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VAN McELWEE bruno david gallery TIME FORK
October 2020 - June 2021 This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition
CopyrightFirstFounder/Director:www.brunodavidgallery.cominfo@brunodavidgallery.comU.S.A.BrunoL.DavidEdition©2021VanMcElweeandBrunoDavid
Gallery
Catalogue Designer: Alex McLaughlin, Naomi Yu, Bonnie Dana, and Mary Kate Charles
Van McElwee
TIME FORK Laumeier Sculpture Park, Saint Louis, MO
“Van McElwee: Time Fork” at Laumeier Sculpture Park, Saint Louis, MO
Editor: Bruno L. David
Designer Assistant: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Van McElwee, Laumeier Sculpture Park, and Bruno David Gallery
Photographs by Van McElwee and Casper McElwee
Cover image: “Time Fork” (detail), still image from video iPAD Bruno David Gallery 7513 Forsyth Boulevard Saint Louis, Missouri 63105,
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of Bruno David Gallery
CONTENTS FUTURE IS PRESENT BY DON CORRIGAN VAN McELWEE: TIME FORK BY DANA TURKOVIC AFTERWORD BY BRUNO L. DAVID CHECKLIST AND IMAGES OF THE BIOGRAPHYEXHIBITION
St. Louis artist Van McElwee’s Time Fork: World B (2020) is currently on exhibit at Laumeier Sculpture Park in Sunset Hills, Missouri. McElwee’s Augmented Reality (AR) installation is part of the park’s 2021 thematic exploration, The Future is Present: Art and Global Change, which runs through October 20, 2021. The park is displaying artist projects covering such topics as environmental crisis, tech waste, deforestation, astronomical phenomena, and alternative realities. McElwee’s electronic and video exhibitions have found audiences in London, Vienna, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, and other world capitals. His body of media art includes over one hundred single-channel video works, in stallations, and web projects. McElwee’s grants and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Film Institute Independent Filmmaker Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Independent Production Fund, a Regional Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship, and a travel grant from the government of India. McElwee’s work has been exhibited extensively and is represented in the Kitchen Video Collection in New York City, and by Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis, Heure Exquise! in France, the Inter Media. Art Institute in Germany, and LUX in London, UK. In a ten-year survey of his work, the curator of Anthology Film Archives, Andrew Lampert, wrote, “McElwee is an ultra-prolific digital pioneer of the highest order.”¹ Our conversation took place at Laumeier Sculpture Park, by telephone, and by email over a period of several weeks in March 2021. 1. Andrew Lampert, program notes, Van McElwee: A Deccade, Anothology Film Archives (2010)
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Afterimage, Vol. 48, Number 3, pps. 25–34. ISSN 2578-8531. © 2021 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from the University of California. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2021.48.3.25
DON CORRIGAN FUTURE IS PRESENT A Conversation with Van McElwee
AFTERIMAGE, September 2021
VAN MCELWEE: I planned Time Fork: World B over several years, knowing that AR would be up to the task by the time the idea came to fruition. Then it was a matter of designing the elements with pencil and paper. My son, Casper McElwee, is a commercial animator who also works in AR. He built the 3D models that became virtual architecture on site. We paid great attention to traditional architectural values, such as proportion, harmonic ratios, modularity, and articulation of surfaces. We used a fine-tuned palette of six colors. The buildings are simple, geometric, and devoid of detail, preserving a timeless, Platonic quality inherent in the medium. I commissioned a 3D drone map ping of the property, which allowed us to nestle the virtual structures into the actual landscape. Rampant Interactive designed the app that turns phones and tablets into windows for peering into World B. Laumeier’s enthusiasm, the Kranzberg Exhibition Grant, and other donors made the whole enterprise possible. A grant from Webster University provided iPads that visitors can check out in addition to using their own phones and tablets.
VM: From the beginning, Director Lauren Ross and Senior Curator Dana Turkovic were receptive to a site-specific AR installation. In early discussions I deployed my first AR work, Pavilions: Nested Worlds (2018), for the three of us to walk around in. Dana and I began discussing archaeology and technology in the context of the planned (at the time
DON CORRIGAN: How did Time Fork: World B evolve from an idea into an artwork? What conceptual framework and physical components had to come into play?
VM: The rolling landscape of Laumeier is full of possibilities for imaginary architecture. Remarkably, I was set free to design an AR environment on an architectural scale—to imagine a human settlement in a parallel world. On numer ous walks I visualized the features of Time Fork: World B integrated into the actual park. For example, we can see that the terrain of our world and World B drift in and out of phase; some of the virtual structures float, while others are partially underground. A small pyramid, titled Capstone, could be a private temple, or the tip of a buried pyramid of unknown size. There is also evidence of unseen bodies of water in Time Fork: World B.
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DC: How was Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis an appropriate launchpad to put an Augmented Reality piece together? What is it about the geography and mission of the park that makes your work a good fit?
DC: What was your approach to convincing the curator at Laumeier Sculpture Park that Time Fork was a piece ap propriately sited at the park? Any special needs that presented hurdles in the eyes of the park caretakers?
VM: My video work is obsessed with the nature of reality, dimensionality, and what I call “choice-space.” I use this notion as a structural element, not as an argument for or against free will. A left or right turn in a maze could also represent the flip of a coin. This is also expressed in my earlier Web-based work in which a set of video and sound clips are rearranged in real time via a random editing algorithm.
DC: Many visitors to the park are tempted to see themselves as part of this artwork in a mode that is reminiscent of characters in films such as Tron (1982, directed by Steven Lisberger), Blade Runner (1982, directed by Ridley Scott), or Total Recall (1990, directed by Paul Verhoeven). Is that deliberate or is that just what happens with this kind of art piece?
DC: Can you elaborate on the idea of choices and how that fits in with Time Fork? How can viewers of the work exercise choice?
8 of these discussions) exhibition, The Future is Present: Art and Global Change. We decided that Time Fork: World B would work as a stand-alone installation as well as part of the larger exhibition, which opened later. These conversations helped me to clarify the subtle theme of choices in Time Fork: World B. The work is also environmentally friendly, made of pixels rather than particles. It comes and goes with the touch of a button.
DC: Can you give some tangible examples from the current installation?
VM: The idea of variation-space plays out in a whole new way in Time Fork: World B, which stems from the narrative device that a human choice or a celestial event such as a supernova could create a world. Of course, time could be forking constantly and we would never know it. The art is not meant to illustrate a final theory. It actually works the other way around: ideas and feelings grow into forms and images, which operate on their own, like music or architecture. In Time Fork: World B, individuals and societies are seen in a space of possibilities, or virtualities, as Gilles Deleuze would say. For example, what look like ceremonial boat landings intersect the hill at different heights, suggesting rising and lowering of water levels over a long period of time. Other AR structures in the park, such as stairways and towers, could be under construction or in ruin, going up or down. The direction of time is unclear. The sloping South Lawn is filled with curious doorframes. Crossing a threshold, one may be entering or exiting a tomb or a dwelling. We move like ghosts here, passing through walls and other barriers, archaeologists of a parallel world.
VM: As a work of architectural fiction Time Fork: World B invites fantasy. At this scale, cyberspace has left the screen and we’re walking around in it. Our sense of self changes; we become avatars. Having several selves is part of the thrill of computer games and immersive media. Who are we, and how real are we? Time Fork aspires to Brenda Lau rel’s early vision of Virtual Reality (VR) as a zone of free play.
VM: Visitors to Time Fork are asked to entertain a playful fiction: almost a thousand years ago, time branched to create a parallel world, which has continued to change and develop to the present. I call this World B, which split from our common timeline around 1054 CE, concurrent with the appearance in the sky of Supernova 1054, which created the Crab Nebula. This celestial event was visible worldwide and is associated with the rise of Cahokian civilization.
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DC: You make references to three civilizations that have preceded the existence of Time Fork: World B, including the Cahokia Mounds located just a few miles across the Mississippi River from Laumeier. What is this all about?
DC: What about the significance of the nearly forgotten, nearby Cahokia civilization for your work and your thought? It seems to have been rediscovered in recent years with anthropologists telling us that it was once the biggest city in the world, that its leaders used mythology about a supernova appearing at that time to help control the residents, that it might have died out because of environmental degradation and climate change.
VM: I wanted to forge a connection with our everyday world and give the feeling that Time Fork: World B is in some ways similar. For example, there are three towers with windows pointing to Cahokia Mounds in Illinois, Winterville Mounds in Mississippi, and Teotihuacan in Mexico. But there are other windows that open toward unknown sites that have no correlation in our world. A nearby pile of gigantic rings could be materials laid out prior to tower construction or alternately, a collapsed tower. Another structure that subtly references the Cahokia site is the Ceremonial Gate, which is composed of strata that suggest levels of temple construction, a cutaway of alternate history. This “slice” could have at least two meanings: the gate could be a celebration of cultural growth and of periods of religious and political authority. Or, the bands could represent a catastrophic mound slump, in which sections of earthen mounds collapse, revealing levels of construction. These sudden events probably undercut the authority of rulers and destabilized mound-building cultures. For us, the stratification tells two different stories, one of growth, one of collapse. Alternate worlds can be mysterious.
VM: In my case, teaching made an art career possible. My post at Webster University’s School of Communications offered access to expensive technology and other essential resources, such as travel, grants, and sabbaticals. I had several superb teachers in my college years who introduced me to new ways of being an artist, so I was able to be part of a lineage. Teaching also made a viable retirement possible, and now I’m relishing the unstructured time—I can dream and build all day long if I feel like it.
DC: Since the 1970s you’ve pushed Portapaks, television studios, and software out of their comfort zones. Now you’re working with Augmented Reality. Why?
DC: Coming back to your presence on Earth for a moment, so many artists have to support themselves with college teaching as you have for four decades. What are the advantages and drawbacks of being a creature of the academy?
