Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft
Lauren Kalman Hard Wear (Tongue Gilding), 2006
Digital print laminated on acrylic
32 x 23 inches
Courtesy the artist
Opening reception: May 14, 2010, 7–10:00 p.m. On view: May 15 – July 25, 2010Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft is a dynamic group exhibition that explores the innovative means by which artists continue to expand the traditional boundaries of art and craft. Through the integration of performance, the artists featured in this exhibition have broadened the context of craft in contemporary art. The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston will present sculptural objects, environments, and site-specific installations along with photography and video documenting performances, as well as a series of live performance events. Featured artists include the collaborative group B Team, Conrad Bakker, Nick Cave, Cat Chow, Sonya Clark, Gabriel Craig, Theaster Gates, Cynthia Giachetti, Ryan Gothrup, Sabrina Gschwandtner, Lauren Kalman, Christy Matson, James Melchert, Yuka Otani, Sheila Pepe, Michael Rea, Anne Wilson, Saya Woolfalk, and Bohyun Yoon.
Several new works will be featured in Hand+Made, including a Book of the Month Club series by Conrad Bakker; Soundsuits by Nick Cave; two site-specific installations; and performances by Theaster Gates, Cynthia Giachetti, and Anne Wilson. Performance event highlights include public interventions by Pro Bono Jeweler Gabriel Craig, in various locations throughout the city; knitting nights for audiences to unravel the installation created by Sheila Pepe; a restaging of a 1972 happening by pioneering ceramic artist James Melchert; an endurance performance by Anne Wilson in collaboration with Hope Stone Dance Company; and a musical performance by Theaster Gates with a local Houston choir. The exhibition will close with a performance by Cynthia Giachetti. The Museum will use web-streaming to share these events with broader audiences.
Sheila Pepe, "Common Sense II", 2010. An evening of Crocket + Cocktails
Jennifer West, Smoke, Darts, and Mirrors Film (35mm film leader painted with
candle smoke, taped to a dart board and hit with darts dipped in habanero
sauce, taped with mirrored and opalescent mylar - throwing darts performed
by Lucrecia Roa, Mateo Tannatt, Lesley Moon, Jen Collins, Patrick Cates,
Mariah Csepanyi, Blake Bailey and Jwest), 2010. 39 seconds.
Courtesy the artist, MARC FOXX, Los Angeles, and Vilma Gold, London.
Generously supported and commissioned by the Contemporary Arts Museum
Houston
Opening reception: Thursday, July 15, 6:30 – 9:00 p.m. Gallery walk-through: Thursday, July 15, 6:30 p.m. On view: July 16 – September 26, 2010
Working in film and film installation, Jennifer West makes exciting and visually arresting works that blend filmmaking, painting, and performance art. She treats the celluloid as both a medium to record actions and a surface to be manipulated—often with unconventional and disparate substances. Responding to the specific architecture of the venues where she exhibits her work, West projects her films—sometimes as singular painterly entities and other times as multichannel projections—filling the space and giving it shape through a cacophony of color and movement. Perspectives 171: Jennifer West is the first solo museum exhibition for this Los Angeles-based artist and is curated by Valerie Cassel Oliver, CAMH curator.
West’s work is reminiscent of that created by early pioneers of American avant-garde film in the 1960s like Stan Brakhage, Stan VanDerBeek, and Nathaniel Dorsky, who emphasized abstraction and visual experimentation over more traditional documentary and narrative modes. Her works may be psychotropic and hallucinatory, but they are carefully constructed. They rely on both her own painterly skills and the alchemical effects of the substances she employs to transform the film. Usually created without sound, her experimental works reference iconic moments in film, music, and art history.
West uses footage showing performers portraying iconic moments in the history of music and art as well as reenacting classic film scenes. She then obscures the recorded images by having the same performers—often close friends or relatives—physically interact with the film using materials like candy, Kool-Aid, fruit juice, Lysol, perfume, energy drinks, makeup, or skateboard wheels. The original image is often obscured beyond recognition, leaving only rich, pulsating hues. At CAMH, West will feature five film projections created between 2008 and 2010, one of which has been created specifically for this occasion. A limited edition zine, created by the artist, will also accompany the exhibition.
West lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She has exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at MARC FOXX and White Columns, New York, both in 2007; at Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, and Vilma Gold, London, in 2008; MARC FOXX in 2009; and Kunstverein Nuremberg, Germany, and Western Bridge, Seattle, in 2010. She staged her first live performance at the Tate Modern, London, in 2009. Her work has also been featured in numerous museums and galleries throughout the United States and abroad, including an installation at Tate St Ives, Cornwall, UK (2007), which traveled to CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux in France; and presentations at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) (2007); ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany (2007); The Drawing Center, New York (2008), traveling to the Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA; Aspen Art Museum (2008); Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2008); Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (2009); Cubitt Art Gallery, London (2009); Leubsdorf Art Gallery at Hunter College, New York (2009); and the Aspen Art Museum (2010). West’s work is currently on view in Kurt, Seattle Art Museum, and Celluloid. Cameraless Film at the Kunsthalle Schirn in Frankfurt, Germany.
