July 3, 2014 for immediate release
Contact Howard Oransky, Director, Katherine E. Nash Gallery
651/592-1841 (Cell) 612-624-6518 (office) horansky@umn.edu
High-resolution representative images and press release available at:
https://art.umn.edu/nash/press
thinking making living
What
This group exhibition and series of related public programs investigate socially
engaged artistic practices that invite participation, foster collaboration, and
imagine cross-disciplinary approaches to the social, political and ecological
issues of our time.
When
September 2 – December 13, 2014
Gallery hours are 11 am to 7 pm, Tuesday through Saturday
Public Reception
Friday, September 12, 2014
6:00 – 9:00 pm
Where
Katherine E. Nash Gallery
Regis Center for Art, University of Minnesota
405 21st Avenue South, Minneapolis, 612/624-7530
Parking, Accessibility, Cost and Parking
Parking is available nearby on the street and at the 21st Avenue ramp; hourly or
event rates apply. The 21st Avenue ramp, the Regis Center for Art and the
Katherine E. Nash Gallery are wheelchair-accessible. Exhibitions and related
events are free and open to the public.
Description
Over the last decade, socially engaged art has emerged as a distinctive form of
contemporary practice, its roots tangled in social activism, community organizing,
avant-garde ambitions to unite art and life, happenings, political performance and
advocacy. The Twin Cities in particular have become a hotbed for such practices
that question how we are in the world today, how we relate to each other and
interact with the ecological, political, and cultural issues that shape our lives.
thinking making living sets out to investigate a spectrum of engaged art in the
social sphere. Together, an exhibition, a project space, and public programs
create a platform for conversations between artists, activists, and the public to
explore the intersections between art, life, and social engagement. thinking
making living is an experiment that brings participatory, open-ended, and often
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entirely process-based art to the Katherine E. Nash Gallery. Messy and
mundane, it is an invitation to think making and make living.
The artists in the exhibition ask "what if…?" and often pair engagement with
subtle irreverence. Traces of a resilient utopian imagination run through the four
themes of the exhibition, project space activities, and public programs:
community questions how we negotiate individuality and group identity; location
digs into site-specific and place-based concerns; labor examines the complex
histories of work and access to resources; and transformation dares to envision
art as a catalyst for change.
Confronted with the complicated cultural conditions of 21st-century life in the
United States, the artists in thinking making living grapple with what it means
to make work inside and outside of institutions, corporate agendas, and
government policy. They insist on our shared ability to imagine alternatives,
stage interventions, and comment on a wide range of culturally relevant issues.
They bear witness, provoke interaction, set up social experiments, embrace
failure and vulnerability as critical tools, and participate in a form of public speech
that helps shape the way we live.
The roster of participating local and national artists includes: Eric Asboe, Emily
Baxter, Jan Binder, Body Cartography (Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad), Allison
Bolah, Miranda Brandon, Rachel Breen, Big Car, Kate Casanova, Crescent
Collective (Laura Bigger, Artemis Ettsen, and Teréz Iacovino), Annie Follett, Beth
Grossman, Katie Hargrave, Emily Johnson, Low Tech High Joy (Karen Kasel and
Marlaine Cox), Sarah Kanouse, John Kim, Amanda Lovelee, Works Progress
(Shanai Matteson, Colin Kloecker), J. Morgan Puett, Molly Balcomb Raleigh,
Janaki Ranpura, Red 76 (Sam Gould), Mona Smith, Amy Waksmonski, Marcus
Young, Nate Young and Marina Zurkow. University of Minnesota faculty
participating in the exhibition and activities include Christine Baeumler, Valentine
Cadieux, Jan Estep, David Feinberg, Rebecca Krinke, Christina Schmid, Paul
Shambroom and Diane Willow.
Panelists include Roger Cummings, Seitu Jones, Gülgün Kayim, Natasha
Pestich, Colleen Sheehy, Sarah Schultz, Sandra Teitge, Peter Haakon
Thompson and Wing Young Huie (dates and times to be announced).
For thinking making living the Katherine E. Nash Gallery will include a gallery
exhibition and a project space where artists present time-based events,
workshops, conversations, and performances. thinking making living also
includes a series of related public programs that include panel discussions,
workshops, film screenings, and artist talks (dates and times to be announced).
Exhibition and Project Space
The gallery exhibition will feature work by local and national artists and a “reading
room” in which the public can contribute their own thoughts and reflections. The
gallery project space will present a number of workshops, conversations, and
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other programs. The following are examples of projects featured in the gallery
exhibition and project space:
Emily Baxter’s We Are All Criminals is a documentary project that challenges
society's perception of crime, criminals, and criminal records. Participants in We
Are All Criminals tell stories of crimes they got away with: doctors and lawyers,
social workers and students, retailers and retirees considering how very different
their lives would have been had they been caught. Each story is accompanied
with a photograph that convey the participant's personality and individuality.
Many of the photographs were taken in the participant's homes or offices while
protecting their identities.
Crescent Collective presents The Hydroponic Table. Like a dining table, The
Hydroponic Table suggests a place to gather, to partake in a meal and to share
stories. It changes from meal to meal, day to day. The Hydroponic Table
embraces this constant change, becoming a form of time-based sculpture,
transforming as plants are grown, eaten and replanted. Crescent Collective is
comprised of three Minneapolis based emerging artists: Laura Bigger, Artemis
Ettsen and Teréz Iacovino. Their research currently focuses on hydroponics, a
soilless growing method allowing plants to be grown in urban landscapes,
serving as a catalyst to reexamine how city surfaces can be utilized. Crescent
Collective will collaborate with Valentine Cadieux, Research Associate in the
Department of Geography, Environment and Society at the University of
Minnesota.
