UNDER THE SCOPE
THE SILBER ART GALLERY Sanford J. Ungar Athenaeum | Goucher College
UNDER THE SCOPE Benjamin Andrew Selin Balci Elizabeth Crisman Lauren Kalman A. Gray Lamb Nicole Shiflet Kathy Strauss
Benjamin Andrew Did you ever pretend that your childhood home was a castle, or that monsters and adventures lay waiting in the backyard? That impulse to imagine the fantastic lies at the heart of good storytelling. In his interdisciplinary projects, Benjamin Andrew asks what happens to that impulse when it grows up, when it has to deal with the complexities of the real world, and whether those imaginary stories can ever become real. Projects like the Chronoecology Corps purposefully muddle the boundaries of fact and fiction—deploying time-traveling scientists from the future to start conversations about climate change. Andrew uses the allegorical tactics of science fiction to address environmental issues through literary new media. Science fiction enchants because of its connection to the reality, and so Andrew uses humorous and interactive theater to tackle otherwise dry subject matter. Developing projects through interviews and site-specific research, Andrew approaches public art from all sides: utilizing sculpture, web platforms, and face-toface events as sites for exploration. The Foggy Bottom Microobservatory was based around a sculptural research station in Washington, DC, but expanded the mission of public sculpture by posting ongoing experiments and stories to the project’s Instagram account. The Microobservatory investigated local microbiology by producing wild fermented beer and sodas, along with other DIY science experiments. Like a cross between Bill Nye and Fantastic Voyage, Andrew hosted a web series with the help of “micronauts”—shrinking scientists who interfaced directly with the wild microbes. Andrew narrates these projects as thinly-veiled versions of himself, overlydramatized scientists or explorers that draw from genre fiction to inspire active curiosity (and maybe even excitement) about the world. This searching mindset is shared by scientists, and it is no surprise that Andrew has not only collaborated with biologists and historians, but has conducted experiments in fermentation and microbiology, blending activities from everyday life and professional research just as he has muddled together the real and imaginary.
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Chronoecology Corps., 2013-15 Public performance with interactive sculptures Photo courtesy of the artist
Land, 2016 Microbial growth on yupo paper covered with watch glasses dimensions are variable
Selin Balci Selin Balci uses highly patterned and colored microscopic entities to create lushly visual and interactive biological arenas. Constantly discovering and combining the scientific material and mediums, Balci applies an acute scientific laboratory practice to create her work. She creates competition for resources, territorial wars, and struggle for power and control among living organisms in an artificially created environment where all vital resources are restricted. This limited environment makes microbes compete for resources, dominate a particular area, or become invasive and endanger others. When they share the same living platform, a conflict for resources arises and eventually this results with a border line. The behaviors of the microorganisms resemble human actions and motives. Visually representing the maps, aerial scenes, and natural formations, these microbes act as metaphors for war and the human predicament. She references the fundamental, underlying social dilemmas and principles of our existence in an effort to understand and highlight social issues.
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Elizabeth Crisman Elizabeth Crisman’s Archaeologic series is comprised primarily of objects made from slip cast stoneware that reference human evolution. Her interest in archeology and human history led her to volunteer at Kfar HaHoresh, a Neolithic excavation in Israel, during August 2010. Physical manifestations of Crisman’s excavation experience are brought to life in various works, each one probing differing archaic vocabularies and modes of thought. The Hybrid Tools series offers an exploration of pre-historic technology and its evolution through time, allowing the viewer space for contemplation of just how far tools and technology have come today, especially in relation to their archaic counterparts. Teeth are one of the most commonly found fossils. Knowledge consists of 300 slip cast wisdom teeth that are held individually in small baggies. Our ancestors had much larger jaws, presumably their third molar helped chew foliage and break down plant cellulose. It is believed that as the human diet changed so did the size of our jaw, eventually evolving into a much smaller bone structure, yet still producing the third unnecessary molar. The concept that a part of the body is no longer useful and/or often causes disease, and therefore regularly removed, illustrates and emphasizes the notion of human evolution and leaves us to wonder if we will ever lose our third molars completely.
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Hybrid Tool #2, 2011 Stoneware and wood 13” x 10”
Blooms, Efflorescence, and Other Dermatological Embellishments (Nevus Comedonicus), 2009 Inkjet print, acupuncture needles, pearls 26x26�
Lauren Kalman Lauren Kalman has a diverse cross-disciplinary practice that is rooted in jewelry and metalsmithing. She utilizes traditional jewelry/metalsmithing, garment construction, and sculpture techniques combined with digital photography, performance, installation, robotics, and video. Through her practice, she investigates historical, political, and social contexts relating to sex, gender, power, pleasure, pain, taste, and beauty. In her work, skin markings have been presented as jeweled infections, fabric growths, or wearable devices.
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A. Gray Lamb A. Gray Lamb’s work dwells in the space between authenticity and forgery. The objects that come from her New Institute of Historical Cosmological Exploration share a quality of the uncanny, each piece removed (and re-removed) from what clear truth it had previously occupied. Taken together, these replicas and fabrications establish a new kind of museum space, in which the objectivity we expect from an observatory or natural history museum yields to sentiment and nuance. Ultimately, the viewer’s “belief” in these objects, and the narrative they represent, allows them to exist simultaneously as fact and fiction.
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AAÃ&#x; Test Site, Location: [REDACTED], 2016 Digital CYMK Print dimensions are variable
the one farthest back gains courage from the one in the front, 2016 Photo 16� x 12�
Nicole Shiflet Though no scientist herself, Nicole Shiflet makes work in response to a variety of scientific phenomena. She is constantly surprised, awed, and inspired by biological growth and geological topography. Rather than taking an analytic approach to these studies, her work forms its own fictional and idiosyncratic narrative.
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Search, 2010 Monotype on Somerset paper, India ink, embroidery Diptych, each piece 41” x 33”
Kathy Strauss Working in both science and art, as Kathy Strauss has done for so many years, has satisfied her continuous urge to peer beneath the surface of things. Quilts made in previous years imposed grid-like patterns on natural images, almost classifying or quantitating. More recently-created layered and embroidered prints that include chemical structures and solved calculus problems relating to the printed image(s) have pushed this search for the underlying, fundamental structure of the natural world even further. Seeing there is endless world to explore both artistically and scientifically, Strauss shows that the probing and exploration of the sciences done by artists can inform scientists, just as science can serve as inspiration for the arts. She wants the viewer of her work to engage in this search for artistic and scientific truth, and feel some of the joy that comes when unlocking these secrets.
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October 25 – December 4, 2016 (The gallery will be closed November 23-27 for the Thanksgiving holiday.)
Artists’ reception and talk
Thursday, October 27, 6-9 p.m.
THE SILBER GALLERY
Sanford J. Ungar Athenaeum DIRECTIONS Baltimore Beltway, I-695, to exit 27A. Make first left onto campus. GALLERY HOURS 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. | Tuesday – Sunday 410-337-6477
The Silber Gallery program is funded with the assistance of grants from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the state of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Baltimore County Commission on the Arts and Sciences.
goucher.edu/silber 16
17164-5199 10/16
The exhibit is free and open to the public.