10 World B exists in the same present that we do, but it has a different history, starting from 1054. The connection with Cahokia invites us to consider an alternate story, which is embedded in the architecture of Time Fork. The focal point of the site is The Terminal, which may be a transportation hub, a government building, or a temple. It brings to mind the mounds of Cahokia, but also the stone pyramids of Mexico. Yet there are differences. Large openings appear where steps would be in a Mesoamerican stone pyramid. We enter a vast octahedral space opening to an oculus above and to an inverted pyramid below. Standing at the center, we are suspended precisely between real and virtual space. We are standing in a mystery; the past and present are unclear. Civilization in World B is waxing or waning.
VM: Augmented Reality turns our minds inside out. It’s an alternate world, a notion that I’ve explored in video forever. I think of a world in AR, VR, and games as a new unit of media, like frame, shot, and story. These worlds overlap and intrude on one another, creating a multiverse. We need to experiment with world-building tools in a noncommercial way to discover their full artistic potential. Because mind and media shape one another, new media call for new ideas. This notion goes back to the birth of video art and it saturates the history of experimental film and sound art. Right now, AR is Terra Incognita—I’m just wandering around in it, setting out a few markers. There’s also the simple magic of drawing a circle on the ground and stepping into it. It feels like reality has been cut and folded like a piece of paper, revealing another space. This feeling was expressed in Time Fork as well as in my first AR piece, Pavilions: Nested Worlds. AR is a new dimension.
VM: In addition to gaming and shopping uses, AR will add a layer of information in almost any sort of training— medical, military, you name it. Kevin Kelly writes in WIRED magazine that AR will become the spark for the next big tech media platform. Kelly actually envisions what he calls “Mirrorworld,” an interactive layer of data covering much of the physical world like a skin.²
DC: How was Pavilions a precursor to what you now have at Laumeier?
VM: Pavilions uses AR as a means and a metaphor to imagine six alternate worlds, represented by six superimposed music pavilions of different shapes and pastel hues. Composer Rich O’Donnell performs a six-channel original work that fills this manifold. Participants wander a complex space, stepping from one world into another. Sounds move, intersect, and seem to reverberate through the translucent structures. The form of Pavilions reflects the labyrinthine condition of digital culture: games, the internet, the rhizome; networks and choice-spaces. The installation can be adapted to any space, anywhere, as long as there are six sound sources available.
DC: Elon Musk seems determined to send humanity to Mars to start the first civilization on another planet in our solar system, a unit of the galaxy that seems to be growing smaller. Still, there are great distances to travel and hu mans in their spaceships will spend a lot of time bored and away from home. Is AR going to be a necessary outlet to alleviate the boredom and loneliness?
2. Kevin Kelly, “AR Will Spark the Next Big Tech Platform—Call it Mirrorworld,” WIRED, February 12, 2019, www.wired.com/story/mirrorworld-ar-next-big-tech-platform.
DC: Turning to more general applications of AR, we live in a commercial culture where everything has to have some practical value. Even art for art’s sake has to have the practical value of being a leisure pursuit and something of an interlude from the commercial world. What potential commercial value does AR have?
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DC: Marshall McLuhan cautioned us not to become too enamored with each revolution in media, because there is always a price to pay, a cost, a loss that is involved. Does McLuhan’s caveat hold true with AR?
VM: Virtual relationships with other humans or artificial partners, living or dead, in various combinations, will deeply challenge our sense of who and what we are. This could be liberating. But what happens when your full-bodied VR system gets into a feedback loop with an artificial intelligence, one that knows you and knows what you want? Such an arrangement would pull many of us into a black hole until our credit or electricity ran out. It begs the question “what if, when you die, the world disappears, and you don’t?”
DC: Using AR in these ways, will there be a digital trail left that can be just as damaging to privacy and self as the digital history left behind by surfing porn sites or extremist political content on the web?
VM: Of course, virtual worlds allow people to try out all sorts of things in a safer space. In LARP [live-action role-playing-games], gender is just an avatar away. As worlds intermingle, we will invent myriad identities and relationships. Second Life gave us a premonition of this twenty years ago. Hopefully, the diversity online will be so wild and fun that physical differences won’t matter as much to certain people.
DC: Gender studies show each generation is growing further away from the old binary sexuality. An alphabet of orientations is evolving with LGBQTI and more. Can AR give humans an opportunity to experiment with different sexual identities without the commitment or stigma?
VM: I can’t imagine much, if any, of these experiences being kept private, which may end up being fine with the par ticipants. We radiate so much information. I truly believe that there’s an Artificial Intelligence squatting somewhere in the future, feeding on our current data flow, processing it in ways that we could never understand.
VM: Both AR and VR, which exist on a continuum of immersion, would relieve the loneliness and claustrophobia of long space flights. Less appealing, deep immersion in that unnatural situation might loosen one’s moorings. That could be a concern. It’s interesting how this type of conversation calls for conjecture. Erin Manning poetically described art as a memory of the future. Media art always carries a breeze from the future, as it should, since its tools and language are constantly evolving.
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VM: We are desperately trying to get our bearings in the midst of runaway technology. McLuhan’s ideas not only hold true today, they get stronger and more relevant with time. For example, he said that each new medium minia turizes the ones that preceded it. The current examples are endless. This principle hit me in a new way a few years ago. A student showed me a phone app with an image of tiny turntables and records that could be scrubbed to make sounds. The app miniaturizes not only the technology, but the twentieth-century DJ art of scratching.
DC: Is this an undesirable outcome? What are the totalitarian implications of this for some nightmarish autocratic state of the future? Are we going to willingly surrender and sacrifice all personal privacy in favor of this bright, iridescent technological future?”
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DC: You talk about media as the nervous system of the world, which obviously echoes McLuhan’s use of Pierre Teil hard de Chardin’s ideas. In what other ways has McLuhan influenced your thinking?
DC: You have been an apostle of McLuhan through much of your intellectual life. For a good, long time he fell into disfavor, especially with academics in communication studies. Why is he having such a resurgence today?
VM: I think we’ve stumbled onto McLuhan’s concept of how media “extensions” also bring about “amputations.”
VM: Of course, Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of the noosphere was a revelation. Reading McLuhan as a painting major in the 1960s led me to see media critically, and full of creative possibilities. Later, Gene Youngblood associated Ex panded Cinema with expanded consciousness, which was cool. Soon, like many others before, I was pointing a video camera at its monitor. Painting has an aura; video is an aura. But as you know, McLuhan was not a cheerleader. He thought of television as a juggernaut that could only be tamed by understanding and imagination.
We know that being under surveillance changes our behavior. This is the Panopticon Effect that Michel Foucault identified. A panopticon is a prison designed so that one guard can observe all of the prisoners—a form of mind control. On the street, on the phone, and on the internet we tend to internalize that observer. We think, “What are my scrolling habits? Browsing history? Did I linger on that image too long?” It doesn’t help to know that we actually are being tracked in numerous ways. Yet Kelly and others believe that a world with no secrets will be healthier, happier, and saner. In any case, we’re looking at walls crumbling, but new spaces opening up. Theoretically, in a fourth dimension of space, one could reach into a sealed box and steal something. Or one could walk out of a prison.
14 McLuhan pointed out that art is a distant early warning system for civilization. He saw fundamental principles that hold true today, which is why many consider him a prophet. He would not be surprised that the Global Village is now a Global Brain, and that video screens are no longer windows, but wormholes. These changes never stop; they only accelerate. “We are the primitives of a new era,” said pioneering media artist Aldo Tambellini a half century ago. His statement now describes a permanent condition.
DC: AR will take us many, many steps beyond the evolution of legacy media. What would McLuhan make of AR?
DC: Immersive media and psychoactive drugs seem to be on a collision course. Cannabis is being legalized. Psyche delic therapy sessions are being sanctioned for depression, addiction, and end-of-life anxiety. Do you see a synergy between these two realms?
VM: McLuhan would surely point out that GPS tells you where you are, just like a clock tells you when you are. He would remind us that these space-time grids are mere abstractions of visual culture. He would certainly note, with some trepidation, that AR is the beginning of a hybrid world that mingles the actual and the virtual. If McLuhan were alive today, he would offer striking insights on computer games and nonlinear storytelling. No doubt, Janet Murray’s Hamlet on the Holodeck (1997) would be in his library.
DC: In your view, is AR another medium, like books, newspapers, radio, and television? McLuhan told us in Understanding Media: Extensions of Man (1964) that each new medium might benefit us by giving us something new, but also hurts us because it takes something away—it amputates. What do we gain and what do we lose with AR?
VM: McLuhan’s amputation metaphor just keeps on giving. The internet connects and isolates, for example. Electronic media are by nature ubiquitous, invasive, and immersive. Paul Virilio pointed out decades ago that technology is now colonizing our bodies in the same way that it colonized the planet. AR goggles, glasses, or contact lenses could be worn continuously, embedding important information into the physical world, along with three-dimensional ads, games, and fantasies. Not wearing these devices would feel like flying blind. The old world of time, space, and matter will have shrunk once again, buried in data.
VM: From what I can tell, reality is cracking like an old sidewalk. One of the weeds poking through is the deepfake, which will work all too well on those who are already soft targets for disinformation. But I think the assault on truth that we’re experiencing is just a darker facet of a larger phenomenon, in which the real and the virtual are merging, trading places. Time Fork operates in that fluid space where it is clearly imaginary, a sort of amusing toy spread across the landscape. The medium is used to draw attention to a playful alternate reality. You can think of Time Fork as architectural fiction, a sort of theme park. Just as left and right eyes reveal a third dimension, the parallax of actual and virtual can reveal a deeper reality. As the real and the artificial increasingly overlap and mingle, media become tools for contemplating the totality of experience. How do we live and make decisions in a reality that is constantly branching, being manipulated, and being invaded by other realities? How does our existence change when actual and virtual occupy the same space? Is reality itself an artwork—or is it an artificial construct with competing interpretations, political or otherwise? Don Corrigan is an award-winning journalist and academic who has published six books on nature and the environment. His most recent book is Nuts About Squirrels: The Rodents That Conquered Popular Culture (2019), which examines media treatment of squirrel characters using the concepts in Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. He was recently inducted into the St. Louis Media Hall of Fame.