One special event will bring Minneapolis City Council Member Cam Gordon to
the Project Space in the Katherine E. Nash Gallery. On Friday, September 26
from 9:00 am – 12:00 pm Gordon will hold “office hours” in the gallery. Faculty,
staff and students at the University of Minnesota and members of the wider
community are invited to attend this event and engage in a dialogue on topical
issues with Council Member Gordon. Since 2006 Cam Gordon has represented
Ward 2 on the City Council, which includes the Como, Prospect Park/East River
Road, University, Riverside, Seward, Longfellow, and Cooper neighborhoods. He
is the Council's sole Green Party member. His key values include ecological
sustainability, nonviolence, grassroots democracy and social economic justice.
Gordon chairs the Council's Health, Environment and Community Engagement
Committee and vice chairs the Council's Public Safety, Civil Rights and
Emergency Management Committee.
California activist artist Beth Grossman calls attention to the genetically
engineered seeds that are having a huge impact on food sources worldwide.
Brisbane, California has decided to act locally and think globally by adopting a
Bill of Seed Rights Proclamation. Grossman is using this art project to call
attention to the necessity of a national and international “seed law” to protect
plant bio-diversity and the rights of individuals to save seeds, keeping them in the
public domain. Grossman invites the public to appreciate the wonders of seeds
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and engage in a discussion on the importance of protecting this precious source
of our food chain. “The Law of Seeds is about our accountability to future
generations and ensuring that nature’s seed cycle will carry on.”
Artist Katie Hargrave is interested in a poetic and quiet activism that can exist
within the history and politics of life in the United States. Her project In Poor
Tastes Good focuses on the history of beet sugar, which was introduced to the
United States as an abolitionist tactic and is currently the subject of labor
struggles in the upper Midwest. Archival materials and first person accounts
become source materials for a series of pieces that explore the transformation of
sugar from sweetness to a sticky mess within which we get stuck. She will host a
dinner with participant discussion.
Public Programs
The public programs will include panel discussions with artists, activists,
scholars, curators, and organizers, as well as artist talks, presented with support
from the Art Department's Visiting Artist Committee, the Weisman Art Museum,
the Institute for Advanced Study, the Department of Landscape Architecture, and
the Walker Art Center.
Public Reception
The Public Reception on Friday, September 12, 2014 at 6:00 – 9:00 pm will
include a special Dakota Welcome and two artistic performances, the Edible
Insect Tasting by Kate Casanova and Socially I am Awkward by Janaki Ranpura.
Kate Casanova invites the public to come together and experience a culinary
treat that many non-Westerners already know to be delicious: insects. Guests
sample crickets, mealworms and wax worms. The Edible Insect Tasting will
challenge preconceived notions of taboo and disgust and proposes insects as a
new form of nutritious and sustainable protein, a much-needed resource to feed
a growing world population with the planet's finite resources.
Janaki Ranpura presents her project, Socially I Am Awkward. There are
situations that we regularly encounter in life when it is hard to say what you need
to say. Trained assistants help participants construct their thoughts into a
business-card-sized statement that is fabricated on-site and theirs to use in
awkward situations.
Sponsorship
thinking making living is co-sponsored by the Department of Art and the
Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Minnesota, Walker Art
Center, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Funding was provided through a
Research and Creative Collaborative grant awarded by the Institute for Advanced
Study. This activity is further made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a
Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative
appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
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Organizing Team
thinking making living was organized by a curatorial team that includes
Christine Baeumler, Associate Professor of Art, Rebecca Krinke, Professor of
Landscape Architecture, Howard Oransky, Director of the Katherine E. Nash
Gallery, and Christina Schmid, Assistant Professor of Art at the University of
Minnesota; Ashley Duffalo, Program Manager, Public and Community Programs,
and Sarah Schultz, Curator of Public Practice at Walker Art Center; and Scott
Stulen, Curator of Public Engagement and Performing Arts at the Indianapolis
Museum of Art.
Press Images
High-resolution representative images and press release available at:
https://art.umn.edu/nash/press
01-Baxter
Emily Baxter
We Are All Criminals
02-Casanova
Kate Casanova
Edible Insect Tasting
03-Crescent
Crescent Collective
The Hydroponic Table
04-Crescent
Crescent Collective
The Hydroponic Table
05-Crescent
Crescent Collective
The Hydroponic Table
06-Gordon
Cam Gordon
Member, Minneapolis City Council
07-Grossman
Beth Grossman
The Law of Seeds
08-Hargrave
Katie Hargrave
In Poor Tastes Good
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09-Hargrave
Katie Hargrave
In Poor Tastes Good
10-Hargrave
Katie Hargrave
In Poor Tastes Good
11-Ranpura
Janaki Ranpura
Socially I am Awkward
Katherine E. Nash Gallery Mission
The Katherine E. Nash Gallery is a research laboratory for the practice and
interpretation of the visual arts. We believe the visual arts have the capacity to
interpret, critique and expand on all of human experience. Our engagement with
the visual arts helps us to discover who we are and understand our relationships
to each other and society. The Katherine E. Nash Gallery will be a center of
discourse on the practice of visual art and its relationship to culture and
community -- a place where we examine our assumptions about the past and
suggest possibilities for the future. The Nash Gallery will play an indispensible
role in the educational development of students, faculty, staff and the community.
http://nash.umn.edu/
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