Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Pay attention! you might miss something!

Degrees of Separation

Thursday, Sept. 2nd –
Faculty Opening (6 pm) + Emit! (8 pm)

Party!

Come to The Cleveland Institute of Art on Thursday, September 2 for a blockbuster evening! First, the Faculty Exhibition opens with a free, public reception. Then CIA student work is shown on the Cinematheque’s silver screen at the free EMIT film festival. And finally, following the festival is a late-night student after-party.

The 2010 Faculty Exhibition Reception (6pm, Reinberger Galleries)
CIA’s new president Grafton Nunes introduces the Faculty Exhibition, which will be on view until October 9. A tradition that spans over eight decades, the Faculty Exhibition is a celebration of art and its makers and an opportunity for the public to view new, original, and innovative works from our world-renowned art and design faculty. The public is invited to this free opening reception with music on September 2 at 6pm.

EMIT Student Film Festival (8pm, Aitken Auditorium) 
CIA students from all disciplines contribute innovative and original short videos and animation in this one-night screening event, which immediately follows the Faculty Exhibition reception. The innovative and original short videos and animations will delight, amaze, and shock filmgoers. EMIT features student pieces in all genres, from 3D animation to experimental video. The public is invited to this free event on September 2 at 8pm.

College Student After-Party (10pm, Gund Building lobby)
Following EMIT will be a special late-night student party with music and refreshments. Cleveland college students can show ID to get in free.

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Thursday, September 9, 6 to 9 pm,
“Degrees of Separation”
CIA’s VAT Coventry Center
1854 Coventry Rd. – Upper Level
Cleveland Heights

Five young artists and CIA alums come together for an exhibition to see how they relate, and create in the new environment of a professional life. Themes of interaction, and connectivity run strong, whether it be through performance, bringing people together, or questioning the social construct of materialism - these artists are interested in sparking more than just thoughts, but conversations.

Featuring the work of:

Karl Anderson, Drawing, 2009
- Forum Artspace Blog
- Karl is a locally based artist and gallerist and is one of the founders and co-directors of Forum Artspace frequently acting as curator.
Jerry Birchfield, Photography, 2009
- Jerry Birchfield's website
- Jerry is a locally based artist who has exhibited widely including the Toledo
Museum of Art and the Print Center in Philadelphia, PA. His work has been included in the permanent collections of the Cleveland Clinic, Dealer Tire, LLC and the Avery Denison Corporation.
Noah Hrbek, Sculpture, 2007
- Laughter League, Noah Hrbek
- Noah is a locally based artist and improvisational comedian and talented musican
Ben Kinsley, TIME, 2005
- Ben Kinsley's website
- Ben is currently resides in Pittsburgh, PA. He is a multidisciplinary artist who creates site-specific responses to particular situations, often through collaboration and playful exchange with local residents. He received his MFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008.
Shoko Yamamura, Painting, 2008
-Shoko Yamamura on CCA's 2010 MFA website
- Originally from Japan, Shoko is an artist based in San Francisco. Her career has previously been marked by a questioning of the lines between art, “non-art” and life. Today she has moved beyond “what is art?” to “How can an artist be?” She received her MFA in Studio Art this past spring from the California College of the Arts.
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Cinematheque presents:
Tuesday, September 21, at 7:00 pm
Filmmaker Brent Green in Person!
GRAVITY WAS EVERYWHERE BACK THEN
USA, 2010, Brent Green
Brent Green, Nervous Films
11141 East Blvd.
CIA – the Gund Building
Cleveland, OH

The first feature by sculptor, folk artist, and self-taught animator Brent Green was inspired by the true story of Leonard Wood, a Kentucky hardware clerk who turned his house into a ramshackle “healing machine” after his wife got cancer. Meticulously re-creating Wood’s dwelling on his Pennsylvania farm, Green employs live actors, stop-motion, music, and voiceover to tell his touching, poetic tale.

Green, whom The Village Voice has called “an emerging Orson Welles of handmade experimental cinema,” will answer audience questions after the screening, along with the film’s co-writer and star, Donna K. “Critics’ Pick…A tinkerer’s ode to a tinkerer, and a romantic’s tribute to a romantic…Radiates an oddball homemade charm.” –The NY Times. Cleveland premiere. Blu-ray. 75 min. site.nervousfilms.com Special admission $10, members and CIA students & staff $7; no passes, radio winners, or twofers.

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Thurday, October 7, 6 to 9 pm, “Self-Initiated” an exhibition curated by Senior Industrial Design students exploring the intersection between art and self-initiated design. Under the direction of CIA Industrial Design faculty Matt Beckwith. Closes Sunday, October 24.