VM: Aside from the fact that psychedelic drugs and electronic entertainment have always gone together, my guess is for a very strange future. Yuval Noah Harari suggested that after technology takes over many jobs, humans could spend most of their time on drugs and computer games. Not a heroic period. But one can fine-tune that vision to include exquisitely designed medicines and imaginary worlds that we mutually create, explore, and inhabit. Add biotech and nanotech and we are in Roy Ascott’s visionary territory. I’m thinking specifically of his 1999 essay, “The Future Will Be Moist.” Looks like we’re in another McLuhan heaven or hell scenario. DC: Finally, your work has always avoided overt political messages and your art is never didactic. However, it cannot have escaped your notice that Americans today are living in two vastly different political constructs. Is it mere coincidence that AR arrives in a time of fake news and “doctored” videos and memes? People are purposely stepping into alternative realities. What can we learn as reality forks in these hyper-political times?
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Laumeier’s Curator Dana Turkovic states: “Laumeier is very excited to present this groundbreaking interactive project that allows visitors to take a solo journey using their own devices to explore a parallel world built to excite curiosity and wonder. McElwee’s project takes the idea of touring the Park to another conceptual level, Time Fork is an online portal of discovery, creating an experience that is both virtual and real.”
Laumeier Sculpture Park is proud to present Van McElwee: Time Fork. McElwee, a local media artist, creates an Augmented Reality environment contemplating choices and possibilities, each choice crafting a new world. Created from a topographical drone mapping of Laumeier, imagined structures are placed virtually within the landscape at Laumeier. McElwee’s interactive application incorporates both sculpture and the natural landscape that offer an alternative Laumeier experience for visitors using their hand-held personal devices. Time Fork is a remarkable setting for pondering the nature of choices, time, and reality itself.
The exhibition Van McElwee: Time Fork was produced with a 2020 Kranzberg Artist Exhibition Grant. In addition, this project was supported by Ellen and Durb Curlee, Alison and John Ferring, Jan and Ronnie Greenberg, Nancy and Ken Kranzberg, Joan and Mitchell Markow and Two Sister’s Foundation, Emily Rauh Pulitzer, Mary Ann and Andy Srenco, Windgate Foundation, the Whitaker Foundation, Mid-America Arts Alliance, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the state arts agencies of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.
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Time Fork, organized as a walking tour of the Park viewed through the lens of technology, entertains a playful fiction: roughly a thousand years ago, time branched to create a parallel world. In McElwee’s installation he uses Augmented Reality to reveal features of a settlement that exists in that parallel or even future world, overlapping what we know as Laumeier Sculpture Park. McElwee explains: “We see structures that could be under construction or in ruins; they could have a ritual, municipal or even an industrial function. Using phones or tablets as windows, viewers can fully explore these mysteries, inside and out, a tool that is at least conceptually, archeological and anthropological.”
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DANA TURKOVIC INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST VAN McELWEE
Van McElwee: Augmented Reality combines computer graphics with real-world video, usually on a mobile device.
Dana Turkovic: Let me just say that this has been a long road to get here. We have been in conversation about developing a project here at Laumeier for a long time but the timing of your work Time Fork as the 2020 Kranzberg Exhibition artist and the situation we find ourselves in, has been quite fortuitous. First, can you tell us about the technology of Augmented Reality, what is it and how does it work? How did you and your team create the work? Tell us about the development of a project like this.
In Time Fork we use AR to reveal features of a settlement that exists in an alternate timeline, in a parallel world that overlaps what we think of as Laumeier Sculpture Park. I’d been thinking about this project for 5 or 6 years and it matured in conversations that you and I had about a year ago.
The opportunity to be the 2020 Kranzberg Exhibition artist allowed me to hire people who could actually make it happen. I designed the structures and the space that make up the installation. My son, Casper McElwee, a profes sional animator built the computer models which became architectural forms. We enlisted Mike Rosenthal to do a 3D drone mapping of Laumeier, which allowed us to nestle the buildings into the terrain of the park. Rampant Interactive designed the amazing Time Fork App that actually makes World B appear in Augmented Reality. We were all testing the limits of the medium to do a virtual artwork on this scale.
VM: To view the piece, visitors download the free Time Fork App, through the App store, the Laumeier website or at the park. Then it is just a matter of following some simple instructions.
DT: How can visitors experience Time Fork here at Laumeier?
VM: If we consider media as the nervous system of the planet, then its important for artists to shape that flow, to contribute to the digital culture that we swim in. New media call for new ideas, which is something that excited me about video decades ago. I use video and sound to explore time, dimensionality and the nature of reality. Augmented Reality is a natural extension of that line of work.
First they download the free Time Fork App. At Laumeier, there are four signs where the experience can be deployed. The first one is just behind the Kranzberg Education Center; the old house. There are simple instructions, on set for GPS devices and another for non-GPS devices. They can then use their mobile screens as windows to peer into an alternate world, to see structures that could be under construction or in ruin; mysterious buildings of unknown function. The features of World B appear as self-luminous, abstract sculptures, with texture and detail left to the imagination. We move like ghosts here, passing through walls and other barriers, archaeologists of a parallel world.
VM: There is a rich artistic and philosophical territory to be explored at this moment in the evolution of immersive media. As actual and virtual merge, various media become philosophical tools for contemplating the nature of ex perience. How do we live in a reality that is constantly branching, constantly being invaded by other realities? How does our existence change when actual and virtual occupy the same space? What is reality and is it a work of art?
DT: Why do you think a project using augmented reality is important at this point in time?
I believe, for example, that a “world” is a new unit of media, like a frame, a shot or a story. These worlds proliferate and overlap; they intersect in various ways, creating a multiverse. This is new territory for exploration and discovery.
DT: Van, you have a long career in video and mixed media, tell us about your process, how did you arrive at this technology as a new way to express your ideas, especially filtering real time through a digital viewfinder that presents this alternative or parallel world?
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VM: Time Fork stems from the premise that each choice creates a world. Individuals and societies chart courses through a space of possibilities. The viewer is asked to entertain a playful fiction: almost a thousand years ago, time branched to create a parallel world, which has continued to change and develop to the present. We call this World B, which split from our common timeline around 1054 C.E, concurrent with the appearance in the sky of Super Nova 1054 (which created the Crab Nebula). This celestial event was visible worldwide and is associated with the rise of Cahokian civilization.
VM: There are strata in the Ceremonial Gate that suggest levels of temple construction; a cutaway of history. This “slice” could have at least two meanings: the gate could be a celebration of cultural growth, of eras of religious and political authority. Alternately, the bands could represent a catastrophic mound slump, in which sections of earthen mounds collapse, revealing levels of construction. These sudden events probably undercut the authority of rulers and destabilized Mound Building cultures. For us, the stratification tells two different stories, one of growth, one of Threecollapse.Towers on the site could have a variety of functions: defensive, ritual, ornamental or industrial. Windows point to Cahokia (26 miles away), Winterville Mounds in Mississippi (418 miles distant), and Teotihuacan in Mexico (1,700 miles from Laumeier). Other windows open to unknown sites that have no correlation in our world. Next to one tower is a pile of gigantic rings that could be materials laid out prior to construction or alternately, the remains of a collapsed tower.
DT: What are your goals for Time Fork, tell me about where the title comes from, can you set the stage for the piece and how it relates to what you hope visitors will encounter while exploring?
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With the Time Fork App, visitors can explore a parallel World B which covers what we think of as Laumeier Sculpture Park. We move like ghosts here, through walls and other barriers, archaeologists of a parallel world.
DT: Can you speak a little about some of the architectural references you are making through the mysterious structures that appear within the app while exploring the Park? How do they tell the story of World B but also the story of Laumeier as a sculpture park?
VM: I’ve made the direction of time ambiguous in World B, which reflects a branching of outcomes at different decision points. For example, the Boat Landings intersect the hill at different levels suggesting a rising or lowering of water levels over time. Some of the buildings are either under construction or in ruin. The DOORS (Tombs/Dwellings) in the South Lawn have a subtle range of styles that indicates a classical period, but no hint as to a direction in time. So the idea of choice is borne out in the simultaneous waxing and waning of the civilization of World B.
DT: In thinking about some of our previous conversations at the beginning of our project together, how can Time Fork extend the definition of sculpture?
The Terminal is the focal point of the site. This prominently situated structure is most likely a temple, a transport hub or a government building. The large openings appear where steps would be in a Mesoamerican stone pyramid. They lead to a vast octahedral space opening to an oculus above and to an inverted pyramid below. Standing at the center, one is suspended precisely between real and virtual space.
DT: I would like to finish by adding that Time Fork for me has enhanced what is possible at Laumeier. The work has challenged the perception that the Park “doesn’t change”, beyond the changing seasons, Time Fork reveals how active and organic the museum and its collection really is.
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Thank you so much to you, Rampant Interactive and Casper McElwee for all of the hard work that has generated such an innovative and unique project specifically for Laumeier that interacts beautifully with the artworks in the collection, the Park landscape within our 105 acres and gives our visitors a new way to engage with art and nature.
VM: Time Fork is spatial, it contains virtual mass and volume. It articulates an architectural form, with a clear inside and outside. Still, Time Fork is ephemeral; it is made of pixels, not particles.
DT: Exploring the project within the context of the exhibition The Future is Present: Art and Global Change, a show that examines the intersections between art and some of the most pressing issues to humankind: climate change, environmental crisis, and related global repercussions. How does Time Fork explore both the past and imagine the future of landscape and our relationship to the natural world through the built environment?
His grants and awards include: A John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship; St. Louis Regional Arts Commission Artist Fellowship; The American Film Institute Independent Filmmaker Award and the National Endowment for the Arts Independent Production Fund.
