A Q U A R T E R LY P U B L I C AT I O N
SPRING 2015
F O R
E M E R G I N G A R T I S T S
VOLUME 4 ISSUE 1
THEARTISTCATALOGUE.COM
FEATURED ARTISTS 04
10
16
40
46
52
76
78
80
AJ
Nathan Alex
Osman Can
Urquidi
Young
Yerebakan
Suzanne Anan
Katelyn Gettner
Nicanor Aquino VII
Evgeni Gordiets
William Benson Brant
Patricio H. Lazen
FEATURED WRITERS
22
Jesse Chun
28
34
64
70
Caroline Silva Cruz
James Alexander Ferrante
Back Cover Artist
58
Corwin Levi
Front Cover Artist
Ryan Trombley
Elizabeth Woodbury
SUZANNE ANAN B E L M A R ,
N J
Suzanne Anan’s artwork was selected for inclusion this month in The American Artists Professional League’s 86th Grand National Exhibition at The Salmagundi Club in New York. Her work was also chosen for the Robert Lange Studio’s Exhibition titled I See A Pattern, held in Charleston, South Carolina. She was one of fifty artists to be chosen for the Dublin Biennial International Contemporary Art Exhibition this year in Dublin, Ireland. Prior to the exhibition she was awarded a silver medal and honorary diploma from the Arts-Science-Letters Association in recognition of her artistic achievements in the Société Nationale des BeauxArts (SNBA) Exhibition held at the Carrousel du Louvre, Paris, France. Suzanne studied abroad in Venice, Italy in an international program directed by Angiola Churchill, and received a Master’s Degree of Art from New York University. Her artwork has been featured and sold in international exhibitions and in U.S. galleries, donated to several nonprofit organizations, and commissioned by large corporations such as Johnson & Johnson, and The Newark Museum. Her artwork is included in many noteworthy collections, such as that of Sir Paul McCartney and Lady Nancy in Sussex, England. www.suzanneanan.com
TERRACE IN THE SNOW Oil on Canvas 40” x 80”
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SUZANNE ANAN
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LOVE AFTER LOVE Oil on Canvas 48” x 48”
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TAC: Tell us how you construct your imagery - what are your sources and how does it all come together? SA: My artwork is a running dialogue, one side directed toward exploration and the other toward solving a problem. I feel that I am drawn to a subject or theme, and then find a way to express the idea. Sometimes it can be years later when I realize the connection the narrative may have with my own personal experiences. Other times the subject is so literal that I find myself documenting that moment in time because I know it’s fleeting. For example, my current body of work is a documentation of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. This series is a representation of my home town of Belmar, New Jersey, before and after the storm. The paintings are considerably small in scale but the impact and representation of the imagery is very realistic. TAC: What is the greatest challenge in your artistic practice? SA: Time is my greatest challenge. I never seem to run out of ideas, just the time needed to explore and produce them. TAC: How did you come to work in painting, specifically the style of contemporary realism? What is it about this form that appeals to you?
THE PIER, 2012 Oil on Canvas 20” x 10”
SA: It wasn’t until my last class as an undergrad that I took a painting course and I loved it! Until then drawing was my medium, and so the possibilities of paint opened my world. A few years later I applied to NYU for a Graduate Study Abroad program in Italy. I was accepted with a strong portfolio in design, among twenty international students pursuing painting, art theory, and criticism in Venice, Italy. I quickly signed up to learn Italian and then lived there for two years. It was life changing and certainly broadened my perspective. I loved living in Italy. I became liberated from my own inhibitions as an artist, and more importantly I was exposed to the Great Classic Renaissance Artists and saw the works hanging in the spaces in which they were created. They held our study groups at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum on the Grand Canal. I was fortunate to travel all over Italy and saw the original works of Michelangelo, da Vinci, Titian, Caravaggio, and Venetian artists like Tiepolo, Tintoretto, and Veronese. The one artist who struck me most was the only female artist among all of the men, Artemisia Gentileschi. It was in seeing her work that I started to find my own voice. TAC: What is next for you as an artist? SA: In 2015 my goal is to finish then exhibit this latest series of paintings at the same time they complete the new construction of the buildings that were lost during the storm in Belmar, NJ.
NICANOR AQUINO VII WASHINGTON, DC Five months ago as I dabbled in painting, I never thought that I would be where I am right now. With no formal training behind me, my works have been a series of trial and error. Out of those failures came a style that I quickly developed and latched on to. As I set out to make my first series of paintings I present my work in progress: Eye Candy. It’s a series of juxtaposed usage of female figures alongside oversized products. The series plays on the idea of the unattainable norm of the female figure in advertising. nicanoraquinovii.wix.com/ nicanoraquinovii
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HUBBA BUBBA CHOKING HAZARD TWINS, 2014 36” x 48” ABOVE:
REESES CUP GIRl, 2014 24” x 20” OPPOSITE:
HE BUBBLETAPE GIRL 36” x 24”
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THE ORIGINAL SKITTLES GIRL, 2014 30” x 40”
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TAC: You have only recently started painting; what prompted you to take up this medium? NAV : It was toward the end of summer when the blank white walls in my apartment started to bore me that I began my search for that perfect art piece. I found several artworks that piqued my interest and that ranged from traditional to contemporary to the extremely overpriced, but none of them fit the criteria of being reasonably priced and suiting my personality. After a short, agonizing search I decided to go ahead and buy supplies and paint myself an original. Why not? What was I going to lose at that moment? I’ve always doodled here and there since I was a kid but never had the chance to have a blank canvas and just have a go at it until that moment. After six hours I was not sure if I wanted to continue. I couldn’t decide whether I was done or satisfied with my work. I told myself to “sleep on it.” It was the next day, looking at that piece that was painted on my bed, that something in me clicked and ignited a thrilling sensation of pure joy of the conceptualized idea painted on canvas. Since that day four months ago I haven’t looked back. TAC: Your work immediately references previous paintings by Mel Ramos, who was inspired by the pinups of Alberto Vargas. Which artists have been your biggest influences? NAV: Even though I’ve admired both Vargas and Ramos works and relate to Ramos’s humor as an artist, James Rosenquist and Andy Warhol are probably my biggest influences. I’ve always admired Warhol’s pop culture references and his usage of identifiable multinational brands in his work. Rosenquist’s Fahrenheit 1982 Degrees is probably one of those artworks that will forever leave a mark on me. His use of colors and visual language of advertising are just breathtaking. Their idea of using recognizable imagery on large-scale paintings has greatly influenced my work. TAC: You often juxtapose the female form with recognizable and oversized food, especially candy, products. What is the message of this work? NAV: As with most pop artists I admire whose works were heavily influenced by the media and advertising, I myself wanted to create my own nostalgic imageries and portray symbols of my childhood with a playful twist of dark humor. Currently I am working on a series of paintings titled Eye Candy. I’ve been exploring the portrayal of the unattainable female form and beauty in advertising. With this series of paintings I have been using the female form, identifiable childhood products, and verbiage to playfully mock the topic at hand. TAC: What is next for you as an artist? NAV: It’s been a great and crazy five months and at this moment I am just eager to work on finishing and adding smaller pieces to the Eye Candy series, since all I’ve painted so far are a handful of largescale paintings. But I’m definitely looking forward to getting more exposure and a solo exhibition in the next couple of months. I am also going to be traveling around France and Italy in the upcoming months so hopefully I get some new inspiration for future works.
