One of the many great things about SPE is meeting people whose work inspires and enlightens.
Lori Hepner
It has been slow going on the blogging front due to teaching two courses this semester. I am always amazed at just how much time teaching and all its prep work takes out of a day. How ever with the end of my courses approaching it has brought a bit more free time to look at other artist and their work.
Currently I am thoroughly enjoying the photographic works of Emma Wieslander. In "Looking at the Sun" I was struck by the simplicity and minimal quality of the work and it conceptual richness. Wieslander's work operates on a metaphysical level inviting contemplation of the act of photographing the sun and the significance of such an act as performance. The artist choice in using text is similar to Taryn Simons photographic project "An American Index of the Hidden and the Familiar". Both have successfully utilized text in a way that compliments, or anchors as Simon states, the content of their photographs away from ambiguity or absurd.
I am pleased to announce an upcoming exhibition at Spoke gallery titled, If Nature Could Talk. The three-night event will feature photographs that document five new pseudo scientific inventions. Visitors are invited to come and encouraged to interact with the objects and their uncanny results.
“If Nature Could Talk,” is an interactive event that explores the uncanny relationship between art, science, and nature. Based on the investigation of Human/Nature dynamics through marks, traces and symbols of pseudo- scientific experiments, the work suggests what nature might be thinking and feeling in an evidentiary context. Chicago based artist, Grant W. Ray has photographed these strange attempts at communicating with nature. He will be presenting this historic archive and five extraordinary inventions for two nights only at Spoke Gallery. Participants will be invited to interact with ordinary objects that have extraordinary functions such as, “Ronald Johnson’s Talking Plants,” which reportedly translates the thoughts of domesticated houseplants into a language you can understand.
Spoke
119 Peoria
3D
Chicago, IL 60607
Opening Reception: July 23rd 6pm - 9pm
Open hours July 24th, 25th 10am - 6pm
I am pleased to announce the inclusion of two of my photographs in Skie Mall curated by Anni Holm. It will be an honor and privilege to exhibit work along side these fellow international and local artist
"On May 15, 2010, in conjunction with the annual West Chicago Blooming Fest, the STUDIO, located at 203 Turner Court behind Main Street, will open its doors to the 4th biannual artXposium. This multimedia art experience, organized by People Made Visible, Inc. featuring regional, national and international artists who will display a variety of art work inspired by the inflight SkyMall catalog.
In addition to the SkieMall, artXposium events and exhibitions will take place in front of the 19th century CB&Q Depot, at the West Chicago City Museum and on Main Street. Saturday, May 15 the exhibition opens at 9am, with an artist reception from 6 to 9 pm which will feature a performance by Alison Rhoades along with food, drinks and a silent auction. (Full program available at artxposium.org.)
New to the program this year is a tent among Blooming Fest vendors hosting the West Chicago International Artist in Residency Program featuring Gitte Bog’s project: Fusion Foods.
Featured artists include: Claus Ankersen (DK), Lise Haller Baggesen (DK/NL/US), Tom Burtonwood (UK/US), Mario Contreras (US), Gemma Correll (UK), Diana Gabriel (US), Aron Gent (US), Richard Holland (US), Holly Holmes (US), Matt Logan (US), Mark Osterman (US), Sara Phalen (US), Grant Ray (US), Alison Rhoades (US), Andrew Rigsby (US), Steve Ruiz (US), Victor Yanez-Lazcano (US) and Matt Austin (US). This year's exhibition has been curated by Anni Holm.
artXposium Hours: Saturday 9am-9pm & Sunday 10am-2pm. This event is free and open to the public. (Suggested donation $2)."
Start Time: Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 9:00am
End Time: Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 2:00pm
Location: 203 Turner Court, West Chicago, IL 60185
"New York, New York: MTVs Top Ten Videos 1981, 1991, 2001", from the Uncanny Imagination series received a spot in Feature Shoot "singles" blog section.
Feature Shoot "Singles" section.
Write up by Michael Weinstein on the "Four Faces" exhibit at Barbara & Barbara Gallery.
