Latest NewsMay 5th, 2008New post-card created by Erin (elynskey@yahoo.com) May 16th, 2008Fieldtrip to ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art) pictures here
June 3th, 2008Artists set up their works at the gallery for pictures click here.
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Killing Time
An exhibition curated by students of the Art Institute of Philadelphia
As curators of a new exhibition in the main gallery of the Art Institute of Philadelphia, we have been in a quandary. Can we (32 students) speak with one voice about an exhibition including six local artists from different backgrounds working with diverse mediums?
Although a thematic curatorial approach was originally favored, and at the end clearly colors the show, the short answer is “no”. A consensus on how to accurately synthesize our approach thus proved to be challenging and unsatisfactory. It seemed at times too narrow and specific and at times, too general and unsubstantial.
It then occurred to us that as artists are sometimes given carte blanche with a space or the interpretation of a topic we should give our readership, and ultimately the viewers of the exhibition, a similar discretionary mode of interpretation. The three short press releases you can choose from below are thus an attempt to alleviate the reductiveness of traditional press releases.
The Surrealist Press Release
Killing*
→ noun
an act of causing death, especially deliberately.
→ adjective
1. causing death: a killing disease.
2. (informal) exhausting or unbearable: a killing schedule.
• (dated) extremely funny.
Time*
[mass noun] the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole
*The Oxford Dictionary of English (2nd edition revised)
The Cognoscenti Press Release.
The concept of time has substantially permeated the history of 20th and 21st art. In no other period of history have artists been so conscious and thoughtful of notions of durability versus ephemerality, posterity versus anonymity or past/present versus future. To reuse the words of the philosopher Henri Bergson Killing Time approaches the notion of duration as real or pure time that is to say non quantifiable.
The photographs of Jaime Alvarez, part of a series entitled Time, explore his family history over a period of thirteen months when his father was battling a fatal cancer. His large blurred photographs, except for small identifiable passages here and there, speak of faded visual memory but intact and overwhelming impressions. These impressions, repetitive patterns digitally produced, become a kind of personal writing.
The photographs of Joan Kathleen Smith on the other hand juxtapose historical artifacts and places, personal or universal, with inventive contemporary photographic techniques. Joan’s work decodes history through important texts such as masterpieces of literature.
The collaborative pieces of Tommy Reynolds and Lauren Rossi part assemblage, part collage, are also indebted to history. They reflect Lauren’s medium – textile that she often uses to reupholster discarded furniture. The pieces also echo Tommy’s own work, his large scale photographs: oversized visual journals based on past artists, personal encounters or places.
Katherine Kesselring’s installations include artifacts made of bright fabric. Katherine’s interest in the vernacular and the folkloric has allowed her to explore the customs and traditions of Latin America. This exploration was motivated by Katherine’s upbringing in rural Pennsylvania in a community with a rich craft culture and strong traditions.
In David Kessler’s videos, time can be understood as a sequential process. The surreal animated nylon threads or found images of helicopterswere first scanned and then digitally animated.
Steve Earl Weber’s installation Glorified in the window of the school, based on his famous installation Mighty Makes Rights’, consist of a number of ceramic gun castings and prints of hand guns fired onto ceramic tiles and framed. This work raises questions about changing times and fundamental rights. Have we been confusing freedom and rights over time? Why is the constitution immutable?
The Socio-political Press Release
The nineteenth century Irish dramatist Dion Boucicault, once wrote “Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them”: This fatalistic but lucid view on the inexorability of life, appears inappropriate for today’s world where life and death are constantly defied. In an increasingly polarized world Killing Time mimics the contrast of the extremes by exhibiting artists working with different genres and opposite sensibilities.
The seriousness and gravity of Mighty Makes Rights provokes the passerby walking down Chestnut Street with issues of violence, a cancer on our local communities. Once inside the gallery viewers will be comforted by the playful colors and textures seen in the work of Lauren Rossi, Tommy Reynolds or Katherine Kesselring. Viewers move from the real to the abstractions of David Kessler, Joan Kathleen Smith and Jaime Alvarez. These works don’t make overt socio-political statements and provide an antidote to the viewer’s anxiety.