NICANOR AQUINO VII
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WILLIAM BENSON BRANT
My paintings are frequently landscapes with evocative colors and strong but simple compositions that seek to find the spirit of some other place, real or imagined. They may employ unusual spatial concepts in search of originality and compositional power. They almost always use abstract space, refusing to surrender the surface. I’d like them to exude unconventionality and occasional humor. I would like them to be bold and sensuous, and sometimes amusing. www.williambbrant.com
PALM COAST, FL
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TABLE FOR ONE, 2011 Oil on Canvas 60” x 46” ABOVE:
GOING GREEN, 2012 Oil on Canvas 64” x 56” OPPOSITE:
POND LIFE, 2011 Oil on Canvas 45” x 60” PAGE 20 & 21:
RED WALLS, 2011 Oil on Canvas 50” x 43”
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WILLIAM BENSON BRANT
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TAC: Tell us how your practice has evolved over time. WBB: As a young man, I put it all in. I loved the goo, the surface, and color, often delivered with a light-hearted touch. I began in abstract expressionism, then experimented with the childlike imagery of primitivism and a kind of comix. I have tried to refine that imagery over the years, and sharpen the focus of my work. So as an older man, I’m taking out the goo and the surface, reducing the work to its basic elements. I want my paintings to have their primary voice through color, with an occasional touch of whimsy. TAC: The colors you use are very bold and striking. Tell us about this visual element. WBB: I am a colorist. I believe that color is the most fundamental element in painting. It is the creation of our brains, bringing order to the visual world. While color has always played a big part in my work, it has continued to gain power, creating a more lasting memory in the viewer’s experience. I want to reach more deeply into the subconscious of my audience, and hold them beyond the moment. TAC: Your works contain recognizable images, for example faces and objects, but in and among abstract elements. How do you balance this juxtaposition? WBB: I use the juxtaposition of recognizable objects and abstract elements in several ways. They can affect your reading of spatial relationships. They are often symbols suggesting ideas or messages. However, they also work to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind in the way the surrealists often used juxtaposition of images. TAC: What is next for you as an artist? WBB: There have been many “nexts.” I will continue to search for ways to reach more deeply into the minds of my audience while I make color the strongest voice in my work. The color and light of my maturity is informed by and infused with the color and light of my youth. The circle closes.
WILLIAM BENSON BRANT
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JESSE CHUN N E W
Y O R K ,
N Y
I examine passports and immigration documents to investigate the ways in which our identities are validated between borders. Drawing from my own transcultural experience as a nomad/immigrant, I explore notions of identity in the context of mobility and information. I employ methods of appropriation, digital manipulation, and photographic scanning to transform the background watermark images of passport pages into largescale landscapes. I also selectively fold and scan immigration documents to visually deconstruct and abstract the frameworks/requirements of identity authentication. I decontextualize bureaucratic information from their original functionality and power to construct metaphors of identity and transit. My work reveals the ideology, interrogation, displacement, and dreams that become a part of who we are. www.jessechun.com
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JESSE CHUN
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TAC: What immediately drew you to your subject matter of passports and immigration documents? JC: I am very familiar with immigration documents because I’ve had to fill them out my whole life. I have lived in Seoul, Hong Kong, New York, and Toronto, and have moved around in between as well. Being a nomad makes you very conscious of the importance/process of filling out paperwork and having the right documents on you to be granted access into a country. I have always found that moment at the border to be a very perplexing one because you are being evaluated as information on paper while you are face to face with the person behind the glass partition. This personal information does not merely represent us, but has the power and authority to determine our candidacy as an insider versus an outsider. I wanted to work with passports and immigration documents to examine the layers of meaning and metaphors about our collective identity and transit. TAC: What is the greatest challenge in your artistic practice? JC: The greatest challenge in my artistic practice has been encountering/collecting the right materials to investigate since I often work with appropriation. In all my projects I am interested in taking something that already exists in our world to extract something else from it, and to create my own interpretation of it. There are countless images, documents, and objects that exist
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in our world that have embedded poetics about who we are, and I am invested in reexamining them to find what they can be. In particular, I am drawn to studying things that reveal notions of home in context of identity, place, and mobility. TAC: Tell us about the name of your series On Paper, and how it reflects on the issues of borders and identity that you tackle. JC: The title of the series came very naturally to me. The common phrase that we use to describe someone, “that person is great on paper,” immediately came to my mind since this work is just about that - who we are on paper. That title seemed to capture the essence of both what is recorded and what is missing about our existence in the process of identity authentication. TAC: What is next for you as an artist? JC: I am working on a new body of work titled Interior, which explores notions of home in the domestic vernacular/home decor. This series consists of sculptures as well as 2D images. I am excited to work in various media in the new work, yet my sculptures still reference our relationship to photography. I am also kicking off 2015 with a group exhibition in JanuaryFebruary titled “Lift Off” at Fridman Gallery, curated by Elisabeth Biondi. My landscapes and a book of poems from the On Paper series will be there, so come by if you are in NY.