21 Van McElwee received his MFA in Multimedia 1978 from Washington University School of Art and his BFA in Print making in 1973 from the Memphis College of Art. Selected installations and one-person shows include: Anthology Film Archives, New York; ARTpool in Budapest; The Shanghai Duolun Museum of Art, China; Galerie Trabant, Austria; Rencontres Video Art Plastique in France; Berkeley Museum of Art Pacific Film Archive, California; The Marsh Gallery at the University of Richmond, Virginia; Medienwerkstatt in Vienna and Ohio University Gallery of Art. Selected group shows and festivals include: The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Paula Cooper Gallery New York; The Long Beach Museum of Art; Ars Electronica, ZKM, Siggraph; Camden Arts Centre, London; Wexner Center for the Arts; Milwaukee Art Museum; Japan Media Arts Festival, Tokyo; ASIFA Austria, Museum Quartier, Vienna; Worldwide Video Festival at the Stedelijk Museum; The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago; Art in General, New York; Digital Dance Festival, Seoul, South Korea and Palais des Beaux Arts, Lille, France.
McElwee’s work is represented by Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, The Kitchen Video Collection in New York, Inter Media Art Institute in Germany. He is Professor of Electronic and Photographic Media at Webster University, St. Louis, Missouri.
Dana Turkovic is curator of exhibitions at Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis. In 2005, Turkovic received her Master of Fine Arts from Goldsmiths College-University of London in curatorial studies and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Webster University, St. Louis in 1998. Turkovic has organized exhibitions in Athens, Los Angeles, and New York, in alternative spaces in London and Oxford and in St. Louis at the Contemporary Art Museum, Boots Contemporary Art Space, Ellen Curlee Gallery, Hunt Gallery, Schmidt Contemporary Art and White Flag Projects and is co-curator of Isolation Room/Gallery Kit. recent projects include the first mid-career survey in the United States of Bosnian photographer and filmmaker Danica Dakić and an outdoor commission for Delhi based artists Raqs Media Collective and Gigi Scaria both working with the Creative India Foundation. Turkovic is also a co-curator for Moving Image Festival 2015 at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town. She has written for publications such as Art US, Review and St. Louis Magazine.
22 BYAFTERWORDBRUNOL.DAVID
Van McElwee received his MFA in Multimedia 1978 from Washington University School of Art, St. Louis, and his BFA in Printmaking in 1973 from the Memphis College of Art, Memphis, Tennessee. Selected installations and one-person shows include: Anthology Film Archives, New York; ARTpool in Budapest; The Shanghai Duolun Museum of Art, China; Galerie Trabant, Austria; Rencontres Video Art Plastique in France; Berkeley Museum of Art Pacific Film Archive, California; The Marsh Gallery at the University of Richmond, Virginia; Medienwerkstatt in Vienna and Ohio University Gallery of Art. Selected group shows include: The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Paula Cooper Gallery New York; The Long Beach Museum of Art; Ars Electronica, ZKM, Siggraph; Camden Arts Centre, London; Wexner Center for the Arts; Milwaukee Art Museum; Japan Media Arts Festival, Tokyo; ASIFA Austria, Museum Quartier, Vienna; Worldwide Video Festival at the Stedelijk Museum; The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago; Art in General, New York; Digital Dance Festival, Seoul, South Korea and Palais des Beaux Arts, Lille, France. His grants and awards include: A John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow ship; St. Louis Regional Arts Commission Artist Fellowship; The American Film Institute Independent Filmmaker Award and the National Endowment for the Arts Independent Production Fund.
I am pleased to present this catalogue of Van McElwee’s exhibition TIME FORK curated by Dana Turkovic at the Laumeier Sculpture Park, Saint Louis, Missouri (October 2020 - May 2021)
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Support for the creation of significant new works of art has been the core to the mission and program of the Bruno David Gallery since its founding in 2005. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Don Corrigan for his “Conversation” with Van McElwee and, Dana Turkovic for her thoughtful interview. I am deeply grateful to Alex McLaughlin, Bonnie Dana, Naomi Yu. and Mary Kate Charles, who gave much time, talent, and expertise to the production of this catalogue.
Van McElwee’s body of media art includes over one hundred single channel video works, installations, and web projects. Grants and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, The American Film Institute Independent Filmmaker Award, The National Endowment for the Arts Independent Production Fund (seven-time recipient), a Regional Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship and a grant from the Government of India. McElwee’s work has been exhibited extensively worldwide and is represented by The Kitchen Video Collection in New York, Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis, Heure Exquise! in France, LUX in the UK and the Inter Media Art Institute in Germany.
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25 CHECKLIST & IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION
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Visitor using tablet with the Time Fork App to look beyond towers to Terminal All images are in-app screen shots taken by the artist, unless otherwise noted.
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28 ANCESTOR HOUSE
This stairway may be the core of a buried watchtower, a floating catacomb, a subway entrance or a lighthouse.
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33 Night view from Aronson
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CEREMONIAL GATE
The strata here suggest levels of temple construction; a cutaway of history. This “slice” could have at least two meanings: the gate could be a celebration of cultural growth, of eras of religious and political authority. Alternately, the bands could represent a catastrophic mound slump, in which sections of earthen mounds collapse, revealing levels of construction. These sudden events probably undercut the authority of rulers and destabilized Mound Building cultures. For us, the stratification tells two different stories, one of growth, one of collapse.
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This small pyramid with an intimate interior space may be a personal temple, or the tip of a buried pyramid of unknown size.
38 CAPSTONE
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TOWERS
These structures may have a religious or ritual function (they call to mind the large poles or obelisks that once topped numerous Mississippian mounds). Alternately they could be defensive towers or communication devices. Windows point to Cahokia (26 miles away), Winterville Mounds in Mississippi (418 miles distant), and Teotihua can in Mexico (1,700 miles from Laumeier). Other windows open to unknown sites that have no correlation in our Aworld.nearby pile of gigantic rings could be materials laid out prior to tower construction or alternately, a collapsed tower.
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PASSAGE A modular tunnel emerges from the landscape as two bridges, incomplete and/or collapsed.
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PASSAGE, view over trail, with missing sections.
These docks, apparently built in stages, suggest a large body of water with varying levels. We cannot determine if the positioning of the docks represents a historic rising or lowering of the water levels.
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BOAT LANDINGS
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This prominently situated structure is most likely a temple, a transport hub or a government building. The large openings appear where steps would be in a Mesoamerican stone pyramid. They lead to a vast octahedral space opening to an oculus above and to an inverted pyramid below. Standing at the center, one is suspended precisely between real and virtual space.
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TERMINAL
57 TERMINAL, Looking Down.
58 TERMINAL Showing underground section.
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60 TERMINAL Looking at below ground structure
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Crossing a threshold, one is either entering or exiting a tomb or a dwelling. Most of the doors deviate from a “classical” style. Whether a particular door precedes or follows the classical period is unknown.
DOORS (TOMBS/DWELLINGS)
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68 DOORWAYS Bases
DOORWAY with FLOATING SUBWAY in background
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FLOATING SUBWAY
This technical structure could be a floating subway station, a granary or a factory.
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Photo by Ryan Fitzgerald
74 DOORWAYS with FLOATNG SUBWAY STATION in background.
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76 Night view from Aronson Center
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2016 The Goethe Institute, Boston; projection of Wanderung on the exterior of the building, commissioned by The German Consulate and Emerson College Urban Arts Program, Boston
Van McElwee (American, b. 1948) EDUCATION
2017 Bruno David Gallery, Travel Dream, Saint Louis, MO
2012 Bruno David Gallery, Supernatural, Saint Louis, MO
Van McElwee: New Work, The 25th Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival, solo screening and premiere of new works.
1978 MFA in Multimedia, Washington University School of Art in St. Louis; Merit Scholarship; studied with electronic music composer Tom Hamilton and sound and light pioneer Howard Jones
2019 St. Louis International Film Festival, The Map is the Territory: New and Recent Work by Van McElwee; a program of recent work including two world premieres
2013 Artpool Gallery, Budapest, Retrospective Installation of numerous works
Stern Studio/Gallery, Vienna; Supernatural, installation of video and video stills
SELECTED SOLO / TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS AND OUTDOOR INSTALLATIONS
2020-21 Laumeier Sculpture Park, Time Fork, an architectural Augmented Reality installation, commissioned by Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis.