CIA’s VAT Coventry Center
1854 Coventry Rd. – Upper Level
Cleveland Heights

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Thursday, October 28 – Realtime Animation with sound and light artist’s Joe Kelly and Jay Crocker … doors open at 6 pm … performance at 7 pm

AMAZING – MUST BE SEEN TO BE APPRECIATED!

Sponsored by the Bickford Visiting Artists and VAT’s Sculpture Department

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Thursday, November 18, 6 to 9 pm – “Creative Resistance”
CIA’s VAT Coventry Center
1854 Coventry Rd. – Upper Level
Cleveland Heights

Through the guidance of faculty and multi-media artist Sarah Paul, CIA students will present a semester culminating media installation employing strategies integrating social change with media art and performance designed to operate as social commentary and critique. Show closes Friday, December 10.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

CIA's Sculpture Head Charles Tucker on residency at Art Farm

Residencies are odd and amazing things …

They always cost the artist money, even when they don’t. They always provide unique challenges of survival. How do I get materials here? How do I get my work back? Difficulties that are compounded when the residency is in another country.

Pregnant with possibilities … a residency can lead an artist to truly unexpected solutions, producing true breakthroughs in work and can generate personal connections that could never be foreseen, altering lives and directions; irrevocably changing the course of careers and human hearts.

Recently I had the occasion to visit my colleague and frequent collaborator Charles Tucker while he was on his residency at the Art Farm. It was magic in a most unexpected way. Let me begin by saying that it is not a place for the faint of heart, the delicate or infirm. At the height of summer it is hot, buggy, a little steamy, while touting what could only be described as rustic accommodations … and it was unbelievably beautiful … and when I say magic I mean spellbinding. The range of work is profound, moving between the mundane, the inauspicious to the breathtaking. It takes on the feel of a revolving Artists' Commune with Ed at the helm.

While there Tucker continued his work exploring the means of home construction and the implications of stored valued, relegated spaces and a re-definition of Environment. He is building a cottage in a meadow which he plans to complete on his return in April of 2011. It is meant as a space of contemplation, a private space meant to provide quiet and shelter to the creative minds that might venture there … rising over the prairie it sits in conversation with its predecessor Beili Liu’s replica of her parents’ home. A community of two … Liu’s structure speaks of the past and a earthbound grittiness. While Tucker’s work raises softly … floating just down the way.

My visit to the Art Farm was remarkable and I hope to return there on my own residency in the not too distant future. I would love to set up in the old school house and do nothing but paint and work in the Artist’s Garden. But for now I am ensconced at Gallery Aferro in Newark, New Jersey… a most magical place in its own right … and one I may not want to leave … you’ll hear more about that later though. In the meantime … here are some images from Nebraska’s Art Farm...

a studio at Art Farm: "The Little School House"
Residents' House: "Victoria"
View of the Artists' Vegetable Garden
Beili Liu: "Home"
Charles Tucker: "Cottage"


Art Farm, Nebraska
Gallery Aferro, New Jersey


Just a few other CIA faculty who have been away on residency: Sarah Kabot; Barry Underwood; Megan Ehrhart; Amanda Almon …

Saturday, August 14, 2010

thanks to Tommy's in Cleveland Heights and Midwest Box for Fundred help!

Special shout out to Tommy's in Cleveland Heights for the delicious food they hooked us up for our Cleveland Fundred Kick-off event at CIA's VAT Coventry Center (1854 Coventry Rd. - upper level).

Also thanks to Midwest Box Company for donating boxes to make it easier for people to make take-away Fundred Stations.

Midwest Box Comapny
9801 Walford Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44102-4788
(216) 281-3980

We'll be posting pics and updates on the ACT-C blog

Thanks to everyone who came out and if you want to participate go to ACT-C or the Fundred Site, just click on "Get Involved Now" ... you don't need us to participate!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

the fall and an amazing line up beginning Aug 13

Mel Chin: Cleveland Fundred Drawing Station


below is a preliminary schedule of events associated with CIA ... mark your calendars and keep a weather eye for changes in events ...


CC = the Coventry Center at 1854 Coventry Road, upper level next to McNulty's ...
LOF = the Lunch on Fridays Lecture Series ...

All of the events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.

All LOF start at 12:15 and take place in CIA’s Gund Building. LOF is generously sponsored by the Liberal Arts and Foundation Environments.

CC -- Friday, August 13 – “30 Fundred Stations (more or less)”, 6 to 9 pm ... Featuring Fundred Drawing Stations designed by area artists and concerned citizens ... with a special submission by Mel Chin ...

Make a Fundred, lobby congress, change lives.

