old, my mother, sister and I steamed off 80 years of wallpaper from the interior walls of our farmhouse. The smell of the melting glue mingled with decades-old paper and cement. I remember peeling the layers away and finding treasure, floral patterns damaged by water, stripes yellowed by the sun, each layer more threadbare then the one before, falling apart in my small hands.

Decades, 2010 Wallpaper, sheetrock, wood, and glue Dimensions variable

I wanted to recreate this experience, and luckily, one closet in the house was never steamed. I was able to recover 4 layers, the top one white latex paint of my family’s era and three layers of decorative wallpaper. My mother and I ventured that the layers were respectively from the 1950s, 1930s and 1910s. I wanted to create columns that resembled an arbitrary bar graph, markers of time with no fixed value or quantity.

SANGBIN IM Museums curate, collect or present works of art, and some of the works help to sculpt art history.

However, Blockbuster stories are not everything that we should hear.

Currently underrepresented works of art may or may not be well-deserved in the future, yet undoubtedly, those works are a significant part of our culture. Even though I am currently interested in my take on the representation of intellectual culture and the categorization of academic cultural knowledge and power by the modern institutions, it seems also fascinating to envision the power of yet-underrepresented collection of art works as this may question what it is to be art and institution.

My Museum: East Asia, 2009 Lambda print, 80 x 48 in.

Museum is one of my ongoing art projects. The following image of this project is called “Modern Art� that houses the images of a number of Modern masterpieces at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I took pictures of the works in person and put them together, according to my preference, as if I am a virtual curator or collector of a virtual museum, yet with a strong reference to real life.

By doing so, I would like to express my irresistible fascination of the fantastical cultural spectacle alongside my lurking yet persistent anxiety of the power of that spectacle.

Egypt, 2009 Lambda print, 80 x 48 in.

Western Religious Painting, 2009 Lambda print, 80 x 48 in.

MCKENDREE KEY My recent works on paper address the notion of the basic building blocks of the American dwelling. Lincoln logs were invented in 1916 by John Wright, a brother of Frank Lloyd Wright. Used throughout the country as a toy to build pre-designed log cabins, they embody the psychology behind the American notion of the log cabin— one of the most basic structures for living. In these works I explore the cabin, the tipi, the barn, the barri-

er, and the prefabricated tools we have reduced them to. These are the tools—or toys—that define our notion of the dwelling. With these works I mean to question the ways we divide, designate and experience space, and the structures we create to contain it.

Barrier 2, 2010 Watercolor on paper, 11 x 15 in.

Cabin, 2010 Watercolor on paper, 11 x 15 in.

WARD SHELLEY The Voyage Platform took as its inspiration the sailing ship where architecture, purpose, and necessary behaviors are inextricably wound up together. A ship is a closed system where the interdependence of every aspect is crucial and clear.

We three collaborators erected our craft, the Voyage Platform, on one side of Socrates Sculpture Park with the intention of living onboard until we crossed to the other side.

This we would do by constantly rebuilding the platform with parts from the back, reattaching them to the front, progressing forward.

It was like leap-frog. We climbed up with all the supplies we would need for more than a week —food,

Voyage Platform – Cold Morning, 1998 Emulsion-based photographic print, 30 x 20 in.

water, shelter, toilet — and didn’t come down until we reached the other side.

Our motto for the project was “Do a dumb thing in a difficult way,” and it seemed apt. The project was absurd, but with the highest aspirations. We weren’t just interested in what it was like to live and work in a cramped, primitive, nomadic vessel, we wanted to know what it meant. When you strip away the practical and the sensible, maybe you are left with very little else than pure meaning.

TRACI TALASCO Throughout my art career I have created sculptures, installations, and video works. While the medium changes, there is a common thread addressing the physical and emotional aspects of home (in a humorous way). My personal expectations and disappointments are the basis for my ideas.

Support System is an installation using interior elements such as carpeting, paint, and molding, combined with architectural model parts to create a delicate roller coaster structure. The supports are created from unfinished wood strips, reminiscent of 2x4 wall framing in a house. Weaving its way up and down the wall, the structure contains missing segments and

steep drops suggesting emotional instability or lack of support. Rolls of carpet imply portability as well as the psychological baggage we carry around with us, even after leaving our homes.

The feeling of home is not solely contained inside my apartment.