2015 Mexican Dream, produced as a DVD by Inter Media Art Institute, Dusseldorf, for distribution through various European galleries
1973 BFA in Printmaking, Memphis College of Art
2021 Bruno David Gallery, Flag and its Shadow, Saint Louis, MO
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2018 PAVILION: Nested Worlds; designed and produced an augmented reality installation, St. Louis Artist’s Guild. Commissioned by HEARding Cats, Missouri Arts Council, and the Regional Arts Commission
2014 St. Louis Art Museum, premiere of Original Self, with musical interpretations by three different ensembles; commissioned by Production Grant from HEARding Cats Collective, Regional Arts Commission and Missouri Arts Council
1998 The Kitchen, New York City: Van McElwee: New Work, screening
25-Year Retrospective, St. Louis University Museum of Art, multiple installations Gallery Trabant, Vienna, Austria, exhibition of lenticular images, prints and multiple monitor installation
Van McElwee, Galerie Trabant, Vienna, Austria Videowall Installation of Radio Island, Media Arts Public display, downtown St. Louis
2006 Shanghai Duolun Museum of Art, China, screening of recent work Galerie Trabant, Austria, video installation, video stills
2011 Benefit Exhibition for Sheldon Galleries, St. Louis Van McElwee at The Factory
2001 Cultural Centre of Normandie, France: Adding a Dimension: The Space-Time Music of Van McElwee, for Video Art Plastique
University of Ohio Gallery of Art, Athens, Ohio; installation: Van McElwee: Recent Work 1999 Argos Gallery, Brussels, Nine-Channel installation
2010 Anthology Film Archives, New York: Van McElwee: A Decade, a 10- year retrospective program spanning two screenings, with presentation by the artist New Music Circle, St. Louis, commissioned work (third of three) for the production of a large-scale video and music performance, Van McElwee: Modular Mazes
2002 Van McElwee at Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, UC Berkeley, CA, curated by Scott Stark
University of The Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Visiting Artist, Screening Berks Film at Albright College, Reading, Pennsylvania, Visiting Artist, Screening Webster University Film Series, St. Louis Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design Screening, Guest Artist
New Music Circle, St. Louis, commissioned work (second of three) for the production of a large-scale video and music performance at the St. Louis Art Museum
2000 Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis: Van McElwee: Six Installations
2009 Bruno David Gallery, Alternity, Saint Louis, MO (catalogue)
82 2013 ASIFA (Association Internationale Du Film D’animation), Museums Quartier, Vienna, Austria; two video installations
Gallerie Trabant, Vienna, Austria, multiple monitor video installation and video stills
2008 New Music Circle, St. Louis, commissioned work (second of three) for the production of large-scale video and music performance at the St. Louis Art Museum, Syaesthesia
2004 Artists’ Television Access, San Francisco: The Electronic Infinite: The Video Meditations of Van McElwee
Columbus Museum of Science and Industry, Columbus, Ohio; commissioned large-scale multi-channel projection installation
2021 Bilingual: Abstract & Figurative, Bruno David Gallery, Saint Louis, MO (catalogue)
2020
Z-Grid, screened at Under the Radar, Vienna, Museum Quartier Wanderung, screened at Dallas Medianale, Dallas, Texas
The Civic Atrium of The Continental Insurance Building, New York City 16-moniter video wall, organized by The Kitchen 1994 The May Gallery, St. Louis 1993 The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Van McElwee: Retrospective SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1998 The Kitchen Gallery, New York City, four stacked monitor installation of Radio Island Citicorp Center, C-Space, New York City, installation of video stills, organized by The Kitchen
The Madrid Art Film Festival; screened: The Map is the Territory
The Berlin Underground Film Festival; screened: The Map is the Territory
2019 The Map is the Territory: New and Recent Work by Van McElwee, St. Louis International Film Festival, MO Small World, Bruno David Gallery, Saint Louis, MO
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1997 Hugo Di Pagano Gallery, New York City, installation of Reconstructions: The Video Image Outside of Time, video and large video stills
Experimental Intermedia, New York City, Space Splice screened with music by Tom Hamilton 1996 The Kitchen, New York City, screening and discussion of selected works
The Marsh Gallery of Art, University of Richmond, Virginia, installation Installation, Martin Schweig Gallery, St. Louis Installation, Homer Casteel Gallery, Meridian, MS Guest Artist, University of Missouri Film series, Rolla, Missouri
Thread Waxing Space, for The Kitchenette, The Kitchen’s solo annex, New York City Artopia Gallery, New York City, Van McElwee: Photographs and Video Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, Van McElwee: New Work, curated by Steve Seid Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, touring installation of Reconstructions, video and twenty- seven framed prints
84 2018 And/Or, screened at NYC Filmmaker’s Coop for New Year, New Work Navigators, architectural projection facing the Boston Common for Uncommon Projects, Emerson Urban Arts Electric Pilgrims, projection at ArtWalk, Natick Center Cultural District, Natick, MA N-GRID, a two-channel cell animation for Aqurld, an underwater concert and dance performance, University of Arkansas, Little Rock.
2014 And / Or, Bruno David Gallery, Saint Louis, MO (catalogue)
2017 The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; screening of Objects in a Landscape with live musical accompaniment and original score by Andrew Simpson LAXART, Los Angeles, video installation of Flag and its Shadow Next to Nothing Gallery, New York City; screening of compilation; Benefit for Filmmakers Cooperative, NYC
ASIFAKEIL Jubilee exhibition, Museum Quartier, Vienna; two works shown. La Sortie du Jardin Film Exhibition, Doc’s Video, Paris, France Small is Beautiful, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO St. Louis International Film Festival St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase
2015 Midway Studios, Boston, Electric Pilgrims, Commissioned by Emerson Urban Arts, Boston Inter Media Art Institute, Dusseldorf, screening of Soft City, with presentation and discussion via Skype Instants Vidéo Festival, Marseille, France, screening of Original Self Cinema St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase (Best Experimental Film) for Mexican Dream Citygarden Sculpture Park Videowall, St. Louis, outdoor installation of Mexican Dream
Premiered Electric Pilgrims as an architectural-scaled six-channel installation for the opening of the
The Bogota Short Film Festival, Columbia; screening of Wanderung Contemporary Art Museum, Zagreb, Projection of Capitol of the Mulitverse on the museum façade for the Toon Animation Festival Invitational Art Auction, Chicago Fine Arts Exchange, Chicago, IL A.R.C. Regional, A.R.C. Gallery, Chicago, IL
2016 Instants de Video Numerique et Poetiques, Marsielle, France; screening of Wandering Onion City Film Festival, Chicago Filmmakers, Objects in a Landscape Adding a Dimension, Anaglyph Video works by Casper and Van McElwee in concert, HEARding Cats Collective, Regional Arts Commission and Missouri Arts Council Satori Studios, St. Louis The 24th Dallas Video Festival, TX
NRW-Forum, Dusseldorf, installation of Half-Real St. Louis Art Museum: Special Section of The St. Louis International Film Festival:Van McElwee: New Work Cinema St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase (Best Experimental Film) for Dream Travel
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The Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis: two sound installations: Tertiary Pastels and Dark Green Archaic Rooms, a 3D anaglyph video premiered with live musical accompaniment at Ancient Now event, HEARding Cats Collective, Regional Arts Commission and Missouri Arts Council St. Louis Inter Media Art Institute, Dusseldorf, Same But Different exhibit of large video stills edition of stills produced by IMAI)
The Paramount Center, Boston, Commission: Navigators, a three - story architectural video installation, Emerson Urban Arts Program
2012 Animation Symposium at ASIFA Gallery, Museums Quartier, Vienna, Austria, screening of multiple works Menil Museum, Houston, screening of Radio Island Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, screening of Radio Island Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb World Festival of Animated Film Republic of Croatia, projection of Capitol of the Multiverse onto the façade of the museum Sky Arte Italia, Italy, broadcast of And/Or Saint Louis International Film Festival, screening of And/Or SOMArts Gallery, San Francisco, multiple works shown Voltage Control, Liquid Crystal performance/installation, Satori Studios, St. Louis St. Louis International Film Festival screening of Capitol of the Multiverse Otherworld, with animator Kathy Rose, performance and screening, Kranzberg Arts Center, St. Louis 2011 Arte TV, France, two works on the web platform CREATIVE.ART W.O.P. I, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO
2009 Media Art Friesland, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, screening of Liquid Crystal 2008 Experimental Intermedia, New York City; Aperspectival House, screened in concert with composer Tom Hamilton Japan Media Arts Festival, Tokyo, Japan, Jury Award
2014 KETC-9’S Public Media Commons, St. Louis
2013 Flag and Its Shadow, Arte Creative platform, presented by Heure Exquise!, France Flag and Its Shadow, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO Aquaworld, video for underwater concert, Webster University Swimming Pool, St. Louis
Sichaun University of Film and Television, screening in concert with Rich O’Donnell, Sichaun, China
2008 European Media Arts Festival, Osnabruk, Germany
2007 Film Festival of Lille, Installation of Radio Island on six stacked monitors European Media Arts Festival, Osnabruk, Germany Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis Gallerie Trabant, Austria Athens International Film and Video Festival, Athens, Ohio
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Kunstfilmtag 09, With a View to the Sound, Dusseldorf Art In General, New York City Siggraph, Los Angeles, California Festival of Nations, Austria Art Palm Beach, Florida, presented by Galerie Trabant, Austria Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis Onion City Film Festival, Chicago, Alternity Bruno David Gallery, installation of Alternity Filmmaker’s Showcase, St. Louis Film Conference, Washington University
Chonggiang Conservatory of Music, screening in concert with Rich O’Donnell, Chonggigng, China
American Institute of Media Archivists, St. Louis Cinema: On The Edge, St. Louis Black Maria Film Festival, Director’s Choice Award, touring with festival to: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, American University of Rome, Italy, Millennium Film Workshops, New York City, Donnell Library, New York City, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, Amherst College, Amherst, MA,Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, AL, Maryland Film Festival, Baltimore, Maryland,Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ, University of The Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia, Newark Museum, Newark, NJ, Rhode Island School of Design, and other venues
TSRA Urban Arts Collective, Salt Lake City, Utah