Fundred, specifically, is a drawing project in which citizens are asked to “donate” by doing their own redesign of the hundred-dollar bill. These redesigns, dubbed “fundreds”, are then collected at various Fundred Collection Centers. Once a total of 3 million Fundreds has been amassed, the equivalent of $300 million dollars, an armored truck, retrofitted to run on waste vegetable oil, will complete a cross-country collection journey by delivering the Fundreds to Washington D.C. with a request for an even exchange for the value of the art currency for actual funds. (http://www.fundred.org/)

As a project, Fundred was first initiated by internationally known artist and activist, Mel Chin, in order to address issues of environmental contamination through lead. Since 2008, Chin has worked on “Operation Paydirt” which is targeted at addressing lead contamination in New Orleans, and even more importantly, providing a model for attacking the issue across the Nation’s most lead-contaminated cities including Cleveland.

“30 Fundred Stations (more or less)” is an exhibit of Fundred Stations designed locally (some by area artists) … after the show these stations will be distributed throughout the area to assist in the making and collection of Fundreds.

For more information: http://act-c.blogspot.com/
And
www.fundred.org


Monday, August 23 – CIA classes start

LOF (sort of) - Friday, August 27 – Convocation, meet the New President, Grafton Nunes!!!

EMIT & THE FACULTY EXHIBITION -
Thursday, September 2nd ... Faculty show opens at 6 pm with remarks from our new president, Grafton Nunes!! the show is followed by EMIT video festival in Aitken Auditorium. This is going to be an amazing night ... a do not miss kind of event. Music and food and wonderful people!!

LOF -- September 3 -- Year One at CIA (special for 1st year students at CIA)

CC – Thursday, September 9, 6 to 9 pm, “Degrees of Separation: a Show Offering Proof of Life after Graduation”

A show in part organized by CIA alum and Forum Gallerist, Karl Anderson. The exhibition references the networks and synergy of young artists creating a professional practice while making an art world of their own. Show closes Sunday, October 3.

LOF - Friday, September 10 -- Karl Anderson, CIA drawing alum and co-director of Forum Gallery talks about his experiences since graduation and what it’s taken to survive while cultivating a career in art. Karl will also reflect on the Coventry Center Exhibition “Degrees of Separation” which includes his work and which he helped organize.

LOF - Friday, September 17 – Mark Gottsegen of Amien

AMIEN is part of the Education Department of the ICA, America's oldest regional art conservation laboratory. This talk will introduce artists at the CIA to both the ICA and the free services of AMIEN, the Art Materials Information and Education Network. AMIEN is a Discussion Forum for questions and answers about art materials; we do not discuss esthetics, promote or recommend brands of art materials, or prescribe methods of making works of art.

Mark Gottsegen studied painting with Philip Guston, taught (drawing, painting, materials of art) in North Carolina from 1976 - 2007, and is the author of The Painter's Handbook. He has participated in more than 50 group and solo exhibitions. Since 1978 he has been a member of ASTM International, which has written 14+ standards for artists' materials and other similar organizations; he is the recipient of grants for research from the National Park Service and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and has given numerous talks about art materials throughout the US and in western Europe since the early 1980s.

LOF - Friday, September 24 – Tommy White
CIA welcomes new faculty member Tommy White to its Painting program. White has works in many private collections as well as the permanent collections of Binney and Smith and with exhibitions in locales as far flung as Seoul, South Korea; Melbourne, Australia; and St Louis, Missouri, White exemplifies the professional artist practice which is the hallmark of CIA faculty. He brings to the Institute an extensive teaching experience including nine years at Virginia Commonwealth University and most recently three years at the University of Oklahoma. He now maintains his studio in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

LOF - Friday, October 1 – Kristen Baumlier

Integrated Media Environmental Chair Kristen Baumlier discusses her own practice as an artist and the impact of environmental issues on her work. Including the recent release of her album “Deplete Me.”

Kristen Baumlier’s work spans the full spectrum of interdisciplinary media, including performance, interactive installation, video and audio works. She received her MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1994, where she began utilizing humor, combined with interactive performance as core elements in her work.

In 1996, Baumlier transformed herself into the role of a fitness guru and developed a performative exercise program, “Buns of Butter,” where food was used as exercise equipment to explore issues of irony as related to food and body perception.

She received an Ohio Arts Council Fellowship in 2004, and an ArtsLink project grant in 2005 to produce a site specific collaborative work in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia.

During a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts in 2005, Baumlier developed “Oh, Petroleum,” where she transformed into “The Petroleum Pop Princess;” a pop icon engaging viewers in debate over materialism and oil consumerism. She is a founding member of the collaborative group, Fossil Fools, which presents issues about energy and fuel consumption.

Baumlier has performed at the Mattress Factory, the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and at the Select Media Festival in Chicago, IL.


CC – Thurday, October 7, 6 to 9 pm, “Self-Initiated” an exhibition curated by Senior Industrial Design students exploring the intersection between art and self-initiated design. Under the direction of CIA Industrial Design faculty Matt Beckwith. Closes Sunday, October 24.

