Jeff Schlanger: Curated by Ree Schonlau Kaneko

CUE ART FOUNDATION

March 17 - April 23, 2005 Curated by Ree Schonlau Kaneko

JEFF SCHLANGER

We are honored to host this exhibition, which has been generously curated

by Ree Schonlau Kaneko, Founder of the Bemis Center for the Arts, Omaha, NB. Ms. Schonlau Kaneko, a long time supporter of the arts and artists, has chosen Jeff Schlanger, an artist who lives in New York State. Ms. Schonlau Kaneko's appreciation of Mr. Schlanger's work demonstrates how the Foun­ dation's discretionary process allows differing forms of expression an opportunity to be seen.

This exhibition of Mr. Schlanger's work, just a small part of the musicWitnessÂŽ Project, confirms our commitment to artists who often work tirelessly without thought or concern for exhibition opportunities. CUE is pleased to recognize such commitment by affording just such an opportunity, thus celebrating the efforts of artists such as Jeff Schlanger.

Supported by Joe and Beth Massoud

CURATOR'S STATEMENT

Sound electrifies the images that pour out of Jeff Schlanger.

In constant movement, he records the energy of sound.

New sound being created right in front of him - front row - in the same time frame, the same moment.

All this energy is strung together and forms a vibrant solo statement in these drawings.

When you see this work, you can hear and feel it.

Jeff Schlanger is a real time two-handed painter who situates himself in the midst of other artists creating flew music.

He can hear it happening - after some 30 years of working with some of the most talented and avant-garde jazz musicians, Jeff can perceive the shift - the new sounds of contemporary Jazz.

That's a very exciting place to be.

Each hand responds to the sound, Jeff feels those lines, those colors, that intensity.

And he puts it directly as it happens on to the paper.

One form dissolves and another takes it place.

The flash of the spirit is witnessed and recorded here.

Ree Schon/au Kaneko

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Vision of the musicWitness<e: :

Look deep within a source of living sound.

Colors gleam and pour out music's tears, run together inside both eyes, falling as well in open ears.

Two hands reach towards this listening, fingertips in movement, dance and flow, drop wet colors on hot-sized cotton, touching, applauding as they go.

Š Jack Vartoogian / Front Row Photos

Conceive these papers as connected: seen together they unite.

Extend a seismographic scroll throughout these vivid times tonight.

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JAN 15 mi

Feel the rhythms driving music river fuse to panoramic view: families of living musicians bring home the gift of art to you.

MusicWitness r; is a sustained engagement with live improvising musicians.

Singing through the tactile colors of drawing, painting and ceramic sculpture, this Vision contributes to the creation of a new reality - Peace now, in our time here together.

Jeff Schlanger

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ARTIST'S

BIOGRAPHY

Jeff Schlanger, born in New York City in 1937, a graduate of Music & Art High School and student of Maija Grotell at Cranbrook, has created public art

projects on three interrelated subjects: Peace, Resistance to War and Music.

musicWitness® paintings and sculpture have been part of all nine Arts

for Art Vision Festivals held each May in New York. musicWitness®was featured as a painter in performance at the Tampere, Finland Jazz Happening 2000-

2003, in Paris at Sons D'hiver 2004 and as graphic artist in Canada at the

Guelph Jazz Festival in 2002. Exhibitions of this work have also been held at

San Francisco's Intersection for the Arts in 1999, Webster University in St. Louis

and the Hunterdon NJ Art Museum.

Events at downtown New York performance spaces include four instal­

lations at the old Knitting Factory on Houston Street, three permanent pictures

in the Leonard Street Knitting Factory, installations in the Orensanz Art Center

on Norfolk, the Electric Circus on St. Mark's, The Center on Mulberry Street, the Learning Alliance on Lafayette, lmprovisors Collective on Avenue A and El Bohio

on East 9th Street. The CUE Art Foundation is now a few blocks west of the

former location of Warren Smith's Studio WIS, part of the vibrant Loft Movement which catalyzed the beginning of the musicWitness® Project in 1975.

