Our Goblin Market

2 New paintings 10/26/2009

2009-10-26T09:58:00.003-04:00

Words of Vague Origin

Oil on Canvas
35”x35”
2009

A Return To The Landscape
Oil on Canvas
35”x35”
2009

Meat Tribunal (New Painting)

2009-07-28T11:02:00.005-04:00

Meat Tribunal
Oil on Canvas
16 x 35
2009

New Media Art and Text Website

2009-10-21T12:01:00.002-04:00

The Media Art and Text PhD program
has a new website.

Check it out here

MATXer.ORG

A Gathering of Flesh -New painting

2009-07-30T10:34:00.001-04:00

A Gathering of Flesh
Oil on Canvas
60” x 60”
2009

New Paintings for Summer 09

2009-07-01T11:34:00.006-04:00

Fuck Bush, Them Bitches Flood Us
Mixed Media with Gold Flake on Board
5”x5”
2009
Collection of Jenni Kirby Richmond VA

A Fierce Advocate
Oil on Canvas
30" x 30"
2009

The Archive; Interpretation as Criterion

2009-07-10T10:46:00.002-04:00

The Archive; Interpretation as Criterion
Oil on Canvas
60” x 60”
2009

I have been trying to get away from being so cautious with my mark and allow for a thin looseness in the work. This painting is a new direction and one that I do feel very excited by. I recently saw The Phillips Collection exhibition Paint Made Flesh and came across several pieces which seems to be made with a thin veil of paint. This intrigues me and challenges my work to not get bogged down by the heavy application, to get lost in the layer but to allow the mark a moment of determinacy. I want to try to free the mark and allow it to breath.

Old link for my files

2009-07-01T11:23:00.002-04:00

This is old info but I am adding it here because if I don't I will forget the link.

Kalm's June 21, 07 Gallery Crawl

Building Picturing
Curated by Vittorio Colaizzi

Media X at 1708

2008-11-14T11:43:00.005-05:00

Chris Barr
Veronique Cote
Althea Georrgelas
Michael Takeo Magruder
Rachele Riley
Matthew Kenyon
Kalika Gorski
Patrick Gregory
Bob Paris

Media outlets frequently mislead the public by failling to provide important facts and information in their coverage of current events and news. 1708 Gallery’s election year exhibition Media X, curated by Vaughn Whitney Garland, cuts through the absence of the real story and exposes what many media agencies refuse to cover completely or not at all. Media X opens on October 17th and will be on view until November 22nd. The nine international artists in this exhibition seek to build awareness to the normality of our present day fears and blindness toward conditions left unanswered by using the vocabulary and the spectacle of the media to talk about the media itself. Either commenting on the media’s manipulation of news or documenting the media’s placement of importance on information, the Media X artists expose a visual crossover between what we see and what we don’t. In doing so the Media X artists turn the tables on the media machine in hopes of a mirrored documentation which represents an individual presence in our fast paced media driven world.

Media X artists include Matt Kenyon, Chris Barr, Véronique Côté, Patrick Gregory, Kalika Gorski, Rachele Riley, Michael Takeo Magruder, Bob Paris and Althea Georgelas. The artists tell the story of our present situations across the world with a focus on the Iraq War, by rearranging, uncovering, and manipulating the streaming information acquired through news sources to bring about awareness to our daily consciousness. Media X, which will include drawings, photography, multi and interactive media, presents a fresh perspective on the importance visual language plays in today’s media.

About the artists’ work:

Chris Barr andVéronique Côté will produce a daily “news cast,” which will be streamed to the Gallery interviewing friends, gallery visitors and strangers about current events. Rather than covering the daily political events, the piece operates under the feminist mantra of “the personal is political.”

Althea Georgelas’ work focuses on the need for social freedom and expression and criticizes the political and cultural ideology of current times.

Michael Takeo Magruder’s video work considers the evolution of our collective history through the real-time analysis of global news information networks.

Rachele Riley’s prints from web-based imagery investigate the visual representation of violence in our everyday existence.

Matthew Kenyon’s installation Puddle, consists of motor-oil like material displaying text that comments on the current US energy policy.