"Drawn to the recesses of densely wooded public parks, Jennifer Ray seeks out evidence of male sexual encounters—a spent condom, a pair of briefs, a Styrofoam cup—and shoots the tell-tale details in color, so that they are small, yet obtrusive elements of the larger verdant scene. Eric Bessel takes color portraits of women posed in gestures and sporting expressions that betray distress, bitterness or hostility. Helen Maurene Cooper dolls women up in kitschy costumes, places them against decorative mannerist backgrounds, and snaps them in color as they vogue like fashion models, sometimes tough, sometimes dreamy. Grant Ray puts ordinary objects into compositions suggesting “pseudo-scientific experiments,” as when he goes into the wooded glen, plants an electrical gizmo there, and shoots the scene in color, proving that you can do other things in the park than have sex. You can read the artists’ statements if you want an overdose of cultural theory, but their work boils down to crossing the boundary from the illusory world of normal certitude to the wilderness of the seamy psycho-dramas that surround the islands of sanity that we so painfully attempt to construct. (Michael Weinstein)"
Through February 18 at Barbara & Barbara Gallery, 1021 N. Western
Photograph on post card front by Krista Wortendyke
I am pleased to announce the inclusion of one of the photographs from the Uncanny Imagination series in Critical Encounters Fact and Faith Photography Exhibition at Columbia College Chicago Library. (Sadly due to a typo my name was printed as Grant Wray instead of Grant W. Ray.) The opening reception will be in the Weisman Reading Room, 2nd floor library, 624 S. Michigan Ave.
"Sponsored by Critical Encounters, Center for Teaching Excellence and Alumni Relations. Students, Staff and Alumni were asked to respond to this year's focus, Fact & Faith, and submit images that explore the tension between the need to know and the need to believe. Join us at the reception and see how the artists personally interpreted this theme.
Critical Encounters is a college-wide initiative intended to synchronize conversations between the school and the community, in an ongoing dialogue, around a central, socially and culturally relevant issue each academic year."
Jurors:
Jodi Adams, Photography Alumna and Staff
Stephen DeSantis, Interdisciplinary Arts/Book and
Paper Alumnus, Columbia College Chicago
Show Hours:
Mon-Thurs 8:00am-10:00pm
Friday 8:00am-6:00pm
Saturday 9:00am-5:00pm
Sunday 12:00-5:00pm
I am pleased to announce my participation in the Harold Arts The Yield: 2009 Resident Exhibition. The exhibition will include two new photo works from the ongoing “If I Could Speak to Trees and If Trees Could Speak to Me” project that humorously and metaphorically addresses the complicated and nuanced roles humans play in the environment. The opening reception is being held at Heaven Gallery and Johalla Projects on Friday, October 23rd from 7-11pm.
Friday, October 23, 7-11pm
Opening Reception
Heaven Gallery - 1550 N. Milwaukee
Johalla Projects - 1561 N. Milwaukee
Saturday, October 24
Gallery open from 1-5pm
"Athens, Ohio: Shadow of its Former Self. Electric Ouija Board for Trees"
"Athens, Ohio: Manufactured Wind, Manufactured Communication"
Change can be good. As easily as that word is thrown around in the United States it's use can at times ring hollow. Michael Weinstein "Portrait of the Curator: Matthew Witkovsky" in New City wrote an informative albeit short introduction about Matthew Witkovsky, the new Chair of the Photography Department at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the changes he has in store for the department.
As a photographer who's practice relies on the relationship between text and image I'm biased when it comes to the oft complicated presentation of text and image. Specifically I'm interested in Matthew Witkovsky intention of educating the audience to the works of photography through the placement of text and image on the wall. This idea has been gaining traction in Chicago's photography community for some time as curators seek to deconstruct the white cube and by default change the relationship to photography and text. For the Art Institute of Chicago's Photography Department however it presents a bold new direction. Witkovsky's curatorial practice along with an all ready shifting focus found in assistant curator Katherine A. Bussard recent curatorial practices for "so the story goes" and "On the Scene: Kota Ezawa, Sarah Hobbs, Angela Strassheim" presents the foundation and direction for a decidedly smarter approach. One that will be interesting to see develop given the recent addition of 20,ooo square feet portion of the new Modern wing for the photography department.
I am pleased to annonce that three photographs from the "spectre of vision" series were selected for Issue 33 of F-Stop Magazine. It is an honour and privledge to show case along with such great talent and vision.