Shanghai East Normal University, screening in concert with Rich O’Donnell, Shanghai, China
XMV, Collective Unconscious, New York, New York Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
2006 Digital Dance Festival, Seoul, Korea Galerie Trabant, Austria
2005 The Fourth Dimension: Art Pool, Budapest, Hungary
Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California, Kunstrai Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Galerie Trabant, multi-monitor installation
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2004 New Arts Program Video Biennial, Grand Prize for Procession and Confluence
Screened at: Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PN, Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, NJ, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN, Marywood University Art Galleries, Scranton, PA, Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, installation of Flag And Its Shadow, Media Arts Friesland, The Netherlands, Studio 206, Bloomington, Indiana)
The Sheldon Galleries, St. Louis, installation of Modular Meander
2003 New York Expo, Anthology Film Archives, New York Media Art Friesland, The Netherlands Dallas Video Festival, Dallas Art Museum
Berkeley Art Museum/ Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California Free Form Film Festival, Roxy Theatre, San Francisco Artronica, Bogotá, Columbia; Natureland and Confluence shown
Camden Arts Center, London, UK Artpool, Budapest, Hungary
Art In The Park, Jefferson City, MO, eight monitor Installation of Cloud Catcher Scope London, UK Galerie Trabant presentation of multi-monitor installation
Fourth Axis, projects at various downtown Chicago locations, sponsored by Gardenfresh, Chicago Photo Paris, Paris, France
Art Palm Beach, Florida, presented by Gallerie Trabant, Austria
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis Gallery 210, St. Louis, video installation
Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis Athens International Film and Video Festival; Athens, Ohio New York, New York! Shanghai Duolun Museum of Arts, Shanghai China
The Fifth Biennial on Media and Architecture, Graz, Austria Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA Photo Paris, lenticular prints exhibited by Galerie Trabant, Austria Black Maria Film and Video Festival, New Jersey Philadelphia Arts Alliance, Philadelphia The Renaissance Society, Screening, University of Chicago Bridges Magazine, Chicago: New Work included on a DVD compilation of new media art Black Maria Film and Video Festival, New Jersey, traveled to: Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, Pennsylvania Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, Delaware Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, New Jersey Athens International Film and Video Festival, Athens, Ohio Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA MCS Gallery, Art Resource Center, Easton, NJ Cedar Crest College, Allentown, PA Allegheny College, Meadville, PA University of Cincinnati School of Art Lehigh University Art Galleries, Bethlehem, PA
Heliogos, released on a DVD of new media art, produced by Bridge Magazine in Chicago Bindu, included in a DVD of commemorating Ten Years of the International Award for Video Art produced by ZKM and SWR Television, Germany Moondial, Mildred Bastion Theatre, St. Louis Tempra Ten Gallery, Vienna, Austria Medienwerkstatt Vienna, Austria
88 2003 Photo Paris, Paris, France, video stills exhibited by Galerie Trabant, Vienna Orte, Film & Architektur festival, Austria New Genres Festival, Tulsa, Oklahoma Fast Forward Film Festival, San Francisco
2002 The New York Expo, New York City, Honorable Mention
Broadcast of Space Splice on SWR in Germany and Switzerland Gallerie K+S, Berlin-Mitte, Germany Elliot Smith Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri,Fragments Of India, screened Athens International Film and Video Festival, Athens, Ohio
Video Prints Exhibited by Gallerie Trabant, Austria, at: Art Brussels, Art Frankfurt, Art Amsterdam, Photo Paris, Artforum Berlin, Art Zurich The Meaning of Time, Naples, Italy Ecole Des Beaux Arts, Paris, France Shy Anne Festival, Cheyenne, Wyoming. Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE Manifestation, Genoa Italy 2000 Scope London, Installation of Radio Island, four vertically stacked monitors, presented by Galerie Trabant, Vienna Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis: Van Mcelwee: Six Installations, Retrospective Film + Arc, Graz, ExistenzmaximumAustria2000, Leuven, Belgium Av Dokumentationen, Stuttgart, Germany
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Millennium Film Workshop, New YorkNew Arts Program, Biennial Video Festival (GrandPrize for Two Pieces), Lehigh Valley and Berks, Pennsylvania ZKM, City Show, Karlsruhe, Germany ZKM, Controlspace, Karlsruhe, Germany
Focus on Brussels, Brussels, Belgium Broadcast of Confluence on SWF3 and ORF2, Germany Broadcast of Confluence on SW3, Switzerland Tempus Fugit, Nelson-Adkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, museum purchase Festival Der Nationen, Linz, Austria Screening of Space Splice at Art Kino, Art Frankfurt, Germany Athens International Video and Film Festival, Athens, Ohio
2001 Cinemedia, purchase of Space Splice, Victoria, Australia
89 2002 Shape, Shippensburg, PA
Mostra De Video Independent and Fenomens Interactus, Barcelona, Spain
International Hamburg Kurzfilm Festival, Hamburg, Germany Vzw Boeiend, Snaaskerke, Belgium Moving Art Studio, Brussels, Belgium Broadcast on BTV Television, Barcelona, Spain Vanguard Visions at Cyberlab East, New York City 1st Muestra de Video Independiente de Carias de Tenirife, Canary Islands Impakt Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands Moving Art Studio, Brussels, Belgium
The First Muestra De Video Independent De Canarias, Canary Islands Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Stuttgart, Germany Black Maria Film Festival, Director’s Citation
1997 Long Beach Museum of Art, California Stedelijk Museum, The Worldwide Video Festival, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The Kitchen, New York, NY
The Oberhausen International Film Festival, Germany (Exhibition and distribution of Radio Island by the festival)
Hugo Di Pagano Gallery, New York City, installation 3rd Manifestation Internationale Video et Art Electronique, Montreal, Canada Artmedia VI, University of Salerno, Italy (four works shown)
1998 New York Video Festival, Lincoln Center, New York City, NY 1998 Institute of Contemporary Art, London, Pandemonium Festival
90 2000 Dallas Video Festival 1999 Transmediale, Berlin, Germany
AV Station, Tilburg, The Netherlands
Video stills shown by Gallerie Trabant, Austria, at Art Brussels, Art Frankfurt, Art Amsterdam, Art Zurich; Installation of Radio Island, four vertically stacked monitors, exhibited by Gallerie Trabant, Austria
Art Academy Film Festival, Sofia, Bulgaria Invideo Festival, Milan, Italy
Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive (two works included in two separate programs)
Vub Dienst Kultur, Brussels, Belgium Sein/ The Art of Exposure, Brussels, Belgium
Broadcast of Radio Island on SWF and ARD, Germany
Brazilian Cable Television Broadcast and Purchase of Bindu 2nd International Festival of New Film, Split, Croatia The Dallas Video Festival, Dallas Museum of Art Van McElwee & Friends: Benefit for Legacy Productions, St. Louis 1996 The 5th New York Video Festival at Lincoln Center, New York City, New York
Toulouse, France, installation of stills and video IMPAKT 96, Video Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Les Rendez-Vous Du Fort, Mons-en Baroeul, France
St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri (with the New Music Circle)
The Pandemonium Festival of The Moving Image
The Institute of Contemporary Art, London,
1997 Champ Libre, Montreal, Canada De Effenaan, Eindhoven, The Netherlands Filmhouse, Montevideo/TBA,DenmarkAmsterdam, The Netherlands Recontres Arts Electroniques, Rennes, France
The New York International Video and New Media Festival, New York City Champe Libre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
New Visions, International Festival of Film, Video and Media, Glasgow, Scotland Guest Artist, Missouri Video Festival for the Wendy Hearn Invitational Award, St. Louis Sonntagsmalineen, Film and Video Exhibition, Vienna, Austria Video Art Plastiques, St. Herouville-Saint-Clair, France
The Lyon Biennial, France
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Broadcast of Radio Island on SW2 Switzerland
Missouri Video Festival, St. Louis, Missouri Rio Cinefestival, Transfinite Loops
Blackwell’s Theatre, Oxford, England Forum De Arts L’univers Scientifique Et Technologique (FAUST)
Transmediale, Video Festival, Berlin (Radio Island toured for one year with the festival)
New York International Video Festival, The Knitting Factory, New York City Festival Video Multicultural, Paris, France
Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, Inside and Outside: Video Art, California International Symposium on Electronic Art, Montreal, Installation of Video and 27 C-Prints International Symposium on Electronic Art, Montreal, screening of Space Splice
The Dallas Museum of Art for The 1994 Dallas Video Festival, Dallas, installation of video and 27 prints
Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach California Zentrum Du Kunst Un Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany
Broadcast on The Higher Education Channel, St. Louis, (broadcast of three pieces).
Three Works Purchased by Haruo Isho For Video Art Library, Nagoya, Japan Montreal International Nouveau Festival of Cinema, Canada 1995 Anthology Film Archives, New York City
Washigton University Gallery of Art: Video Art of The Eighties Viper Video Festival, Luzerne, Switzerland Broadcasts of Folded Follies as part of two Film + Arc specials, Milan and Prado, Italy 1994 Ars Electronica, Graz, Austria, Intellegente Ambiente, screening of Inside, curated by Carol Ann Klonarides
92 1996 Broadcast on SWF and ORF, Germany of Transfinite Loops
The Kitchen Video Show, Channel 34, New York City Montreal, Canada (screening of other video work at the festival)
The Wexner Center for The Arts, Columbus, Ohio Rio Cinefestival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Broadcast on ARD and EIN PLUS, Germany
Two Broadcasts on Programmation Ornamentale a L’aeronef De Lille, France of Space Splice
Art In General, Benefit Exhibition, New York City Art In General, Queue Sera, Sera, the Afterlife Show, New York City Athens International Film and Video Festival, Athens, Ohio Canary Islands International Video Festival, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands Festival Internacional De Video, Buenos Aires, Argentina Festival Mundial Do Minuto 95, Sao Paulo, Brazil Saison Video, Mons-en-Baroeul, France
Film + Arc International Festival of Film and Architecture, Graz, Austria Honorable Mention, two works shown De Visu-Alencon exhibition, France Festival Internacional De Video, Buenos Aires, Argentina
1992 The Berlin Film Festival, Berlin, Germany
Universite D’ete Art Video, France Video Art Plastique, Herouville St. Clair, France Broadcast on Higher Education Channel, St. Louis 1993 The Dallas Museum of Art, 16-Moniter Video Wall Installation of Bindu for the Dallas Video Festival
Sonata Di Distanze, Naples, Italy
THE 90s, broadcast on over 260 PBS stations in the United States Artmedia 92, Naples, Italy (five pieces shown)
The Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne, Australia
The European Media Art Festival, Osnabruk, Germany
The Image & Sound Museum, Festival Mundial Du Minuto, Sao Paulo, Brazil (four works shown)