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LANDSCAPE 8, 2014 Archival Inkjet Print PREVIOUS:
LANDSCAPE 3D IPTYCH, 2013 Archival Inkjet Print OPPOSITE:
LANDSCAPE 10, 2014 Archival Inkjet Print BELOW:
Other, 2014 Archival Inkjet Print
JESSE CHUN
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CAROLINE SILVA CRUZ RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
Caroline Silva Cruz is a visual artist who makes handmade collages and mixed-media art. The drive behind the artist’s work is to establish a link between reality and the imagined, using visual vocabulary to address a fictional and experimental universe. By merging incompatible worlds into a new universe she investigates the dynamics of landscape, including the manipulation of contrasts. Inspired by artificial and natural elements rather than presenting a factual reality, her work incorporates the relationship between real, surreal, time, and space. www.carolinesilvacruz.com
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CAROLINE SILVA CRUZ
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TAC: Tell us about the “New Universe” that you create with your own specific visual vocabulary. CSC: I like the contrasts that exist in landscapes, how conflicting styles of architecture exist in the same setting or when buildings are placed in seemingly inhospitable locations. To see something for the first time that you don’t fully comprehend is a hypnotizing feeling. It invites you to keep looking and piecing things together in your mind in order to figure out what’s going on. I try to create a sublime sensation by glimpsing a still moment you are tempted to complete yourself and be transported into the scene. Like admiring photos of places I have never been to, I always wonder about the sensations and all that I can get from just observing a single representation of a bigger thing. What I want to achieve with these collages is to capture a timeless and unknown moment that leads to these feelings of discovery. TAC: How do you set out to create one of your works? Do you start your compositions with an image in your head, or one source clipping you found, or does it just all come together from scraps? CSC: Before I start thinking about the composition I take my time going through different types of magazines I get from
people who are done reading them. During this process I look for structures, textures, and any fragment I believe could evolve into something more elaborate. Most of the ideas come from finding parts that stand out while I’m separating them by color; they can often be the starting point of the collage, working other pieces around it. Having things separated by color makes selecting gradients and structures easier, and serves as a base for conceptualizing ideas as well. After everything is organized, there is a chain reaction from one element to another until the image is formed. TAC: Who are your biggest artistic influences and Why? CSC: James Turrell is a big influence; his art has a lovely mysterious quality and I like how sensorial it is. Kurt Schwitters’ versatility is truly inspiring. He has explored different creative areas and produced amazing work; I admire his tenacity and commitment as an artist. TAC: What is next for you as an artist? CSC: I will continue to experiment with collage and keep trying to find interesting solutions. I am open to different possibilities of artistic expression, and I would love to incorporate other techniques with collage.
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GALATEA, 2014 Collage PAGE 29:
PROTEUS, 2014 Collage PAGE 30:
NAIAD, 2014 Collage PAGE 31:
NESO, 2014 Collage OPPOSITE:
NEREID, 2014 Collage
CAROLINE SILVA CRUZ
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O K T U L S A ,
JAMES ALEXANDER FERRANTE
Through the materials, forms, and presentation, the work exploits the relationship between environment and identity, becomes selfaware, and simultaneously references and isolates itself from preestablished schools of thought. The evidence of tension and dialogue is
reflected in the diverse surfaces and mark making of each individual work. The capacity to disassemble and reassemble the works in new environments mirrors the notions of accessibility and the mobility of information in current world trends. The emphasis on minimal interaction between
the artist and object forces the work, space, and individual to interact, all accompanying one another in defining the identity of the cumulative experience.
www.jamesalexanderferrante.com
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JUNE KOREA
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TAC: What draws you to your material—disposable or overlooked items that are ubiquitous in our surrounding environment? JAF: The visual language created. The materials aren’t dependent on a natural bond with the real, but rather with the interaction of the environment. There is a ready-made connection to the outside world. Often certain traits, occupations, or skills are marginalized, devaluing them. It’s always interesting to question how these things that exist outside of conditioning can provide us with information. TAC: You talk about the “minimal interaction between the artist and object.” Tell us about how you construct your objects. What is your process? JAF: On an individual level, the process is an attempt at an intersecting moment of clarity, where the formal concerns and notional concerns meet. Moreover, there is a process of increasing specificity. Much of the discussion by this body of work surrounds the idea of isolation. This is reflected in the process through the abundance of freedom in terms of a visual vocabulary. “Minimal interaction” is a practice that disconnects me from the work, and simultaneously expresses borders to research throughout the life of the piece. It is this tension between disconnect, actual freedom, and conceptual borders that forces the objects to reflect a moment of self-awareness.
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UNTITLED #8, 2014 Wood, Acr ylic, Casine Paint PAGE 36 TOP LEFT:
UNTITLED #7, 2014 Wood, Plastic, Wire PAGE 36 TOP RIGHT:
UNTITLED #16, 2014 Plaster, Paint, Graphite, Polyurithane, Wood PAGE 36 BOTTOM LEFT:
UNTITLED #15, 2014 Wood, Plaster PAGE 36 BOTTOM RIGHT:
UNTITLED #14, 2014 Wood, Casine Paint, Canvas Plaster BELOW:
UNTITLED #11, 2014 Made Paper, Paint, Oilstick, Poly urithane on Wood
TAC: Your sculptures call to mind the work that falls into such artistic movements as Assemblage, Found Art, and Junk Art. Where else have you found inspiration? JAF: The origin of the work really comes out of a state of exposure, where a lack of understanding exists. Inspiration is driven by moments of certainty or realizations, internal successes, where a new grasp of knowledge that wasn’t there before allows for an increase in specificity. This rhythm is at the core of my practice. TAC: What is next for you as an artist? JAF: I recently moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and will have an opportunity to make work at Tulsa University starting in January 2015. I am interested in a few residency and fellowship opportunities as well. After finishing a body of work and relocating, the anticipation of starting again is exciting. What’s most important is to be in the studio.
