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The Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts is consolidating blogs. As a result, this tumblr account will no longer be updated. To continue following the DCCA blog please visit http://thedccaorg.wordpress.com/ and subscribe. Thank you.
Hot Off the Press
The DCCA and Masters of the Visual Universe made headlines over the weekend in The News Journal. Here's a little excerpt. You can read the full article on Delaware Online.
It's tempting to say that an artist who would attempt to count 16,000 acorns and study their pattern of distribution is kinda nuts.
But that misses the conceptual elegance of Guy Loraine's "Fuller and Grand," pieces that illustrate the beauty, science and obsessions that come with studying a tree for months on an midwest street corner (Fuller and Grand).
"Over the course of 2 1/2 years, Loraine numbered, photographed, mapped and recorded where and how each one of the tree's acorns fell," writes Maiza Hixson, the Gretchen Hupfel curator of contemporary art at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts.
You catch sight of "Fuller and Grand" as soon as you enter the DuPont Galleries of the DCCA. And you would be excused for thinking curators have left up a table, with an open ledger and a ball of twine.
You're Invited!
The Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts will present the People’s Choice Award to a participating artist in the 2011 MFA Biennial: Masters of the Visual Universe on February 3rd, 2012. The People’s Choice Award recognizes an artist selected by the public as the best in show. Gretchen Hupfel Curator Maiza Hixson will present the winning artist with the People’s Choice Award Prize at 7 pm. Masters of the Visual Universe and the DCCA galleries will be open to the public from 5 to 9 pm.
Visitors may continue to vote for their favorite MFA Biennial artist via a paper ballot at the DCCA or at http://thedccaorg.wordpress.com/vote/ until January 31st, 2012.
Steven Riddle, Ultimo Dia de Campo (Last Day of Field), gouache, airbrush acrylics, oil based Monotype, silkscreen, 2010
Get excited because its now possible to take a virtual tour of Masters of the Visual Universe. Check out the tour here or watch the video posted below.  Also, don’t forget to come see the show in person at the DCCA. The DCCA is open Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm, and Wednesday and Sunday from 12 pm to 5 pm.
Emily Erb's Artist Statement
There is the great need for social forums on the various dire situations that we face as a species on this planet and art is a medium in which to express the common concerns heard around the world. Yet, there remains a great divide between the art community and the human community at large. This divide is one that deserves consideration as the separation of like-minded people weakens their cause. The ideas behind my work are deeply political, and I want as many people to understand them as possible. Therefore, I have turned to compositions that have stood the test of time to help carry my message.
My process is to collage a new image onto the original composition. The combination of these two elements, new and old, with the silk painting technique, first discovered in 2nd Century India, makes for a fusion of time and culture. East meets west as past meets present. While some pieces are more humorous than others, they are all telling the human story.
When looking at Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly delights, I was struck by the similarities between past and present, in that there are still so many unanswered questions about how humans came to exist and where we are going. A year later, I was working on the Guernica Revisited as a reaction to the seemingly senseless nature of war throughout time, particularly the present. By the next year, we had entered yet another war while the infrastructure of our own nation crumbled. At this point, it seemed time to look to a composition that is recognized by all of humanity: the composition of the world map. This time, I wanted to convey a message of peace, a reminder that the majority of the world is merely trying to get through every day with as little conflict as possible.
As an artist, there is an underlying desire for conflict so that my work is able to grow and not become stagnant. Â My life goal is to make every ten paintings better than the last ten paintings by keeping my eyes, ears, and mind open to the concerns of those around me.
Update: People's Choice Award
It’s been awhile since I’ve done a post about the People’s Choice Award. If you’ve been watching the poll, you might have noticed we’ve had a bit of a coup. Emily Erb has taken the lead with 48.54% of the votes. Steven Riddle has dropped into second place with 22.51% of the votes, and Ted Walsh has managed to stay in the top three with 16.37% of the votes.
Don’t forget to vote, if you haven’t already!
Masters of Art or Sophistry?
The semester is winding down, and the MFA artists in Towson's MFA seminar are preparing for their last assignment. Ready to find out what it is?