LOF - Friday, October 8 – Gretchen Goss

Through the work of her own practice, Gretchen Goss will introduce the audience to unique and wonderful qualities of enameling as a discipline and an art form. She will discuss her own career and her passionate investment in natural forms thus setting the stage for our next LOF speaker Brinsley Tyrrell and giving audience members a delicious glimpse into her own art-making.

Gretchen Goss, one of the school’s most revered faculty is a twenty year veteran of the Institute. She is Professor and Chair of the Material Culture Environment at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Her work has been supported by Ohio Arts Council Individual Artists Grants, and is shown in exhibits nationally and internationally. She has been a visiting artist and taught numerous workshops on enameling nationally and in England. Her work is driven by her intrigue with the natural world.
Education: M.F.A., Kent State University; B.F.A., Kent State University


LOF - Friday, October 15 – Brinsley Tyrrell, Visiting Artist in Enamel

A local legend known for his work as a sculptor and as a public artist, Brinsley Tyrrell, a native of Godstone, England, has embedded himself deeply into the local culture in a profound way. Areas of our life are regularly punctuated and enriched by his work as we walk down a street or through an airport where his work is installed. He has recently turned to landscape and enamel in truly spectacular work that was first seen at William Busta Gallery here in Cleveland. Take advantage of a rare opportunity to hear this accomplished artist speak and to hear of his life and work particularly as it relates to his recent experiments in enamel.

http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2008/10/brinsley_tyrrell_enamels_at_wi.html

LOF - Friday, October 22 – special performance

CC – Thursday, October 28 – Realtime Animation with sound and light artist’s Joe Kelly and Jay Crocker … doors open at 6 pm … performance at 7 pm

Sponsored by the Bickford Visiting Artists and VAT’s Sculpture Department


LOF - Friday, October 29 – Joe Kelly and Jay Crocker … artist’s talk
Sponsored by the Bickford Visiting Artists and VAT’s Sculpture Department

Born in Newfoundland, Joe Kelly is a Canadian artist who builds “filmic” devices based on old technologies such as zoetropes. In performances that can only be described as mesmerizing, he and his creative partner Jay Crocker create real-time animations to real-time music. Crocker is a professional dj and musician who creates his own instruments and sound-making devices from found objects such as discarded toys. Kelly, widely known as an artist exploring the limits of technology and the moving image, has made a number of films that have screened internationally. He has shown work throughout North American from Halifax to Victoria, Canada and all over the United States as well as having shown in Europe and Asia. In addition he has had work shown at a variety of festivals including: Images; Black Maria; PS1 and Ann Arbor.

http://www.renoworks.com/websites/joekelly/bio_cv/cv.htm
http://www.joekelly.ca/


LOF - Friday, November 5 – Jenniffer Omaitz

In a talk sponsored by the Bickford Painting Visiting Artist fund, Jennifer Omaitz, a nationally exhibited painter and installation artist, will discuss her work and her career. Omaitz received her BFA in Painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art and her MFA in Painting from Kent State University. Omaitz has been exhibiting her work in Cleveland and Denver since 2002. Her most recent shows include a site-specific installation commissioned for the 2010 Biennial of the Americas in Denver. Omaitz is the recipient of an award from the Sculpture Center in Cleveland Ohio and her installation work will be featured in a solo show at the Center in 2011. Omaitz lives and works in Kent, Ohio.

Artist’s Talk - Tuesday, November 16 – Jim Campbell

Internationally known as an artist working at the edge of electronic media, Jim Campbell holds degrees from MIT in both Mathematics and Electrical Engineering. Born in Chicago in 1956 and now living in San Francisco, Jim Campbell is a former Silicon Valley engineer turned artist who explores the inherent qualities of electronic media forgoing the seductive lure of its capacity through digital to produce high resolution imagery. He instead chooses to investigate the limits of perception working with LED lighting and pixelation. He is most interested in the limits of visual information to transform into meaning. An internationally known artist his work relates to many disciplines including photography and installation.

He shows regularly in New York, Canada, San Francisco and throughout Europe. Most recently his work was on view at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in New York.

http://www.jimcampbell.tv/


LOF - Friday, November 12 – Panel discussion with some alums … “Life after Graduation: a Survivor’s Guide”

CC – Thursday, November 18, 6 to 9 pm – “Creative Resistance”

Through the guidance of faculty and multi-media artist Sarah Paul, CIA students will present a semester culminating media installation employing strategies integrating social change with media art and performance designed to operate as social commentary and critique. Show closes Friday, December 10.

LOF - Friday, November 19 – Kidist Getachew

An alum of CIA’s TIMe program, Getachew makes work that exploits the full potential of digital as media. Born and raised in Ethiopia, she has lived in the United States since 1982. This has given her a cosmopolitan vision which has poetically and elegantly informed her work.