JAMES ALEXANDER FERRANTE
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Katelyn GETTNER KANSAS CIT Y, MO A sense of line and symmetry is what initially drew me to working in clay, specifically wheel throwing, and from this introduction I immersed myself into researching the cultural significance of patterning because to me the hectic but ordered nature of patterns reads like a language, just as the vessel form can have its own formal language. Patterning can become the only language left from lost cultures and societies, and approaching pattern as a visual language rather than a masking technique allows me to approach more personal narrative in my work in a way that lets me retain ambiguity and inquisitiveness. Recently my work has stepped away from vessels and into hand-building techniques so that I can
approach the narrative of my work in a different manner. When working in vessels, especially if there is a focus on function or domesticity, there is always a need to address the form of the piece with the user in mind. After all, a cup isn’t just about how it’s thrown, or what kind of liquid it will hold – it’s really about the viewer or user and the intimate moment between that person and the use of the piece⎯the weight in someone’s hands, the way the body of the vessel rests against the palm, etc. I also work in tiles designed to be viewed but not functional. This creates a tension for me between the viewer and the narrative and encourages closer inspection of the imagery rather than a sometimes thoughtless continual use. The narratives I have chosen to address reference historical periods (partially because that is where I draw my patterning aesthetics from) in an attempt to address issues and ephemeral personal narratives in my own life. Because of the nature of the translucency of the pieces, color and texture, as well as the lack thereof, are very important to the development of the narratives in the pieces. The narratives act as a memory in the way that memories become faded and fragile as more time passes. www.katelyngettner.com
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UNTITLED, 2012 Ceramic OPPOSITE TOP:
UNTITLED, 2014 Ceramic OPPOSITE BOTTOM:
SURFACE TENSION, 2013 Ceramic ABOVE:
SPHERE COLLABORATION WITH TAYLOR BAKER, 2014 Ceramic, Leds, Flash Photography
KATHLEEN GETTNER
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TAC: What drew you to working with clay? KG: Prior to attending the Kansas City Art Institute, I had minimal experience in working with clay. However, when attending the ceramics department’s end of semester exhibitions, the caliber of work from the students amazed me. I dove into the world of clay as a result of that experience. TAC: Tell us about the forms you create, the vessellike structures reminiscent of bowls, cups, and other objects stacked on top of each other. KG: There is an intimate moment you can create between the artist or craftsman and the audience, and I think that is what steers me the most when I approach my work. By working from the wheel to create thrown vessels that are designed for functionality I am able to encourage a longer-lasting relationship between the piece and the user in a way that might otherwise not be achieved through more sculptural works. With this desire for functionality comes a perceived limit on what bowls and cups and plates can be and how they can look. To counteract this, I gravitate toward methods of intuitive stacking that not only allow me to pair sets together in unexpected ways,
but also invite a certain amount of play into the pieces. There are other ways I approach play in my work as well, including investigative surface design like water carving, traditional tool carving, and china painting. Surface information is as important to me as the physical form of the clay underneath it, so I approach patterning as a language that can be used to either enhance or detract from the other visual information provided in the curves and folds of the objects. TAC: What is the biggest challenge in your artistic practice? KG: Currently the biggest challenge in my artistic practice is deciding where to go from one project or series to the next. It’s very difficult to keep myself grounded to one method or one investigation of making regardless of the level of success a method achieves, because there’s always that lingering question of “What if?” TAC: What is next for you as an artist? KG: In a perfect world, hopefully grad school. Specifically, somewhere that will allow me to pursue not just ceramics but also glasswork, which is another budding passion of mine.
DONALD S. KOLBERG
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OPPOSITE AND RIGHT:
UNTITLED, 2014 Ceramic, Leds
KATHLEEN GETTNER
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EVGENI GORDIETS LAKE ARIEL, PA Today, for me, life and painting are one. I have no desire to follow fashion; it has no value to me. In my art, the sea, the sky, woman, and child are subjects of importance, eternity. I have no passion for politics. In my work I often use stonecarved forms and water--these are symbols of eternity. I love sculpture, and I try to unite it with painting. Women, the symbol of love, motherhood, and eternity, have great importance in my art. In life there are some things that last forever; in my work I communicate this with the sky, water, and stones. There is nothing in this world that makes more sense to me than the balance and beauty of nature. In my art, as in my life, I try to maintain this delicate process. www.EvgeniGordietsArt.com
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EARLY FALL EVENING Oil 32”x 44” ABOVE:
SPRING DAY Oil 32”x44”
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BLUE SUN AND BIRD Oil, Acr ylic 18”x 24”
EVGENI GORDIETS
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SEASHELL AND RED APPLE Oil 28”x40”
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TAC: Your images have an idyllic quality, filled with pastoral calm and tranquil seas. Where do you find your imagery? Is it a reimagining of a real place or entirely made up? EG: Nature gives me positive energy. We all have problems - small problems, big problems - but when I go to nature, I find only solutions. Living here in Pennsylvania does that for me. Going out west to Sedona, AZ is the same. In my homeland, Ukraine, I loved Crimea. That place was a major influence in my life; I spent many summers and winters there discovering some of my main objects: the sky, water, rocks. People ask me about the location of my paintings. “Can you give me an address?” they want to know, “Directions to this or that location?” I am sorry to tell them these places exist only in my mind, but at the same time, perhaps such places do exist somewhere. TAC: The painting technique found in your work appears quite precise and meticulous. How long does one work generally take to complete? EG: My work is under my control, and one might take a week to complete, another several months. It depends on the complexity of the idea, the particular scenario, and, of course, the size of the canvas. TAC: How would you say your artistic practice has changed over time? EG: It used to be my paintings were more dramatic - rocks, heads, human figures in trees. There was a time when I tried to understand life, but I now find that is impossible. I now seek to do more serene, more quiet, more peaceful works. In my day I have seen too much aggression, so many confrontations. With each thought, my mind creates something peaceful. TAC: What is next for you as an artist? EG: In life I’m a quiet person, I prefer to listen rather than say anything, so it is far better for you to talk about my art than for me to do so. But I can tell you this: the best time in my art life is when I start. I am very happy when I wake up in the morning since yesterday’s work is a step closer to completion and a new canvas awaits. I know that dreams do come true. I am very productive, painting all day long, and I am happy to report I still love doing it as much as I did when I was a boy.
EVGENI GORDIETS
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PATRICIO H. LAZEN KANSAS CIT Y, MO
My art is directly inspired and executed inch by inch from what I see in everyday life in the USA. My art is done with total independence and immunity from established art styles and prescribed techniques, mainstream fads, political and religious correctness, and other restrictive rules and protocols. www.facebook.com/ PatricioLazenFineArt
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PAGE 52 & 53:
SOUTHWEST AND SUMMIT, 2010 Acr ylic on Canvas 16”x 20” ABOVE:
MAIN STREET, 2013 Acr ylic on Canvas 30”x 24”
PATRICIO H. LAZEN
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TAC: You find your inspiration from everyday life in the USA. What is it about the people and places around you that you find compelling? PHL: In our current society, so constricted by trends, fashions, ideas, political correctness or incorrectness, it’s very difficult to find any person engaging in any activity or any object moving or standing that isn’t hiding away or being blurred out by those parameters that act as facades. Although for most of us this behavior is pretty much a 24/7 ordeal, there are quite a
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few renegades out there, and even among the more hard-core ones there’s the need for a break from these imposed scripts. That’s how I’ve been able to find that musician holding on to a microphone or strumming a worn-down guitar, hoping that someone in the crowd will take a break from their trance and offer him a drink, a few $1 bills, or perhaps a simple pat on the shoulder. That’s also how I was able to find that old building defying the encroachment of fancy green condos or megastores; or the powerful Harley resting outside a bar while its rider downs a few cold ones; or some old run-down Chevys
waiting to be sliced by a torch, irrigated with hydraulics fluids, and stabbed through by shiny shock absorbers, and so on. Fortunately, everybody and everything somehow manage to escape their own imposed phoniness even for a minute or two. When they do, there’s me with my camera.