Rather it encompasses my neighborhood and experiences I frequent in daily life. This project is inspired by the “Cyclone� at Coney Island, a place I often visit since moving to Brooklyn.

Support System, 2010 Red carpet, architectural model parts, molding, chair rail, and blue interior paint 12 x 6 x 4 in.

ARTIST BIOS KIM BECK Kim Beck works with drawing, print, painting and installation. She received a BA from Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Beck has exhibited at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn; MoMA PS1, NY; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens; and Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Buffalo. A recent participant in the Marie Walsh Sharpe Space Program, Brooklyn, she has also held residencies at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY; the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH; International Studio & Curatorial Program, NY and; Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. She is the recipient of awards from ARS Electronica, Linz, Austria; the PollockKrasner Foundation; the Rhode Island School of Design; and the Thomas J. Watson and Heinz Foundations. Beck’s works are in the collections of the Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, and the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, among others. idealcities.com

ADAM BRENT New York native Adam Brent is a sculptor living and working in Brooklyn.

He received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA from the Parsons School of Design. Brent has had solo exhibitions at Wave Hill, in the Bronx; the Humanities Gallery, Long Island University, in Brooklyn; and Drew University, Madison, NJ, among others. He has also been in group exhibitions at the Islip Art Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Apexart, and Artist Space, NY; and the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT. He participated in the Artists in the Marketplace

program at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, received a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and an Emerge 7 Fellowship from Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, Newark, NJ. He is also a principle founding member of the New York-based BroLab Collective, which addresses issues particular to the city in their group performances. adambrent.com

EMILY HENRETTA Emily Henretta was born in Boston in 1982. She grew up in a 1910 farmhouse that was in a constant state of renovation which was located in Northern Virginia, adjacent to Great Falls National Park. Her intimate interactions with construction projects and a monumental natural environment have informed an art-making process that explores how objects and spaces are imbued with markers of history. Henretta has exhibited her work in New York at The International Print Center New York, The Westside Gallery at the School of Visual Arts, and Glowlab Gallery. Emily received a BA in history from Columbia University in New York City in 2004 and she is currently working towards an MFA at this institution. emilyhenretta.com

SANGBIN IM Born in Seoul, Korea, Sangbin IM lives and works in New York. His work includes photography, painting, drawing, video, and installation. He received a BFA from Seoul National University and an MFA from Yale University. IM has exhibited internationally, including at such venues as the Sungkok Art Museum, the Seoul Museum of Art, and Seoul Arts Center, all in Korea; the Walter Randel Gallery, Frederieke Taylor Gallery, and The Cooper Union School of Art, all NY; Atting House, Hong Kong; and the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. He is currently pursuing a doctorate degree in art and art education from Columbia University in

the City of New York. IM is represented by the Mary Ryan Gallery, NY, and the PKM Gallery, Seoul. sangbinim.com

MCKENDREE KEY Born in Vermont, McKendree Key received a BFA from The Colorado College and now lives and works in Brooklyn. Her solo exhibitions include those at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; MoMA PS1, Queens; Caren Golden Fine Arts, NY; and GalerĂ­a Senda, Barcelona, Spain. She has shown in group exhibitions nationally and internationally, at Taylor de Cordoba Gallery, Los Angeles; Median Art Center, Beijing; Atelier Leipzigerstrasse, Berlin; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; The Fleming Museum, University of Vermont; and The Sculpture Center, Queens. She has completed residencies at the CUE Art Foundation and the Swing Space program, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, both NY; and at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine. Key took part in The Bronx Museum of Arts Artist in the Marketplace program, and is recipient of a NYFA Artist Fellowship and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. She has received critical attention from The New York Times and The Village Voice. mckendreekey.com

WARD SHELLEY Ward Shelley works in Brooklyn, focusing on large projects that combine sculpture and performance, as well as on diagrammatic text-based paintings that depict networks of information and cultural evolution.

He received a BFA in Art and Communications from Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, FL, and an MA from New York University. He has exhibited in numerous major institutions nationally and internationally; locally, at the Smack Mellon Gallery; at Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens;

and at the Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. His works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Brooklyn Museum, among others.