Muestra De Video De Navarra, Spain Video Festival of Gentilly, France Broadcast of Refraction and Reconstructions on Carrieres Sociales Lille, France
Broadcast of Fragments of India on EIN PLUS and ARD3, Germany
NYU - TV, New York City Selections from FILM + ARC, shown in Vienna, Austria, and Hamburg, Germany
93 1994 Art Connexion, Paris, France
The London Film Festival, The Electronic Image Section, London, England Videonale 92, Bonn, Germany Deutscher Video Kunstpreis 92 Exhibtion, ZKM Museum, Karlsruhe, Germany
The Athens International Film and Video Festival, Athens, Ohio Cinevideo, Karlsruhe, Germany College Le Roumois, France
International Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Liceo Scientifico Statale, Naples, Italy Mulhouse School of Art, France
Installation of Reconstructions, May Gallery, Webster University, St. Louis
New Angle International Video Festival, New York City, New York Broadcast, Sudwestfunk, Baden-Baden, Germany Broadcast of Cityscape SWF, Baden-Baden, Germany
The Twenty-Fourth New York Expo, New York City THE 90s, broadcast on over 260 PBS stations in the United States
94 1992 Ecole Supieriere Des Beaux Arts des Paris, France
1991 The Berlin Film Festival, Berlin, Germany
The 1991 Mill Valley Film and Video Festival
The 1991 Dallas Video Festival, The Dallas Museum of Art
The Mill Valley Film and Video Festival, Mill Valley, California, 1989 The Territory, Texas PBS stations, 1984 and 1987 The Exploratorium, San Francisco, California, 1983 Videoarco 88, Madrid, Spain (three pieces shown)
The Fifth International De Video, Teruel, Spain La Rosa Des Vents a Villeneuve D’asco, France La Saison Video, Mons-en-Baroeul, France Muestra De Video De Navarra, Spain
The Kitchen, New York City Multimediale, Zkm, Karlsruhe, Germany
The Sixth Australian International Video Festival, Australia Van McElwee and Friends, Benefit for Legacy Productions, Webster University, St. Louis
1990 CANAL+, Paris, France (six-month broadcast of Inside in France and Monaco)
Videonale 90, Bonn, Germany
International Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Naples, Italy 1992 University d’ete A Lille, France
Cinema Le Melville a Roen, France
The 1992 Dallas Video Festival, The Dallas Muesum Of Art, Dallas, Texas Festival Video a Rennes, France
1989-1977
Charlotte Film & Video Festival, Charlotte, North Carolina Downtown Community Television Center, New York City, New York
2002 ZKM Museum exhibition catalog and CD-ROM: Zeitraffer/Time Lapse. Internationaler Medienkunstpreis, 1992-2002, Karlsruhe, Germany
ZKM Museum exhibition catalog and CD-ROM: Ctrl [Space] Die Wachsame Gesellshaft,
2005 St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Feature article: Professor Creates Art Through a Video Lens, by Thomas Crone, March 2, 2005
2011 The 21st Century Artist, feature article in St. Louis Magazine’s St. Louis Innovators issue, by Jennette Cooperman
2013 Film Threat, reviews of: Natureland, And/Or, Vat, Travel Dream, Half-Real and Capitol of the Multiverse, by David Finkelstein
ABSTRAC(ED) ART, by Buzz Spector, Catalogue essay, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, September
2020
2021 A Conversation with Van McElwee, by Don Corrigan, AFTERIMAGE, University of California Press, September 2021, 25-34
Curator Dana Turkovic Interview with Artist Van McElwee, St. Louis (catalog) Stepping Through Time, Terrain Magazine, November 2015 ANDO, AND/OR, by Buzz Spector, Catalogue essay, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, November 2014 Film Threat, reviews of: Electric Pilgrims, Mexican Dream and Soft City, by David Finkelstein
2004 St. Louis Post-Dispatch: A Coney Island of The Mind, on Time Play: A 25-Year Retrospective of Van McElwee’s Video Art, St. Louis University Art Museum, by David Bonetti
2010 Afterimage, The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism, The Motorization of Video Art: Van McElwee’s Liquid Crystal through the lenses of Virilio and Berardi, by Robert Kohn Program Notes for Van McElwee: A Decade, a ten-year retrospective at Anthology Film Archives, New York, by curator Andrew Lampert Van McElwee: Bruno David Gallery Publications, Essay by David Bonetti, Art Critic, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Art of The Fourth Dimension, Artpool, Budapest, Exhibition Catalog
2001 Video Art Plastique exhibition catalog, Cultural Center of Normandy: Adding a Dimension: The Space-Time Music Of Van McElwee
2012 Film Threat, review of Varifold by David Finkelstein
95 Flykingen, Film and Video Exhibition, Stockholm, Sweden, 1977 New York City Experimental Video and Film Festival, New York City, NY, SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
2003 The Experimental Television Center Video History Project, notes by Sherry Miller Hocking
2016 The Bay Area Video Coalition, San Francisco: Preservation Access Program; two grants for digital mastering of numerous tapes dating back to 1976
1993 St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Creating Experiences With TV Technology, by Robert Duffy, for Van McElwee A Retrospective, at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis St. Louis Post-Dispatch: A Different Sort of Canvas, Robert Duffy, June 13, 1993 St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Video as a Part of Art, at the Forum for Contemporary Art 1992 Deutscher Videokunstpreis, Exhibition Catalog, ZKM Museum, Karlsruhe, Germany
1991 St. Louis Post-Dispatch: A Diverse Look at Current Experimental Videos St. Louis Riverfront Times: Van McElwee Experiments with Video Art
1996 ZKM Museum Exhibition Catalog, Internationaler Videokunstpreis 1996, Karlsruhe, Germany
St. Louis Riverfront Times: Monitor Wizard, feature article by Eddie Silva
New York Times: Cinema a la Warhol, With Cowboys, Stillness and Glamour by Holland Cotter (review of New Arts Program Biennial at Paula Cooper Gallery)
2020AWARDS
1995 The Worldwide Video Festival, The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Exhibition Catalog comments by Marieke Van Hal 1994 Deutscher Videokunstpreis 1994, ZKM Museum,Exhibition Catalog, Karlsruhe, Germany
96 2001 ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany
1997 ZKM Museum Exhibition Catalog, Internationaler Videokunstpreis 1997, Karlsruhe, Germany
St. Louis Riverfront Times: Van McElwee Experiments, by Robert Hunt 2000 Afterimage, The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism: Constructing Eternity, An Interview with Van McElwee by T.L. Reid
Drei Projekte: ‘Bitte Berunren, Exhibition Catalog, ZKM Museum, Karlsruhe, Germany
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Looking Back, Jeff Daniel, January 23, 1998
1998 New York Times: A Revolution Made of Gritty Intimacy, review of the New York Video Festival by Stephen Holden, July 17, 1998
1999 St. Louis Riverfront Times: Article, Best Video Artist
Regional Arts Commission Artist Support Grant
Sam Fox School Faculty Creative Activity Research Grant, Washington University in St. Louis
Black Maria Film and Video Festival, New Jersey, Director’s Citation for Stupaform and Heliogos Honorable Mention, New York Expo, New York City
Sam Fox School Faculty Creative Activity Research Grant, Washington University in St. Louis
2015
Nominee, The International Award for Video Art, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; included cash award, museum screening at Zentrum
2010
2013 Faculty Research Grant, Webster University, for travel and production of Electric Pilgrims and Mexican Dream, in Mexico and BestPeru
Competitive annual grant for painters and sculptors engaged in creating new work.
2003 Nominee, Rockefeller Foundation Media Arts Fellowship
Second Prize Award New Arts Program Biennial Video Festival for Heliogos and Stupaform
2009 New Music Circle, St. Louis, Grant (third of three) for the production of a large-scale video and music performance, Van McElwee: Modular Mazes
Second Place, St. Louis Cinema at Citygarden, installation and cash award
2008 Jury Award, Japan Media Arts Festival, Tokyo, Japan Director’s Choice Award, Black Maria Film and Video Festival, USA. Toured with the festival
Best Experimental Film for Mexican Dream, St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase
2004 Nominee, Rockefeller Foundation Media Arts Fellowship
2007 The George Sugarman Foundation, Inc., Novato, CA
One of ten recipients of a $20,000 fellowship selected from 265 applicants.
Production Grant from HEARding Cats Collective for Original Self
2014 Individual Artist Fellowship, St. Louis Regional Arts Commission
New Music Circle, St. Louis, Grant (second of three) for the production of a large-scale video and music performance, Van McElwee and Friends
Wilma Messing Award for research, Webster University, St. Louis
2013 Regional Arts Commission Fellow, St. Louis, MO
Experimental Film, for Travel Dream, St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase
2001 Grand Prize, New Arts Program Biennial Video Festival, traveling show for Procession and Confluence Director’s Citation, Black Maria Film and Video Festival
97
2005 Nominee, Rockefeller Foundation Media Arts Fellowship
2002 Nominee, Rockefeller Foundation Media Arts Fellowship
98 2001 Fur Kunst und Medientechnologie; broadcast on German television (SWF)
Honorable Mention, New York Expo, New York City 2000 Washington University Studio Residence, Cité International Des Arts, Paris, France
1995 Second Place Award, Athens International Film and Video Festival, Athens, Ohio Award of Excellence, Missouri Video Festival, St. Louis, Missouri
1994 The National Endowment for The Arts Independent Production Fund
The Rockefeller Foundation Intercultural Fellowship, Nomination Nominee, The International Award for Video Art, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; included cash award, museum screening at Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie; broadcast on German television (SWF)
The National Endowment for The Arts Independent Production Fund
Honorable Mention Award for Folded Follies, FILM+ARC Festival, Graz, Austria Nominee, The International Award for Video Art, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; included cash award, museum screening at Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie; broadcast on German television (SWF)
Second Place Award, Missouri Video Festival Award of Recognition, Missouri Video Festival, St Louis, Missouri 1996 Award of Merit for Transfinite Loops, Sinking Creek Film and Video Festival, Vanderbilt University Nominee, The International Award for Video Art, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; included cash award, museum screening at Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie; broadcast on German television (SWF)
The Wendy Hearn Invitational Award, The Missouri Video Festival, St. Louis, Missouri Award of Excellence, Missouri Video Festival, St. Louis, Missouri
1993 The Carl Milles Scholarship, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Director’s Choice Award, Black Maria Film and Video Festival; work toured with festival Faculty Research Grant, Webster University, St. Louis Missouri 1998 Award of Recognition, Missouri Video Festival, St. Louis, Missouri Faculty Research Grant, Webster University for travel and video production in Southeast Asia Faculty Technology Grant, Webster University, St. Louis 1997 Director’s Citation, Black Maria Film and Video Festival Nominee, The International Award for Video Art, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; included cash award, museum screening at Zentrum Fur Kunst und Medientechnologie; broadcast on German television (SWF)