This independence is important to me as I try to find those forall-eternity etchings of unadulterated scenes, images processed by optics and later rendered in whatever medium is available.
TAC: You talk about striving for an independence and immunity from established art styles. Tell us why this is important to you.
PHL: There are many challenges, especially with finances, logistics, time, projections, etc., but the hardest challenge for me is to not cave in to the pressure to join popular artistic trends.
PHL: I’m just like my subjects, fleeing from all those rules and constrictions. Specifically, as an artist I’m fleeing the realm of art fads and technicalities, and their entire army of purists and snobs. There’s no composition in my work, no rule of three, no indiscernible foreground or background, just what my eyes see as far as it can be stretched. It’s art done by keeping everything in focus, just like a prime witness, taking a glimpse of a particular moment in time, capturing a time capsule with a main subject or subjects and every other element big or small that is there.
TAC: What is the biggest challenge in your artistic practice?
TAC: What is next for you as an artist? PHL: On the practical side I have to step on the gas, increase my art output with the objective of having more than one show exhibiting simultaneously. On a more idealistic side, there’s the need to keep on rendering everyday scenes in which we can see ourselves and our surroundings in our most genuine form.
OPPOSITE:
RIDING WITH THE COLORS Acr ylic on Canvas 24”x 24” RIGHT:
RED GUITAR Acr ylic on Canvas 16”x 20”
PATRICIO H. LAZEN
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CORWIN LEVI WASHINGTON, DC
Imagine, at this very moment, you find yourself looking for something of the utmost importance. Suddenly, though, you realize you have forgotten what you are pursuing and cannot even recall whether it is a thing, person, or idea. Maybe you begin to doubt you ever knew what it was in the first place. In an effort to make sense of the situation, you start documenting your experiences in a notebook. Images appear and instantly, naturally transform into something else. Things you see in the corner of one eye flash across your vision to linger in the corner of the other. You fill the last page in your book and continue on top of what you have already demarcated, new layers obscuring old.
At some point, you realize a note on the bottom layer of page three is critical to making sense of what is happening, but you have marked over it so many times it is now
impossible to read. You take your pen, write down what you think it may have said, and continue on. As you search flailingly, these pages do not become maps nor pieces of
a puzzle to be later assembled, but rather a record of a search for something unknowable. That something, not unlike your search, is not bound by space, time, or
place. Your eye never rests and there is no way out: only in, through, and back in again. www.cor winlevi.com
PHOTOGRAPH OF “THROUGH THE HORIZON” Video Projection at Lcebox Project Space 25’ x 100’
FESTINO CAMESTRES Pen and Acr ylic on Panel 9” x 12”
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TOP:
WINDOW TO THE VOID Photograph of Marker on Acr ylic Sheet BOTTOM:
STEPHANIE’S VOID IN COLOR Color Pencil on Pigment Print 20” x 22 1/2”
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SHEPHERD BOY STUDY Pencil on Paper 8� x 8�
TAC: The patterns in your work seem both very natural and alien at the same time, like cybernetworks or interwoven animal tunnels. What is the inspiration for these designs?
TAC: Tell us about your use of text in your work. Is it an aesthetic inclusion, or do you intend for it to conjure a particular reference?
CL: Alongside repeated, metaphorical imagery from my life experiences, the overarching six-sided spoke patterns in my work stem from the idea that we are all interconnected. Each of these spokes represents an individual, and the lines between these spokes represent connections with other people. When I first started making these patterns, I would draw every single connection until there were no openings on any of the spokes. What I later realized, though, is that we are always in the process of connecting and disconnecting, and that the network is open, not closed. I now draw these patterns in organic flux to better represent, hopefully, both where we are and what we are capable of being.
CL: The texts in my pieces are all referential, though perhaps not always decipherable. Whether staring at the ceiling in my bedroom or wandering the world, I notice moments that to me seem to capture something especially meaningful about my experience as a human being. When those moments are linguistic, I write them down in a notebook to add to my paintings. I work from a shifting set of words and add them to the art, not with the idea that the text labels the imagery or the imagery the text, but that both are a simultaneous manifestation of a single idea of life as a large, allegorical system. I then title each painting by pairing two syllogistic forms as a first and last name as if, by looking at these picture and word premises, we
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DARII CELARENT Pen and Acr ylic on Panel 8” x 10”
are able to see across a lifetime. TAC: Who are your greatest artistic influences and why? CL: Because of the way he lived as an artist, Sol Lewitt continues to have a unique influence on my practice. His generosity of spirit is legendary and is a model I have always aspired to. Examples of that generosity are sprinkled throughout the world, such as stories of the way he helped other artists. Lewitt would trade his work with nearly any creative, and amassed an enormous collection of art. Every holiday season he made works for his staff, friends, and artists he knew. He supported emerging makers by, for example, using the money he made from a sale in a group show to buy pieces from younger artists in the exhibit. Later in his life the New Britain Museum of American Art invited Lewitt to have a large retrospective, to which he
responded that he would rather curate a show of artists from his own collection. Lewitt reminds me that it isn’t enough to just make the art I want to make, but that I also need to live life the way I want to live it. TAC: What is next for you as an artist? CL: I have shows and residencies coming up in 2015 across America, but what is always next for me--and this is my favorite thing about being an artist--is stumbling upon the wonder I know exists in the nooks and crannies of life and the delight I take in not knowing exactly where I’ll next find it.