Kalika Gorski’s drawings are a direct reflection of the tension resulting from a prolonged war in Iraq, coupled with the recent possibility of invading Iran, and the building tension between Muslim and non-Muslim communities worldwide. Her work focuses on the role that international women revolutionaries and female paramilitaries play within the global, socio-political economy of violence.

Patrick Gregory is creating a new film exploring how media has changed, how and what he sees as well as how it continues to shape the opinions and perspectives of many people- not only exploring content but also the volume of media. Consciously or unconsciously, the ideas portrayed by media are influencing our world and in this case, his sensibilities.

Bob Paris uses news media as the subject in his multi-media installation.

About the Curator:

Vaughn Whitney Garland, Chair of the Exhibitions Committee and on the Board of Directors of 1708 Gallery, has been studying the daily internet news streams of various news agencies. Over several years Mr. Garland began to evaluate the visual communication of opinions and positions used by the media to determine information directed toward a mass audience. The starting point of the Media X exhibition came when Mr. Garland recognized the placement of topics within the visual streaming news formats.

About 1708 Gallery:

1708 Gallery is one of the oldest artist run galleries in the country committed to expanding the understanding, development, and appreciation of contemporary art. Through diverse exhibitions, educational programs and services for artists and the community, the Gallery provides a forum for dialogue that contributes to the development and creation of culture

Media X panel discussion and Opening Night.

Justin Lincoln opens the panel.

Panelists included Media X artists Matt Kenyon, Rachele Riley, Bob Paris, Chris Barr, Veronique Cote, Althea Georgelas and Patrick Gregory as well as Media X curator Vaughn Whitney Garland. Special guests included Robert Hodierne, Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Richmond and 1708 Gallery's Education and Outreach Chair, Justin Lincoln.

Visitors watch the daily feed Everyone That We Know News Network by Chris Barr and Veronique Cote.

Visitors examine Rachele Riley's Once a Day series.

Visitors listen to Althea Georgelas' She Soldier.

Visitors mingle in the front of the Gallery.

The wall of drawings belongs to artist, Kalika Gorski.

Across from Gorski's drawings, a visitor takes in Patrick Gregory's installation Untitled.

Visitors examine Matt Kenyon's Puddle.

A visitor takes a closer look at Matt Kenyon's Notepad.

Vvisitors watch Our Clean Battlefield by Bob Paris.

A visitor reads about Michael Takeo Magruder's piece Fallujah Iraq 31/03/2004.

Crowd shot of Media X opening!

Déjà vu

2009-07-01T10:23:00.005-04:00

“If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.” Albert Einstein

As news channels grow into bodies of theater the stream of data used by the media becomes manufactured information for commercial consumption. The visual documentation that materializes as mass synergy leads the viewer to climatic experiences of hyper-environments, the multiple. The environment in which media filters out the new sources remain unexplored by cultural studies but are in most cases assumed. We know the wizard lurks behind the curtain but we seem to let him continue the show. The dilemma we must try to uncover is that media controls the information, allowing information streams to become tools in which to manipulate and to pluck with no starting point and no consequences. The information used by the media during the information age is second hand and broadcast many times over before it is seen by the multiple. From our first encounter with the story and when the story reaches the masses the information is put to a host of judgments to test its strength, to see if it is fit enough for consumption by the masses or if it will die as a symbol of something second hand. What are the tests given to the data and how does some information survive while others become background links to the main story? Is the information able to change to fit something completely different? Is the change a product of propaganda?

"It happens when they change something." (The Matrix)

In the coming years as a student and user of Media Art and Text I hope to find out the cause and concerns of current uses of media propaganda, either by exploring our notion of traditional uses of propaganda or discovering new forms of image and data manipulation. Our Goblin Market once again becomes a tool for documenting our visual culture. What facts shall we find behind the fictions?

“Later in Archive Fever he [Derrida] also reminds us...that 'there is no political power without control of the archive, if not memory. Effective democratization can always be measures by this essential criterion: the participation in and the access to the archive, its constitution, and its interpretation.'” (Charles Merewether, Introduction, The Archive: Documents of Contemporary Art, Whitechapel, London, 2006, page 13)

Look at what is happening in Iran, the US, and elsewhere as the political power tries to manage the archive.