Graduate Thesis Exhibition
MFA | 2016
2 10 18 26 34 42 50
Carolyn Clayton Clara McClennon Nate Morgan Emily Schiffer Jon Verney Alisa Yang Yoosamu
1
Chain of Contagion is part extraction laboratory and part morgue/seed bank for second-hand objects. This two-part art installation embraces the common human belief that everyday objects have an ability to retain and absorb invisible histories through contact. Upon entering the exhibition, viewers are confronted with an archive cabinet displaying 50 carefully selected and vacuum-sealed thrift store objects. It functions as a system for capturing and recording new human-object relations through a 24hour participatory lending system. In the back of the space, four sculptural machines attempt to extract historical residues from secondhand objects with ambiguous or untraceable pasts, through absurd yet persistent techniques. Objects such as porcelain figurines, a pair of shoes and a ceramic vessel are enclosed inside the sculptures. They function by forcing the objects into contact with mediums such as water, grass, steam, fog, gel, light and a cotton swab. These mediums in theory become saturated with invisible traces, resulting in samples that function as contact relics. Their inability to produce anything measurably significant reminds us that our sense of touch and imagination are already the best tools we have for understanding the silent world of things.
Carolyn Clayton
Machine #1 Taking a fog sample 2016
Extraction Lab Steel, acrylic, found objects, heat lamp, gel, fog, water, wheat grass, Q-tips 2016
Archive of Accrued Moments Installation view 2016
9
Drawing is searching, gathering. Drawing is complicating, generalizing. It’s abstracting, obscuring, clarifying. Drawing is a summoning. It brings to the surface. It calls to mind. It’s a path to understanding. My MFA thesis exhibition, Farther Along, used what I know about information, drawing, and ways of knowing to set up new encounters with visual information. The installation, “680 Leaves,” is a gridded array of drawing of leaves engaging questions of vision and knowledge. In “Farther Along,” 42 mixed-media drawings based on photographs taken incrementally on a 500 foot stretch of a tree-lined path use the path as a structure to address a quest for understanding.
Clara McClennon
680 Leaves Installation view Gesso on paper 32’ x 8’ 2016
Farther Along 34 Willow charcoal, charcoal pencil and gesso on paper 5 x 7� 2016
Farther Along 8 Willow charcoal, charcoal pencil and gesso on paper 5 x7� 2016
Farther Along Installation view Mixed media drawings (42) 5 x 7� 2016
17
Rough Contact calls attention to the emotional imprint a material can leave and the physical imprint it can leave behind. It critiques the idea that a person could be solely understood through the material mass they occupy. Breaks this World is a video performance that represents the actions leading to the current state of the sculpture Rough Contact. It speaks of being a maker and destroyer, giver and negator. The projected image ends up feeling metaphorical. In it a body comes and goes, feels free at times, and trapped at others. There is risk of injury and it calls attention to gravity. Both the person and the ball are in very close physical contact with the surface that supports them. The video carries tension by portraying simultaneously someone trying to break into something (the ball) and break out of something (the world).
Nate Morgan
Rough Contact Documentation of action 2016
Breaks This World Single channel video 2016
Rough Contact
Installation shot Rubber, dye, sawdust, sand, and an unknown object placed inside by the artist’s father 12� diameter 2016
25
Through photography and sculpture, Haul reimagines the concept of a family album to explore how unspoken histories and traumas are passed between generations. Drawing upon documentary images, I took of myfamily over the past eight years, I pair unrelated images to create fictions that imply truth. These new narratives probe questions about how the camera can capture unacknowledged pain, and explore the lines between intimacy and silence, cultural expectations, unresolved relationships, and love. The pairings were placed into family albums (a familial context), sliced into small pieces, and reconstructed. This fragmenting and reassembling mimics the natural process of memory, in which small, imperfectly fitting pieces come together to create larger, cohesive narratives.