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RYAN TROMBLEY T A M P A ,
F L
The art that is older focuses on the power of simplicity and how the world needs to be more simple, and that complicated ideas and lifestyles cause problems for happiness. Even though some of the art is abstract, controlled to say the least, they represent something I am familiar with, whether memories, experiences, or views on life. For example, Lies in Lies is an abstract piece, but the title gives clarity to what it actually means. Rectangles within each other accompanied by a dark red give the impression of negative thoughts, with the title telling you
what it’s about. Although there are some pieces that are experimental in terms of aesthetics, the majority have a purpose. My newer work tends to be more of a statement rather than about my personal life. My current idea is about the progressiveness of art and the
direction it is going in. Throughout history art was focused on skill, the brushstroke, and the hand. Today art is trending toward a movement of nothingness. Artists just put a chair in the middle of a gallery and people just stand around it and try to figure out what the chair
means⎯nothing, it’s just a chair. Or having an oversize white canvas and putting a blot of paint on it and getting millions off of it. Why? Is the current art world focused on the actual art? Or by who made it? But at the same time, I do like minimalist ideas and simple creations. There
is a balance, and that is where I want my art to be. On Magdalene I painted a da Vinci painting (representation of skill) and I added simple, precise lines (simplicity). There is a balance I want to see in the world. Too many conservative ideas from older art periods will
prevent art from progressing (or ideas in general, for that matter), but too much progressiveness will lead to nothingness (or at least the world is not ready for it yet).
rtrombley.com
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MEMORIES OF LOVE, 2013 Acr ylics on Canvas PAGE 65:
REMEMBER TO FORGET, 2013 Acr ylics on Canvas OPPOSITE:
MAGDALENE, 2014 Acr ylics on Canvas ABOVE:
LIES IN LIES, 2013 Acr ylics on Canvas
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FORGET TO REMEMBER, 2013 Acr ylics on Canvas
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TAC: Tell us about your titles, for example, Lies in Lies and Trancing on the Past; what do these add to the work? RT: The title Lies in Lies was based on me wanting to visually make sense of what I created. I don’t like making art just because; I want the piece to mean something. The idea is that lies tend to accompany one another, and one lie usually leads to another. Uncover one lie, and you discover another. With the accompanying deep red, Lies in Lies was the perfect title. Trancing on the Past is a little different since you have to use your own imagination to figure out how the title combined with aesthetics connects to you. This time I named the piece not based on visuals but rather what my thoughts were in the process of creating. Having the same repetitive electronic song on repeat, along with the repetitive nature of creating line after line, it was a perfect environment to “trance” out and just take a look at recent past memories without having any distractions. Additionally, the final visual product was easy to rest your eyes and stare at and go into that blank mindset, like sleeping with your eyes open, or to “trance” out. The titles for my artwork are given after I complete a piece. Unlike most artists who have a title or a feeling in mind before they start a piece, I make a piece that is aesthetically pleasing to me, then based on the final product I choose what feeling, idea, or title it should be given. Since most of my art is somewhat experimental, it is important to give each piece the right title to tie everything together instead of blindly making art just because, at least in my opinion. TAC: How has your artistic practice evolved over time? RT: When I first started taking visual arts seriously, I was very closed-minded in terms of what I wanted to create and what I thought would cater to my tastes. I was reading books on Kazmir Malevich, and the Suprematism movement in Russia. I was interested in bold, minimalistic, basic shapes and colors.
After making a couple pieces, I realized ideas would struggle to come in, since simple shapes and colors were easily exploited and bound to be explored quickly. Moving forward, I looked for more inspiration in older art movements or just in everyday life; I wanted to explore the concept of balancing minimalism with complicated aesthetics and images. Coming up to present times, I kept the bold and simplistic lines and shapes, but added art styles like Figurative and Representational, such as in Memories of Love and Magdalene/Mastering the Pain. I plan to explore this art combination for awhile, seeing as there is a lot to paint and experiment with. TAC: Your work often juxtaposes abstract colors and shapes with rigid geometric boxes or lines. Why is this interplay between rigid and fluid important in your work? RT: The clean lines and smooth, bouncy, and random color fields tend to be contrasting opposites, but that is fully intentional. The lines and shapes represent the idea of the simple side of life - a bold, straightforward, clear lifestyle, and the beauty of minimalism. On the other hand, the whirling random colors represent the complication and mixed emotions of life. Too much of one or the other is toxic, and tends to make happiness elusive. By showing these two contrasting elements, I want to show how both simplicity and complication can coexist in life, and life’s beauty when balanced - yin and yang, dark and light, bold and timid. TAC: What is next for you as an artist? RT: Going forward in my career as an artist, I will be finishing my Business Degree this year, and then enrolling in an art school to receive a degree in the aaarts. I have Miami, New York, and Tokyo in mind, but of course I’ll figure that out when the time comes. I want my art to influence people, change people, and better people. That is my ultimate goal as an artist.
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ELIZABETH WOODBURY B R O O K L Y N ,
N Y
In my series Transference, I construct tableaus that are allegories of archetypal human experiences of individuals in their twenties. I believe that all human beings, although they live out their own individual lives, embark on the same journey of finding out what it means to be human. Through drawing connections from my own personal journey to the journeys of others, by using familiar themes and archetypes, I hope to reach a sense of commonality between us. www.elizabethwoodbury.com
ABOVE:
LIMBO OPPOSITE:
ADORATION
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TAC: You cite your inspirations as nineteenth-century paintings, myths, fairytales, religion, and psychology. What artists have been influential to your artistic practice? EW: I have mainly been inspired by painters, more so than by photographers. I love Mucha, Cabanel, Waterhouse, Fragonard, Corbet, and Caravaggio. The photographers who have really influenced me have been those that use tableau and fictional narrative such as Joel Peter Witkin, Anthony Goicolea, Anna Gaskell, Anne Brigman, and of course, Gregory Crewdson. I do get inspired by music too, especially Florence and the Machine and Kate Bush. TAC: You photograph in a studio, meticulously building the images you eventually photograph. How long does one work take to construct? Tell us about this process. EW: Currently my studio is the living room of my apartment. I have some of the sweetest roommates! It will normally take me about a week or two to build the sets and photograph them. However, from start to finish, my photos can take at the very least a month to plan out, from coming up with the concept, to hunting for the props, finding models, and actually building the sets themselves. TAC: This classical subject matter can be found across several different mediums. Tell us why photography became your medium of choice and what it offers you. EW: I was always drawn to classical-style painting; however, I was never good at painting or drawing. I picked up photography because I knew I was a creative person but had not found my medium yet. I found that once I started photography it was the best way for me to express my ideas and I was able to get them close to what I intended. TAC: What is next for you as an artist? EW: I would love to refine my set design and sculpting skills, and perhaps explore installation. I have always wanted to photograph cults. Getting a studio that is not my apartment is certainly on the list too!