"The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies." -Pablo Picasso
Invitation to a Debatable Exhibition on the Final Day of Class: December 15, 6:30 - 8:00 p.m.: Debate + Curate = Irate
Irate: One Last Maddening Conversation and Curatorial Provocation
Concept: MFA Classrooms Are Rhetorical Devices Where Graduate Students Become Masters of Sophistry*
IRATE will be held in the classroom of the Art Topics Seminar and will consist of a group debate about whether or not art students are increasingly learning to become greedy, hairsplitting wordsmiths who use fallacious reasoning (artist statements?) to deceive people—ultimately for a profit. As an IRATE facilitator, I will designate two opposing student teams who will debate both sides of the argument. Please Come Prepared by Thinking and Doing Your Own Curatorial Research On Both Sides of the Argument. WHAT EXACTLY IS THE ARGUMENT? You be the judge. This is a curatorial provocation as exhibition as work of art.
*Sophistry is a method of argumentation that seems clever but is actually flawed or dishonest.
Now that you know the concept behind IRATE, its time to chime in. Tell us what you think. Does the MFA create masters of art or masters of sophistry?
Note, IRATE is for discussion purposes only, it does not necessarily represent the opinions and views of the DCCA or Towson University.
Elizabeth Hamilton, 1991 Brougham and Everything Must Go, installation, 2011
Jordan Bernier on "Art Without Work?"
I hope you all have gotten a chance to read Anton Vidokle's article "Art Without Work?". Remember the Towson MFA students who participated in Masters of the Visual Universe  as a part of a MFA seminar? A few weeks ago, they had to read Vidokle's article and write a response. Here was the assignment:
Also, in preparation for this Thursday and in lieu of having class after my lecture, please read the attached article by Anton Vidokle entitled, "Art Without Work?" I would like for each of you to email me a one page, single-spaced written statement on your response to Vidokle's article ASAP (by this Friday), specifically articulating how you interpret his statements about art in relation to work. Please write this short paper using a formal rather than casual, conversational style. This paper should not take long, so please do not stress about it. I sincerely want to know your thoughts on the article.
Check out Jordan Bernier's response below.
I think that being a dishwasher is somewhat like being a shepherd. The work does not occupy one's thoughts, and thus free to think. In fact, I actually think that many jobs are comparable to that of the shepherd, and therefore related to the Greek vision of occupation and a free mind. I started to compile a list of all of the other jobs I had that allowed me the freedom to think. In fact, I'm trying to think of a job that doesn't allow people the freedom to think while they are technically working. Pretty much any job with a computer is ruled out of the picture. I have never known someone who works at a computer and doesn't spend most of their time surfing the web or doing nothing productive for any particular company. Just like Warhol's Factory!
An artist like Cory Arcangel has a position on art is actually quite appropriate for this paper. I have taken some thoughts of this article and applied it to his work ethic. For one, he speaks about how art does not need to be complicated or time consuming, he even adds that art is more complex than to be complicated or time consuming. With installation works such as ten Vizio LED TV boxed stacked in a gallery, I think it would be safe to think that Arcangel has won the fight against complexity, time consuming methods, medium, and studio practice.
In terms of the relation to this article and MFA, it seems to me that everyone should be in on this one by now. What I mean by this is that studio practice, work, art and objecthood are understood concepts by most artists (or rather they should be at this point); defining one's self by medium, time, or style is fallacy.
But, more importantly, and again in regards to MFA, is our complicit participation in such an operation. While studio practice, objects, medium, etc. no longer define art or artists, scholarship and academia apparently continue to define accreditation. I think that we enter an MFA program, especially at a place like Towson, knowing that there is still a status-quo to which we are expected to perform in accordance with; in other words we make a bunch of objects that are considered art. Making objects and documenting things makes it easier to apply to shows, have midterm critiques, and make one's advisors happy.
Yeah, we are all complicit, and that's fine. Some people may genuinely think that medium and object are definable within the context of “fine art,” and though it may be shallow, that's fine too, but we are all still complicit. Everyone involved is using this program for personal economic gain; it's an unfortunate state of education. To be fair though, MFA is at the least a lesser evil than most other terminal degrees. And though there is an understanding of these concepts that is necessary to change or alter the framework in the future. To push a system to its ultimate ends is important for humanity as a whole.
I'm more interested in the final statement to “reclaim a reality that art had prior to industrialization.” I would argue that the world needs no return to any time in the past. It is the threat, albeit unintentional, to a world that is less civil, less tolerant, less democratic. I'm not saying that our current world is good, I still consider it to be a pretty horrible place that needs a lot of work.
This article makes me think of the “Work Ethic” show at the BMA. This show was created to depict how art has “grappled with the problem of artistic process,” and in particular, who the maker is (factory worker, artist, etc.). From this show, several fluxus artists were exhibited such as Yoko Ono and Allison Knowles. These artists appeared to simply have fun with their work, and thus changed the ethic around what culturally may have been considered artistic practice.