Over 30 recording covers have been made at the request of many

leading musicians including Julius Hemphill, Muhal Richard Abrams & Roscoe

Mitchell, Charles Gayle, W illiam Parker, Billy Bang and Kidd Jordan. Color

features on music Witness® were published in Japan by Morning magazine, Germany by BeQ! and France in Papiers Nickles #2, 2004.

Chile New York, a war resistance project, is a black wall of 400 ceramic

Faces, Figures and monumental Jars, selections of which have been seen in

forty installations across the USA including the Everson Museum in Syracuse,

Laumier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, Bennington College in Vermont and the Renwick Gallery in Washington DC. Total installations were mounted at NY

State College of Ceramics at Alfred in 1978 and the City University of NY

Graduate Center Mall on 42nd Street in May 1980.

CURATOR'S

BIOGRAPHY

For the last 34 years, Ree Schonlau Kaneko's career has been dedicated to supporting the visual arts by promoting the creative art making process.

Her mission to provide artists with studios, stipends, living spaces. technical support, exhibitions, and critical review culminated with the creation of the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in 1985. Housed in a 100,000 square foot warehouse in Omaha, Nebraska, the Center, since its inception, has awarded extended residencies at its studio and workshop spaces to 650 artists.

Pursuing this exciting adventure has enabled Kaneko to organize more than 320 exhibitions and lectures on contemporary artists and their work. This vivid, hands-on learning process has also enabled her to serve as a leading consultant to Partners for Livable Places, DC; Capp Street Project, CA; Navy Pier Chicago; Montalvo, CA; New Arts Forum; The City of Omaha; the Univer­ sity of Nebraska; The Louisiana Council for the Arts; the City of Daytona Beach, FL, as a frequent panelist at NEA forums in Washington DC, and as guest lecturer throughout US, Europe and Asia.

Through the insightful funding of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Kaneko along with seventeen other residency leaders formed the Alliance of Artists' Communities in 1991, an organization which has subsequently grown to make an enormous change in the field of artists' communities today.

Kaneko's current project is to build a program and space that celebrates creativity in the arts, sciences, and philosophy, to open in 2008.

CUE ART FOUNDATION MISSION STATEMENT

CUE Art Foundation, a non-profit organization, provides educational programs

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

for young artists and aspiring art professionals in New York and from around

Gregory Amenoff

the country. These programs draw on the unique community of artists, critics,

Thomas G. Devine

and educators brought together by the Foundation's season of exhibitions,

Thomas K. Y. Hsu

public lectures, and its in-gallery studio program. Gallery internships and

Brian D. Starer

stipends afford the next generation of art professionals intimate, working knowledge of the art-making and exhibition processes. CUE's 2000 sq. ft.

ADVISORY COUNCIL

gallery and offices, located in New York's Chelsea gallery district, serves as the

Gregory Amenoff

base for the various educational programs conducted by CUE.

Vicky A. Clark

The Foundation's exhibition season gives unknown or under-recog­

William Corbett

nized artists professional exposure comparable to that offered by neighboring

Meg Cranston

commercial galleries, without the usual financial restraints. CUE does not

James Drake

promote a particular school of artistic practice or regional bias; we only require

Bruce Ferguson

that exhibiting artists must either not have had a solo exhibition in a commer­

Sanford Hirsch

cial venue, or have received minimal recent public exposure.

Dana Hoey

CUE's Advisory Council, an honorary group of artists and leading figures from the arts education, applied arts, art history, and literary communi­

GALLERY DIRECTOR

ties, has the responsibility of selecting exhibition curators. The curators, in turn,

Jeremy Adams

nominate artists to exhibit at CUE, and continue to play a role throughout the exhibition process, helping the artists catalogue their work for exhibition. Both

GALLERY COORDINATOR

the Advisory Council and the exhibition curators actively participate in the

Sandhini Poddar

public lectures and educational programs.

GALLERY ASSISTANT

Beatrice Wolert-Weese

ALL ARTWORK© JEFF SCHLANGER, musicWitness® 2005. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. CATALOG DESIGN: JEANNE VERDOUX