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AJ URQUIDI Tips For Accessorizing The hair determines the seating chart for the head of the fountain. Rusted nuts and nutted bolts eat litter from the conscious raunchy underbelly organic with autumn. I sew topes to the flashy dress of Olivia Neutron-John as she fuses on a table of elements, a just dessert of sanding skin sunk seven teeth deep through her steaming cazon en adobo. Headband is code for loyal, as only the fit can fit. Fat slugs swallow the couch where they sit so a little bald head sticks out from its fairy ring of fire. Now every other sidewalk block is a pit and she won’t fit. Snip snap, a lock cut and shiny fibers crush the floor. Blonde was holding us back. Like a scarlet coiffure on a pasty pervert, I wore out my leisure suit welcome, scared them away.
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(There’s one on every block.) Olivia thought that Galeus would hurt her, left me the scissors to trim her mistakes. On Hallow’s Eve orange I witnessed a murder that untucked the moon and sang it to waking.
Pharmaceuticals And Fellowship We gather in the ring of stones when the sun strikes perpendicular, 12:04, to watch holes rip in the face of god. You lose your teeth, fashionably; my breath reeks of Zyklon B. Riddles waste our attention span. Accepting instincts, a violent return, goes four times platinum when the sun stabs perpendicular, 12:04. The day in the market when the gourd display collapsed and crushed three ganders, you laughed and I clapped. After all this I wonder could we still make the effort?
Outfield Catastrophe (Sonnet 16) The slub pit stirs outside the freeway! Root, unmitigated cash trade aspirant, the fairy swordfish sandwiches the pit. Huddle, comic woodsman, weatherproof street mountaineer; grouse, panty crooning, roost mishandled; disunited capitalist, when will a routine scupper deadline orbit? A brown pollutant trade rots past the proof. Why can’t your vendor swear? Its plunk sunshine evokes the energy, cavalier liqueur, outside a retirement. How can a skip refine the patience catalog trend, fobbing prior? Beneath the cell, a careful package shines— another fold corn snacks into apt floors.
NATHAN ALEX YOUNG A Soft Place To Fall Nothing hurts more than a lie. Nothing is worse than lying to yourself. The first time Jake saw Andrea snort a line of coke, it was a special kind of heartbreak. It was the kind of break that wilted the deep, inner workings of his soul. It shouldn’t have surprised him. They met in a bar. She and her girlfriends were storming the bathroom so often, it made him wonder if they had been introduced in one of those online Young 2 groups for bulimics. Friends forged from binging and purging. He was playing darts when she sent a friend over to tell him he was cute and that he should come over to their table. That curse of being cute! Not hot. Not rugged or suave. Just non-threatening and cute. They fucked that night. And the next. And the night after that. The way they felt together and the chemicals they stirred...amazing! They fast became animals of their own Eden. Once the affair had taken flight, they could go a week, even two without talking. It was meditation, really. An experiment in discipline. Then one would call the other and they would enjoy a beautiful kind of therapy in the nude. Jake’s friends would tease him about her, but loved when he brought her around. She was striking. There was a wonderful combination of beauty, brains and humor that radiated from her. She was a thick bottomed girl and walked with an exaggerated bump in her hips. Ass like that brought about envy and all of his friends were jealous. None of that bothered Jake. Even after the
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word, “love,” had tackled them. She was the girl he wanted to die with. Not in fifty years. Not in a house they built. Not with their children crying over them. Right now. Tragic and young. A chaotic symphony of Young 3 love, music and death. Of course, real life doesn’t work like that. When they drove together, she insisted they take the back roads. Put the windows down, she would say. The countryside air made her horny. Loud music and the hum of tires was their aphrodisiac. When they danced, they headed up clubs that housed hard, invasive beats. Beats and sweat. A world of electronically programmed lights and tightly packed bodies that writhed under strobes and darkness. With friends, they were loud and alive with the drunken swell of the heart. That feeling you get when you want a night to last forever. This was their life. “What will come of all of this? Of us?” She asked this at least once a week along with, “Give me a reason to love you.” That one sometimes stung depending on her mood and tone. After months, what was once Eden became a livable scene taken from The Garden of Earthly Delights. He maintained his suspicion of Andrea’s drug use. She scoffed when he would hint at it and then tease him into submission. “Would you stop loving me if I was a coke fiend, silly man? Is it too much to ask that you love my flaws as much as you love me?” She would always pull him close, get on her tip toes and kiss him; she always ended the Young 4 kiss with a fervent smile. Jake would fake a smile back. Life has a way of painting beautifully scripted lies and now he was the main player in a lie of his own design. It would be a year later, that he would finally recognize his fear. The scenario he had played in his head, over and over, was no where near as harsh as the reality he walked in on. Andrea. Naked. In their bed. That beautiful ass high up in the air. Andrea. Snorting a fat, white line off the cock of some stranger. In their bed! When she finally noticed that he was in the room, her gaze just went right through him. It was as if he wasn’t there. She just went back to pulling shit back into her nose. The stranger, with strict audacity shouted, “Who the fuck are you? Get the fuck out of here, asshole!” Jake’s right knuckles still hurt from that night from kicking that guys ass. His heart still hurt from kicking Andrea out, in the nude. And life went on. Years worked away most of the hurt. Jake did what he could to forget. He did some time in the Army. Spent a year at war, learning the foolish toils of man. He went to college after that and graduated with honors. By any definition, he was well adjusted and far removed from the man he was with her. In all the time that passed, he could now go a month without thinking of the way they felt together. And he never could be sure if the urge to find her was because he wanted to feel her body underneath his again, or if it was solely the haunting residuals of an unresolved love. Young 5 Every now and again, he would bump into one of her friends and they would tell him what little they knew about her. She had been married and then divorced. She had a special needs kid that was awarded to her mom by the state. Rumors floated around that she had died from an overdose. Everytime he tried to run her name through a search engine, an outlandish video of her brother, faking his suicide, was the only thing that would pop up. The story he liked to believe was that she had moved west. Maybe Seattle. She cleaned up, was living with her grandmother and was selling real estate. That was the story that he most liked to believe. When it came right down to it, he knew none of it would ever matter again. Not like it did then. Whether he found her or not, in this life and all of its joy and heartache, he had learned of only one verity. You’re either living or you’re a ghost caught between the moments before you die. Living is what happens in the present. Life...life is what happens in the past tense. And Jake knew that in the affairs of women and men, this made all the difference.
OSMAN CAN YEREBAKAN Daring the Space in Şükran Moral’s ‘Hammam’ ‘Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense.’