Emily Schiffer
Comfort Archival pigment print 4’x5’ 2016
Mom in the Morning Carwash Archival pigment print 4’x5’ 2016
Haul: Gift to MY Daughter Detail Hand-framed contents of the artist and her husband’s parents’ photo albums from before they were born, handmade net 15’x4’x3’ 2016
Album Installation view Slusser Gallery Ann Arbor, MI 2016
33
Thermophile is a project that explored the possibilities of using geothermal water from hot springs to chemically alter and redevelop silver-based photographs. Using the motif of the self portrait, the images consider our perpetual transformation as living beings on earth, both metaphorically and as physical, chemical reality. Over the course of a year, I journeyed to various hydrothermal systems across Iceland, Wyoming, and California. Working in those geothermal landscapes, I carefully immersed my photos into the superheated, sulphuric waters of hot springs and mud pots. The photos began to change on contact: iron, sulphur, copper, nickel—the atoms of dissolved elements latched into place, bonding to the silver in the photographs’ emulsions, fusing and forming new compounds. This mineral abundance, paired with the springs’ acidity and high temperatures, caused each photo to be redeveloped in a unique manner—no two appearing the same. In this way, each photo acts as a paper-thin capsule of the landscape in which it was toned. Thermophile is then an exploration of co-authoring artwork with the earth, allowing nonhuman entities to determine its visual outcome.
Jon Verney
Ag2S Digital video still SeltĂşn, Iceland 2015
Thermophile Thermal toned gelatin silver prints Salton Sea, California 4x4� (each approx.) 2016
Thermophile Installation view Gelatin silver prints, digital video, sound, MDF Dimensions variable 2015 - 2016
41
In “Sleeping with the Devil”, the artist uses found footage and a recorded Skype exorcism confronts her past growing up in the Evangelical prophetic and deliverance ministry. “Please Come Again” is a multimedia exhibition exploring the sensory environment and culture of love hotels in Japan. The show includes photography, installations, and a looping video projection navigating the themed rooms in love hotels as a metaphor for the female body in contemplating one’s memory, sexuality, and cultural identity.
Alisa Yang
Please Come Again Entrance installation view Neon lights and air mattress in control room 2016
Please Come Again Film still Single channel projection, 9:34 mins 2016
Please Come Again Installation view High heel chair, St. Andrew’s Cross, rubber floors and props 2016
49
I arrived at my current project Unoriginal Original because of my love/hate relationship with remake culture. Remaking is not merely a practice of replicating but a way to utilize history as a database. Reconstructing the works of the past through a wide range of contemporary vernaculars transforms the meaning of the original work into something different. A remake can update the old with current elements. A remake can allow for a different interpretation of the old work from a different vantage point. In a postmodern world where the idea of originality or authenticity seems to be an absurd and naive notion, the surge of remake movies and cultural contents might be a logical trajectory. However, Western culture’s obsession with re-telling the stories of the others through new lenses does reveal political and cultural motives behind remake culture. In the visual art context, more appropriate term would be appropriation instead of remake in discussing my Unoriginal Original project. However, by using the word remake, I intend to imply my scope of criticism is not limited to the world of contemporary art but targeted at bigger issues of representation in popular culture.
Yoosamu
Yoosamu Guanyin 2.3ft x 2.4ft x 1.2ft porcelain 2016
Flora with Blue Toe Nails - After Lucian Freud Acrylic on linen canvas, LED 6.6’ x 6.8’ x 0.4’ 2016
Anika - After Alex Katz
Acrylic on linen canvas 16x20� 2016
Yoosamu Guanyin porcelain 2.3’ x 2.4’ x 1.2’ 2016
About the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan: The Stamps School offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees in art and design. The School’s unique open curriculum emphasizes interdisciplinary study, requires international educational experiences, fosters community engagement, and draws on the resources only available at a top-ten research university.
Regents of the University of Michigan: Mark J. Bernstein, Julia Donovan Darlow, Laurence B. Deitch, Shauna Ryder Diggs, Denise Ilitch, Andrea Fischer Newman, Andrew C. Richner, Katherine E. White, Mark S. Schlissel, ex officio.
Š 2013 Regents of the University of Michigan.
Anti-discrimination Policy Statement The University of Michigan, as an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action. The University of Michigan is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, height, weight, or veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions. Inquiries or complaints may be addressed to the Senior Director for Institutional Equity, and Title IX/Section 504/ ADA Coordinator, Office for Institutional Equity, 2072 Administrative Services Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1432, 734-7630235, TTY 734-647-1388, institutional.equity@umich.edu. For other University of Michigan information call 734-764-1817.
Design: Parisa Ghaderi Director of the program: David Chung
www.stamps.umich.edu 2000 Bonisteel Blvd, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2069