1999 Experimental Video Award, Athens International Film and Video Festival, Athens Ohio
1990 Jury Award, The New York Exposition of Short Film and Video
CURRATORIAL PROJECTS, VISITING ARTISTS PRESENTATIONS, PANELS AND ESSAYS
2018 Praxis Interview Magazine, WYBCX Yale Radio, by Brainard Carey, May 2, 2018.
2021 MLA Lecture Series, Firstlings: Sculptures + Works on Paper, February 6, 2021 University College, Washington University in St. Louis MLA Saturday Lecture Series - Feb. 6, 2021
2014 Public Lecture, University of North Texas, Denton, TX (scheduled October 2014)
99
1987
Production Grant, Legacy Productions, funded by the Missouri Arts Council and the Regional Arts Commission, St. Louis, MO
The National Endowment for The Arts and The American Film Institute, Independent Production Fund
The America Film Institute Independent Filmmaker Award
1986
Regional Fellowship
The National Endowment for The Arts and The American Film Institute Independent Production Fund
1992
https://museumofnonvisibleart.com/interviews/arny-nadler/
The National Endowment for The Arts and The American Film Institute
2017 Moderator for International Sculpture Center Conference Panel Material Poetics, Kansas City, MO
Juror, Regional Arts Commission-St. Louis, Entryway Project
Visiting Artist, Herron School of Art, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis
2016 Curator, Ontology of Influence: Ron Leax and Alumni Exhibition, Des Lee Gallery, Washington University in St. Louis, Featured artwork by Halsey C. Ives Professor of Art Ron Leax and thirty-seven alumni.
1984
The Government of India, travel grant from for the production of Fragments of India Artist- In-Residence, The Experimental Television Center, Owego, New York Nominee, The International Award for Video Art, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; included cash award, museum screening at Zentrum Fur Kunst und Medientechnologie; broadcast on German television (SWF)
The National Endowment for The Arts and The American Film Institute Independent Production Fund
The Center for New Television Consulting Award, CNTV, Chicago Production Grant, Legacy Productions, The Missouri Arts Council and the Regional Arts Commission, St. Louis
1989 The National Endowment for The Arts and The American Film Institute Independent Production Fund
1999 Co-juror, University City Entrance Project, University City, MO
2010 Juror, C4 Exhibition, Surplus Gallery, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale Public lecture, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL
Panelist, Foundations in Art: Theory and Education Conference, Savannah, GA
2001 Monday Noon Series Lectures, Center for the Humanities, University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO
2007 Public lecture and studio visits, Millikin University, Decatur, IL Public lecture, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC
Consultant, Skinker-DeBaliviere Sculpture Project, St. Louis, MO
2000 Studio Crawl, participating artist, Forum for Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO
Arts Roundtable Lecture, Sheldon Art Gallery, St. Louis, MO
1995 Visiting Artist, The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
2011 Panelist, Foundations in Art: Theory and Education Conference, St. Louis, MO
2012 Visiting Researcher, University of Manitoba Center for Architectural Structures and Technology
100 2013 Contemporary Art Museum, Open Studio, St. Louis, MO, Participating artist Co-juror, Cedarhurst Biennial, Cedarhurst Center for the Arts, Mt. Vernon, IL
2005 Author of contributing essay “Invisible Skills” in Small Changes, Big Impact: 20 Years of Collaborative Public Sculpture, produced by the Washington University College of Art, Sculpture Department, St. Louis, MO
1997 Visiting Artist, The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Visiting Artist, The Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL
1998 Public lecture and studio visits, Monmouth College, Monmouth, IL
Hosted studio visit for Webster University and University of Missouri-St. Louis
2002 Public lecture, Thomas Jefferson School, St. Louis, MO
Monday Noon Series Lectures, Center for the Humanities, University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO
Public lecture and studio visits, Edinboro University, Edinboro, PA Public lecture, Bonsack Gallery, St. Louis, MO
2006 Panelist, Mid-America College Art Association Conference, Nashville, TN Public lecture, Three Rivers Community College, Poplar Bluff, MO Arts Encounters public lecture, Benini Sculpture Foundation, Johnson City, TX
Juror, MFA Exhibition, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville
2003 Public lecture and studio visits, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Bilingual: Abstract & Figurative, catalogue, Essay by Buzz Spector, Bruno David Gallery Publications, September 2021.
Firstlings: Sculptures + Works on Paper, catalogue, Bruno David Gallery Publications, May 2021. Praxis Interview Magazine, WYBCX Yale Radio, by Brainard Carey, May 2, 2018. https://museumofnonvisibleart.com/interviews/arny-nadler/
Ten St. Louis-area Artists Awarded $20,000 RAC Fellowship, by Nancy Fowler, Dec. 12. http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/ten-st-louis-area-artists-awarded-20000-rac-fellowships2013
The Riverfront Times, “Newly Reviewed: Infrastructure”, Jessica Baran, December 16, 2010.
The Riverfront Times, “The Weight”, Paul Friswold, St. Louis, MO, November 4, 2008 Art in America, “Art at Land’s End”, Karen Wilkin, September 2008.
Evident, All the Art, review by Joe Kohlburn, All the Art, Spring 2018 Washington University Record. Washington People: Arny Nadler, Respect for the well-made thing. By Liam Otten, February 24, 2014. http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/26540.aspx
Exhibition on Display at Clayton’s Bruno David Gallery Juxtaposes Figurative and Abstract Works, Bryan Hollerbach, Ladue News, August 2021.
The Mountain Times Online, “New Outdoor Sculpture Drawing Stares at ASU 21st Rosen Competition Attracts Artists from Across U.S.” Jeff Eason, Boone, NC, May 2007.
The St. Louis Beacon (stlbeacon.com) Bright Spots, Ivy Cooper, December 16, 2010.
Wynwood Art Magazine, “Sculpture Key West 2008”, Hal Bromm, March 2008.
The St. Louis Beacon (stlbeacon.com), Bright Spots, Ivy Cooper, April 27, 2009.
The Riverfront Times, “Featured Review: Arny Nadler”, Jessica Baran, St. Louis, MO, April 14, 2009.
101 AND BLOGS
AEQAI, Ceramics Shows at Weston Gallery, DAAP Meyers Gallery, Manifest Gallery, and the Contemporary Arts Center, March 27, 2021, by Jonathan Kamholtz. Terry Suhre, Essay, Firstlings, catalogue, Bruno David Gallery Publications, May 2021.
The Riverfront Times, St. Louis Art Capsules, Jessica Baran, St. Louis, MO, November 25, 2008.
High Country Press Online, “Looking for New Outdoor Sculpture at ASU.” Staff writer, Boone, NC, April 2007.
Whelm sculpture takes shape outside Gallery 210, Myra Lopez, UMSL Daily, July 2012. blogs.umsl.edu/news/2012/07/17/whelm/
REVIEWS, PUBLICATIONS
The Montage, Sculpture and Printmaking Collide in New Exhibition, by Chris Hutson, January 25, http://www.meramecmontage.com/artlife/sculpture-and-printmaking-collide-in-new-exhibition/2018
St. Louis Post Dispatch West, “Spring Has Blossomed, And So Has Art in U. City.” Marianna Riley, St. Louis, MO, April 1998.
The Riverfront Times, “Human Being.” Ivy Schroeder, St. Louis, MO, August 2000.
The Art Guide, cover art for New York section of the Northeast Edition, Madison, CT, February 2007
St. Louis Post Dispatch, “Laumeier’s neighbor Opens an Exhibit Worthy of Address.” Jeff Daniel, St. Louis, MO, May 2002.
The Evanston Review, “Evanston Art Center Shows Off Faculty.” Lisa Stein, Evanston, IL, August 1997.
The Washington University Record, “Giving Students a Taste of Public Art” Liam Otten, St. Louis, MO, March 1999.
The University of Missouri-St. Louis Current, “Nadler Exhibit Debuts at Gallery 210”, Sara Porter, St. Louis, MO, October 2001.
St. Louis Post Dispatch, “Aspects of Being--’Threads of a Broad Subject.’” Jeff Daniel, St. Louis, MO, July 2000.
The Monmouth College Oracle, “Contorted Grace.” Jane Carlson, Monmouth, IL, February 1998.
Nuovo.net, “Drive by Art.” Juliana Thibodeaux, June 2005. Publicartindianapolis.com, “Herron Gallery Hosts Its First Sculpture Invitational.” Staff writer, Indianapolis, IN, 2005.
The Kansas City Star, “Figuring Out Humans,” Caprice Stapely, Kansas City, MO, June 2001.
Sculpture Magazine, Itinerary section, photo publication and exhibition announcement, Washington DC, April 2007.
102
The Memphis Flyer Online, “Calculating Our Risks: Three Artists Take On The World.” Carol Knowles, Memphis, TN, 2003.
103
104 goodartnews.com/twitter.com/bdavidgalleryfacebook.com/bruno.david.galleryinstagram.com/brunodavidgallery/#ArtCatalog#ArtBook#ArtPublication#ArtExhibition#GoSeeArt##DanaTurkovic#DonCorrigan#TimeFork#VanMcElwee#BrunoDavidGallery@bdavidgallerybrunodavidprojects.combrunodavidgallery.comLaumeierSculpturePark
105 Sara Ghazi Asadollahi Laura DamonJillTerryAlexCarmonJudyBunnyMichaelLisaHeatherBeardBennettK.BlattByronBursonChildColangeloCouwenbergJamesConradDownenFreed Yvette Drury Dubinsky Douglass Freed Richard Hull Kelley Johnson Chris Kahler Leslie Laskey (Estate) Van PatriciaYvonneArnyJamesJustinMcElweeHenryMillerAustinMurrayNadlerOseiOlynyk Gary MonikaMarkBuzzThomasChristinaCharlesFrankTomDanielCharlesRobertPassanisePettus(Estate)P.ReayRaedekeReedSchwaigerSchwallShmigelSleetSpectorTraversWulfers ARTISTS