A young woman covered in peshtemal, a woven cloth traditionally worn at hammam, bearing her breasts but hiding her lower body just like everyone else in the bathhouse. The difference is that the rest are all men, varying in ages, as well as their looks. The woman is confident, relaxed and slightly flirtatious–aware of the situation but trying to blend in at the same time. Similar to the others, she takes a bath, pouring a bowl full of hot water to her breasts and getting a foam massage from another bather. The steam filling the hammam is almost tangible judging by all the sweat on bathers as well as the blurriness of the video. Another visible element is the voyeuristic looks the men have as they are watching her bathe with them. Undeniably erotic and disturbingly eerie, the camera wanders around the bathhouse in slow motion depicting the only woman among a group of men as they ceremoniously bath–naked and intimate. The woman is artist Şükran Moral and the twenty minute long video is the recording of her 1997 performance Hammam, in which she walks into a traditional bathhouse in Istanbul and bathes with
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a group of men. Considered one of the pioneers of performance art in Turkey, Şükran Moral addresses both political and social matters in her challenging performances. Moral investigates the prejudice against “the other” by delving into its roots and reversing them in sharp and unexpected ways. Through performances such as Married with Three Men or Bordello, the artist provokes the settled cultural and social notions of her nation by blurring the line between the acceptable and unacceptable. Regarded as one of the most intimate and privy indoor spaces in Turkish culture, hammams symbolize more than solely bathhouses in the ‘unwritten‘ yet overpowering social agenda. Now considered one of the few remaining symbols of preRepublic Ottoman culture, hammams, aside of being spectacles for visiting tourists, are still havens for many, reflecting the nostalgia of a long gone history. Charged with an undeniably
erotic–even homoerotic–subtext, hammams remain one of the few places where men and women socialize separately, underlining that the separation between the public and the private often signifies the distinction between the gender roles. In Hammam, Şükran Moral decodes a strong social connotation from its very own foundation as she, as a woman and as an artist, steps into the borders of a hammam in front of a group of naked men. Her male audience is not made up of the artists or art aficionados that would be familiar with Moral’s practice or performance art with the exception of a few of her friends that accompanied her. Moral not only provokes her male audience in her performance, but she also pokes the common perception of a nation, a nation that is very clear about its customs and traditions, as well as a nation that she is a part of. In many layers, Moral breaks the norms with her attempt: a naked woman who is an artist is in a hammam with a group of men, behaving as if she was just one of them. She is, on the other hand, impeding a cultural ritual by putting aside the “purging” aspect of hammams.1 She redefines a settled cultural notion without anyone’s (especially a male’s) ratification as she, as an artist, breaks into a space that is neither a gallery nor a museum. Consequently, Hammam becomes to Moral what the movie theatre was to Valie EXPORT: a lab to experiment in, a studio to work in and eventually a space to break in.2 Proving how social codes can be as dominant as written laws, Moral appears as an Eve-like semi-naked woman who is slightly seducing her audience while acting as one of them. What would be a regular situation outside the borders of hammam, a woman among a group of men, is shaped as a scandalous act as all is happening outside the borders of a pre-determined social law. In her book The Art of Cruelty, Maggie Nelson underlines that the cruelty in performance art may start with a certain cruelty to the self, but that cruelty soon leaks to the viewer. She later adds that the artist is asking, “How will you participate?” to the viewer, rather than “Why are you still looking?”.3 Hammam’s cultural charge is the core factor for the shock value in Moral’s act, turning the space into the determining force in the acceptability of an action or vice versa. In this sense, Hammam carries strong ties to Marina Abramović’s Rhythm 0, by placing a questionable act into a connectedly questionable space. For Rhythm 0, Abramović invited a group of uninformed people to Studio Morra in Naples in 1974. She stood in the middle of the gallery next to a table that had seventy-two different objects on it, ranging from lipstick to a knife or to a pen to a gun. The randomly selected crowd was told that they were free to do whatever they wished to the artist upon her will as long as it happened within the walls of the gallery. Through a duration of six hours, the act resulted with the artist’s transfer to a hospital after being seriously hurt by the crowd. The real warning sign for the gallery’s director was the moment when an audience member held the gun to Abramović’s head. Until that moment,
the artist was stripped from her clothes, cut with a knife, written words on her face and touched by many people. A group of acts that would be illegal–let alone socially unacceptable–gained acceptability within the borders of the art gallery through the artist’s own will. The actions that would cause the audience to get arrested were justified for the sake of the performance in this lawless space. The cruelty beneath human nature was unveiled causing the artist get maltreated.4 Even though Abramović appeared to be the victim of the whole act, the true victim was the audience as they were all left to reason with the consequences of their actions. The gallery atmosphere and the artist’s consent approved the violence for the duration of the performance but with a step outside the gallery or a minute after the performance, nothing could be accepted. Not as cruel to her audience as Abramović, Moral in her performance executes a similar experiment on social laws. Like Rhythm 0, the members of the performance, aside from Moral and a few of her friends, are total strangers to performance art; however, they become a major part of a performance act. On the other hand, contrary to how certain illegal acts are justified in Abramović’s performance, the core dilemma in Moral’s performance comes from the unacceptability of her acts inside a hammam due to the social charge of the space. Total opposites in this sense, these two performances provoke their objected audiences as the artists pull them out from their comfort zones. In Moral’s performance, an ethical dilemma emerges that asks the group of men to treat a woman “properly” even though she is provoking them in their own habitat. Moral recollects the shoot as challenging, intense and totally guerrilla, meaning the act carried a different kind of risk.5 The risk was not about her getting bruised or cut, but it was about her wearing the taboo and expressly showing it off. Caught unready in their own ambit, men in this hammam hereby stand out as the representation of every man. What would be acceptable–a woman and a group of men–gains an unacceptable status inside a hammam, marking an opposite direction from Abramović’s performance where the gallery space justified the otherwise unacceptable actions for the sake of art. In both performances the artists provoke their audiences by triggering their set perceptions as they both use the space as crucial decision makers. While in Moral’s performance the space of a hamam is a total stranger to a performance, Abramović’s gallery is a common arena for art but not for such cruelty. Both performances find their ultimate meaning in their discordances with the spaces they are put in–Moral by semi-naked bathing in a men’s bathhouse and Abramović by triggering her audience to illegal acts inside a gallery–creating tension between the artworks and their spaces. Serving as isolated worlds with their physical and metaphorical borders, these spaces give the artists possibilities coming from the social charges they carry inside their borders. Proving that invisible walls are as strong as visible ones, these spaces hold what they signify as a tool for the artists to elaborate on whether a hammam or a gallery.
David Brown Editor-In-Chief Juliet Helmke Associate Editor Cyndy Brown Senior Copy Editor Kie Kato Art Director
T H E A RT I S T C ATA L O G U E . C O M