Shelley has received numerous awards and fellowships, including The Joan Mitchell Award for Painting and Sculpture, an American Academy in Rome Fellowship, and grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and the Jerome Foundation. He teaches at the Parsons School of Fine Arts, NY and is represented by Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn. wardshelley.com

TRACI TALASCO Based in Brooklyn, Traci Talasco explores social spaces within the home through sculpture, installation, and video. She holds a BFA from Tyler School of Art/Temple University, Philadelphia, and studied metalsmithing at SUNY, New Paltz. Talasco has had solo exhibitions at Art Space, New Haven, CT, and McGrath Galleries, NY. She has also exhibited in group shows at CUE Art Foundation, Harvestworks, and the Bronx Museum of the Arts, all NY; Vertigo Gallery, Philadelphia; and Locust Projects, Miami. The artist has completed residencies with CUE Art Foundation and Community Word Project, both NY, and was a participant in the Bronx Museum of Arts Artist in the Marketplace program.

She has received critical attention from The New York Times, The Village Voice and Flash Art International. tracitalasco.com

WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION KIM BECK

MCKENDREE KEY

Ideal City, 2004 Corrugated cardboard, approx. 30 x 30 x 30 in.

Cabin 1, 2010 Watercolor on paper, 11 x 15 in.

Self-Storage, 2004 Graphite on hand-cut paper and acrylic on linen, 8 x 12 to 10 x 20 in.

ADAM BRENT everything is uncertain, 2010 Aluminum, cotton, satin, paper, polymer-infused plywood, glass, and plants, approx. 96 x 90 x 72 in.

EMILY HENRETTA Decades, 2010 Wallpaper, sheetrock, wood, and glue, dimensions variable SANGBI IM My Museum: East Asia, 2009 Lambda print, 80 x 48 in.

Egypt, 2009 Lambda print, 80 x 48 in.

Western Religious Painting, 2009 Lambda print, 80 x 48 in.

Cabin 2, 2010 Watercolor on paper, 11 x 15 in.

Cabin 3, 2010 Watercolor on paper, 11 x 15 in.

Barrier 1, 2010 Watercolor on paper, 11 x 15 in.

Barrier 2, 2010 Watercolor on paper, 11 x 15 in.

Barrier 3, 2010 Watercolor on paper, 11 x 15 in.

Anchor, 2010 Watercolor on paper, 11 x 15 in.

Blocks 1, 2010 Watercolor on paper. 11 x 15 in.

Anchor, 2010 Watercolor on paper, 11 x 15 in.

Blocks 2, 2010 Watercolor on paper, 11 x 15 in.

Anchor Blocks, 2010 Watercolor on paper, 11 x 15 in.

176 Clifton Place to Lafayette Gardens, 2010 Digital video, 7:00

WARD SHELLEY

TRACI TALASCO

Voyage Platform – Cold Morning, 1998 Emulsion-based photographic print, 30 x 20 in.

Support System, 2010 Red carpet, architectural model parts, molding, chair rail, and blue interior paint, 12 x 6 x 4 in.

Voyage Platform – Socrates, 1998 Emulsion-based photographic print, 30 x 20 in.

Voyage Platform, 1998 Video, 60:00 min.

Filmed by Loch Phillipps Edited by John Mims

PUBLIC PROGRAMS Taking, Leaving, Moving: mobility, evocative objects and a sense of home Wednesday, February 9, 2011, 7–9pm A panel discussion moderated by the curators reflecting on the exhibition as it relates to their field. Panelists include: Uzma Z. Rizvi, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Urban Studies, Critical and Visual Studies, Pratt Institute; Erica Robles, Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University; and Cassim Shepard, filmmaker and director of Urban Omnibus, a project of the Architectural League of New York.

An Evening Stephen Rosenberg Wednesday, February 16, 2011, 7–9pm A talk for young visual artists with art dealer and NYU professor Stephen Rosenberg on today’s art market. How do price your work? What is the best way of approaching dealers? How have fairs changed the global art market? And more…

BRIC’s contemporary art initiatives aim to increase the visibility and accessibility of contemporary art while bridging the gap between the art world and global culture in Brooklyn through exhibitions, public events, and an innovative arts education program at BRIC Rotunda Gallery and around the borough.

BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn presents high-quality contemporary, performing and media arts programs that reflect Brooklyn’s diverse communities, and provides resources and platforms to support the creative process.

BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn’s exhibition program is made possible thanks to support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Special thanks to Lead 2010–11 Exhibition Season Sponsor, Two Trees Management Co. LLC.