Art Without Work?
I recently recalled the precise moment when it first occurred to me that I would like to become an artist. I grew up in Moscow, and my father was a self-taught musician working at the circus. Circus artists work extremely hard physically: the amount of daily practice and physical exercise necessary to perform acrobatic acts or walk a tightrope is really enormous. They practice and exercise all day and perform by night—it’s nearly a twenty-four-hour-a-day job.
There was a birthday party for one of the kids in the building we lived in, which belonged to the union of circus artists. The children at the party, all about five or six years old, were children of clowns, animal trainers, and so forth. We were watching a cartoon on TV and at some point a conversation started about what we wanted to become when we grew up. Following the usual suggestions like a cosmonaut or a fireman, one of the kids said that he wanted to be a fine artist, because they do not work. I was very shy as a kid, so I did not say much, but thought to myself that this boy was really clever and that I too did not want to work and should therefore try to become an artist.
Read the rest of Anton Vidokle's article "Art Without Work?" here.
Did You Know?
Biennials are platforms from which independent curators are able to launch their ideas on a grand scale. It is commonplace for museums or art centres to bring in guest curator(s) in order to ignite new curatorial insights, as seen in the Shanghai Biennale, Taipei Biennial, Asia-Pacific Triennial, Lyon Biennale, SITE Santa Fe International Biennial, Whitney Biennial, Biennale De Montreal, Quadrennial of Contemporary Art, etc.
The selection as curator of a major Biennial carries with it a great deal of prestige and visibility and thus a way in which an individual work and reputation can become internationally reclaimed (or not).
-Asia Art Archive
Erica Prince's Artist Statement
 “Utopian Consciousness wants to look far into the distance, but ultimately only in order to penetrate the darkness so near it, of the just lived moment, in which everything that is both drives and is hidden from itself. In other words, we need the most powerful telescope, that of polished utopian consciousness, in order to penetrate precisely the nearest nearness.”
– Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope, 1954-59
My works explore fantastical architecture, landscapes, monuments, inventions, and extraterrestrial bodies. Such objects function as traces of a life unlived. Through viewing these objects, we can piece together something beyond the here and now, something speculative, or perhaps unfulfilled. Art is the only way to exist in a utopia. Architectural utopias are a way to represent culture at large, and reinventing and re-imagining them is a way to explore our existence. Creating new worlds is an exercise in potential. It is the belief in progress, and the ultimate act of hopefulness.
Erica Prince, Future Structures 6, 2911, Mixed media on paper
Jill Fannon's Artist Statement
You've read the wall labels from the show and what Maiza has said about each artist. Now check out what Jill Fannon has to say about her work in her artist statement below.
BubbleTongueRemix is a series of performance-photographs. My goal in building this series was to deconstruct the photograph, allowing it to become both an enveloping structure and a surface-oriented representation of the event. The work borrows from the language of the photograph as it is an agent of suspension, surface, witness, and cargo.Simultaneously, the work borrows from performance, in its use of the body in relation to physical objects and physical space; and as an autonomous site from which to prescribe meaning.
Within the series, each singular piece denotes a performance act that was constructed solely for the camera. The acts took place inside and outside of the studio. They made use of material objects, hard and soft, six different models varying in age and multiple environments, including, hand-built sets an the private residencies of the participating women. Each piece employs a color palette dominated by matte-pale pinks, blues, creams and grays. The pieces range in size from twelve inches by eighteen inches to twenty inches by thirty inches, and at largest, thirty-one inches by forty-six inches. This network of photographs shares one name, BubbleTongueRemix, 2010-2011.
Artists Talk: Yong Jea Cho
Yong Jea Cho is a MFA student at Towson. He contributed to the interactive video piece, "MFA?" in the Masters of the Visual Universe.
Check out what Yong Jea Cho had to say about his contribution to the MFA Biennial as well as his experiences as an MFA student at Towson here.
Whoop Dee Doo!!!
If you've read Towson MFA student, Ursula Minervini's response to the Masters of the Visual Universe, you may remember she compared the work of the Towson MFA students to the the variety show, Whoop Dee Doo. Whoop Dee Doo is a "kid-friendly faux public access television show featuring pre-planned performances accompanied by live audience participation" The show is based in Kansas City, Missouri, but travels around the country giving performances. To see some of their performances, check out their website.