Megan Broadmeadow Mike Calway-Fagen Pascal-Michel Dubois Katalin Hausel Annalisa Perazzi Mikael Kennedy Kim Jong Il Tommy Kwak Ronald Reagan Phuc Le Matt Kleenex
Ramon Esquiverna Laetitia Ann-Saedler Camilla Perowski-Wittgenstein Edo Udo
To begin, at the beginning by Sam Perry Thecurated Longest Show Title of the Universe From March 28 to April 25, 2014 Curated by: Opening reception: Friday, MarchDelano 28, 7-9 and PM Franklin NURTUREart Gallery Eric Sutherland 56 Bogart St., Brooklyn, NY 11206 From April 26 to May 28, 2012 Opening Reception: Friday, May 28, 7-9 PM NURTUREart Gallery 56 Bogart St., Brooklyn, NY 11206
COME HOME by Sam Perry
Artists, like numerous other vocational beings (basketball players, archaeologists, tornado hunters) are often led far from home in search for a more nurturing place for their practice. For many, this inspiration is in New York City: an immigrant town with a quintessentially migratory art world to match. You can see, or vividly imagine, a mass exodus around Christmas time when artists and other creative types go home to their families, with stories and anecdotes on and about “The City”. At that and other times of the year, all of us in the arts sector become storytellers. Modern day bards as well as central characters in our own literary drama, we carefully craft and fashion our narrative, leaving out the embarrassing bits, embellishing the good ones, decorating the air around the dining table, the fireplace, the stove or porch. The thematic framework of To begin, at the beginning was born from observations by (and on) expatriate writers, particularly those whose stories, characters and plots are steeped in hometown histories and lore. James Joyce, whose entire catalogue is based in and around the city of Dublin, Ireland, is a perfect example. His writing is unmistakably “Dublin”, from his descriptions of people to the settings they inhabit. Anyhow, Joyce left Ireland before he began to pen these stories, and only once did he make a brief journey back there before his death. For many expatriates, trips back home can be a somewhat abrasive or emotionally
and literally explosive experience. Marco Polo, who left his hometown Venice at the age of seventeen, didn’t arrive back until he was forty-one, only to find the place in the midst of a bloody war with Genoa. He was immediately captured and taken prisoner. After his release and the end of the conflict, it’s a little surprising or perhaps not surprising at all that he decided to never leave Venice again. To many in the U.S.A. the notion of homecoming might evoke the annual tradition of parades and college football games; to others, the Protestant Church and its welcome back ceremonies, held for former members or pastors. The subject of homecoming is bound to inspire a wide range of reactions, producing interpretations as varied as the ideas and inclinations as each individual on Earth, all of us informed by a wealth of different experiences on what “coming home” actually means. This variety of interpretations is reflected in the work of numerous emerging contemporary artists, wherever in the world they may find themselves; the rapturous feelings that homecoming can provoke, manifest themselves to equally diverse creative ends. The exhibition’s participating artists each speak about, amongst many other things, literally or mentally returning home. While Phuc Le works departs from a reunion with both his father and the place in which he grew up, Mike Calway-Fagen articulates on his unavoidable attachment to Tennessee, while Pascal-Michel Dubois revisits abrasive
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school memories in his native France. Megan Broadmeadow’s St Winifred’s Return is a video work recounting the return of Saint Winifred, a Welsh mythological figure, to a modern version of her hometown in rural Wales. Of the ever-growing collection of Mikael Kennedy’s celebrated Polaroid works, taken whilst travelling, it is the somewhat rare images from his Vermont homecomings that resound with the most effect. Katalin Hausel’s sculptures abstract her own sense of place, exploring the ways it shapes her identity and self-perception. Geographically ambiguous, the forests surrounding Tommy Kwak’s childhood home instil a universal enquiry into an aesthetic of absence and paradoxically, anticipation for the unknown. Edward W. Said stated that those who create art should be “unhoused wanderers across language. Eccentric, aloof, nostalgic, deliberately untimely…”1 Yet exilic living, the (willing or unwilling) to live away from our place of origin, seems a necessity for many artists. In parallel, whether with abrasion or celebration, to return, to come home seems important as it is ritualistic. 1. From Reflections on Exile and Other Essays, 1. Harvard University Press, 2000.
Alongside The Loneliness of the Middle-Distance Runner, Flux Factory, NYC (2012) and Cities of Ash, g39, Cardiff, UK (2014) To begin, at the beginning forms part of a trilogy of exhibitions that draw upon literary tendencies and observations as a base influence, showing work of emerging artists from the US and the UK.
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Mike Calway-Fagen The Ever Expanding, 2011 Photo on vinyl, 48” x 108”
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This Page: Megan Broadmeadow St Winefride; The Return, 2007 Video, 25 min. Opposite Page: Tommy Kwak Tree (Hoge Veluwe, Netherlands), 2012 C-print 30”x 40”
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This Page: Pascal Michel-Dubois LRRTM1, 2010 Giclee print, dimensions variable Opposite Page: Phuc Le Untitled (Adderall XR), 2014 Xerox print, Dimensions variable
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Mikael Kennedy February 28, 2009 Polaroid, 3.5” x 4 25” August 26, 2007 Polaroid, 3.5” x 4.25”
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Mikael Kennedy 2009 Polaroid, 3.5” x 4.25” 2007 Polaroid, 3.5” x 4.25”
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Katalin Hausel Managing Fragility, 2012 Paper, 27.5” x 27.5” x 19.5”
Tommy Kwak
Project Sponsors:
NURTUREart NURTUREart Non-Profit, Inc is a 501(c)3 New York State licensed federally tax-exempt charitable organization founded in 1997 by George J. Robinson. NURTUREart receives support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, including member item funding from City Council Members Sara Gonzales, Stephen Levin, and Diana Reyna, the New York City Department of Education, and the New York State Council on the Arts. NURTUREart is also supported by the Harold and Colene Brown Foundation, Edelman, the Golden Rule Foundation, the Greenwich Collection, Ltd., the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, the Walentas Family Foundation, and the Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason Foundation. We receive in-kind support from Brooklyn Brewery, Societe Perrier, Tekserve, and Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. NURTUREart is grateful for significant past support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Liebovitz Foundation, and the Greenwall Foundation, and to the many generous individuals and businesses whose contributions have supported us throughout our history. Finally, we would like to acknowledge the artists who have contributed works of art to past benefits—our continued success would be impossible without your generosity.
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56 Bogart Street Brooklyn, NY 11206 L train to Morgan Avenue T 718 782 7755 F 718 569 2086 E gallery@nurtureart.org www.nurtureart.org Directions: By Subway: L train to the Morgan Avenue stop. Exit the station via Bogart Street. Look for the NURTUREart entrance on Bogart Street, close to the intersection with Harrison Place. By Car: Driving From Manhattan: Take the Williamsburg Bridge, stay in the outside lane, and take the Broadway / S. 5 St. exit. Turn left at light onto Havemeyer St. Turn right next light onto Borinquen Place, continue straight, street will change name to Grand Street. Turn right onto Bushwick Ave, left onto Johnson Ave, then right onto Bogart Street. Look for our entrance at the corner of Bogart Street and Harrison Place.