OnTheCusp.org

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Simultaneous Lectures on Feb. 24

7 p.m. at Central Library, free

Local cultural experts will simultaneously present short lectures with powerpoint on the topic of art and culture in Indianapolis and its role in the global scheme of things. Yes, these lecturers (in two groups of five) will present at the same time. These two rounds will be followed by a moderated discussion/conversation with the panelists and the audience.

Lecturers: Gautam Rao, Kelli Mirgeaux, Andy Fry, Craig McCormick, Michael Kaufmann, Wil Marquez, Flounder Lee, Anna Landsman, John Clark and Richard McCoy. Moderated by Jim Walker and Michael Runge.

This is part of the IndyTalks series and is the first of Big Car's Made for Each Other events this winter and spring at Central Library in partnership with IMCPL and Know No Stranger.

The event's goal is to help start some thought or continue some thought about the role of art now in our city and how that connects with the role of art in the world and how art in our city --and this is broad so it includes architecture, the internet, etc. -- connects us with the rest of the world in physical ways (people visit here, we visit there or move here or there) and in virtual ways via the internet.

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A larger, high quality version can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyHJvMyLqyE

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The new exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (iMOCA) features seven years worth of Kathryn Refi's art and is called Records. Refi is based in Athens, Georgia and holds an MFA from the University of Georgia, Athens. Her art investigates daily life through the lens of scientific processes. She records data from her normal activities and uses the results to create very controlled art, which ironically gives her more artistic freedom. Beginning to question notions of subjectivity and objectivity helped lead Refi to the implementation of scientific processes in her art. Just as a scientific experiment must contain controls, so does the process of creating art for Refi; controls serve to make sure that she only collects and represents in the final artwork exactly what data is relevant to the question she is probing. "The controls I put on the work give me more freedom and actually allow me to be free to some extent from the academic training I received as an artist. I don't use many of those things I've been taught, so it actually allows more freedom for the work to just be itself and not have to conform to ideas of aesthetics," she says.

Refi, a self-described creature of habit, has noticed that her daily life is very routine as a result of her explorations. Although the data collected in most of Refi's work that is on display here are directly referential to her own experiences, they still make the viewer question their own personal experience and the world around them. Unlike many artists who focus on a way of working or a specific theme for long periods of time, Refi sets out to explore a question and then moves on. As a result, her body of work is constantly changing and reflecting new questions, ideas and processes. "Ultimately, the questions that I'm trying to answer in my work are unanswerable, and that's half the point, and half the point is just keeping on searching even if you don't find an answer," Refi explains.

The body of work presented in Records is thought-provoking in its uncommon methodology used in dissecting what appear to be very mundane experiences. Truly beautiful art has emerged from Refi's explorations. The scale and meticulous discipline and detail in each piece in the show is very impressive. The art could function as aesthetically appealing abstract, minimal work even without its conceptual backing, which is interesting considering how grounded and controlled it is by its conceptual basis. Engaging Refi's art means reevaluating one's daily life and what happens within it, as well as engaging questions of subjectivity and objectivity in the world around us.

For more words and pictures and a video interview with Refi, go to OUTPOSTS FROM THE MATERIAL WORLD

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Opening this weekend:

"Go To Your Room"
New work by Martin J. Kuntz

Friday, February 12, 2010
Opening Reception: 5:00pm - 10:00pm

at Invoke Studio
970 Fort Wayne Avenue, Suite C.
Indianapolis, IN



An Interview with Martin J. Kuntz
January 13, 2010
The Lockerbie Pub


Interview conducted and submitted by Robert Evans III


Robert: Sitting here at the Lockerbie Pub with artist Martin J.  Kuntz, getting ready for Martin’s second solo show in Indianapolis, Feb, 12th 5pm at Invoke Studio, presented by Vergence Incorporated (VI). The show is called “Go To Your Room.”  So Martin, tell us about your work.

 Martin: My work predominately deals with themes from my childhood. Growing up with a somewhat turbulent upbringing, art functioned as a way for me to escape and create my own worlds.

Robert: Where did you grow up?

Martin: I was born in the Netherlands, but grew up in Indy. I stayed here until I left for college – Maryland Institute of College of Art where I was lucky enough to get a decent scholarship. I graduated Dec 2008.

Robert: One of the things I love about your work and why I have been so excited to show it is that it has a very modern iconographical basis. It deals with a lot of the imagery that people in our age group, between 25 and 35, looked at for inspiration when we were young.

The other is a very robust masculinity in your paintings. I think that is really different from a lot of contemporary art. Feminism is taught in schools and easily integrated into art where masculinity is somewhat negated. Typically, the robust alpha male icon that you use is something contemporary artists look at as a negative, oppressive symbol. It holds the weight of colonialism and sexuality. You take a different approach to it.

Martin: Pop culture for me – whether it was video games, comic books, or television – was just another means of escape. The title of the upcoming show, “Go To Your Room” relates to being put on “time out.” Being in my room all the time was both a punishment and an escape for me. I had to make due with what I had.

In college, I began with a lot of classical themes, figurative work, interior spaces; but I soon got bored with it. I had to ask myself what I originally enjoyed about art, so I went back to my roots. It was looking at comic books, video games, and it was what was most fun for me about making art. Trying to draw superheros and such. It was a way to reconcile my childhood, but it was also fun.

My dad was gone by the time I was about 7, so the work deals with trying to find masculinity in those pop cultures icons. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terminator comes up a lot in my work.  In Terminator 2, he serves as a surrogate father. You have this kid from a bad up-bringing, and this hero father figure comes in to save him, giving him purpose.



Robert: There is a dichotomy between your working with childhood themes and icons., it is both turbulent and playful. How do you think you communicate the depth of the message to your audience?

Martin: Well, my work is so personal to me. I think a lot of chaos comes through in disparate imagery, combining very flat areas of shape and color. Looking at masculinity and pop culture and trying to figure out what you are supposed to be as a man when you grow up. A lot of it deals with the physical aspect of masculinity vs. what it means to be a man.

I touch base on the physical attributes of comic books. The deeper meaning is showing how I had to figure it out for myself.  Having my mom try to be a mom and a dad.  She never dated anyone so you’re on your own, and the things I was given to figure it out go into my paintings. There are not always positives to the physical aspect of life: it does not always teach you about morals or what to do with the physical stuff. My father was physically and verbally abusive, so going to my room was better than some of the consequences I could have gotten.

Robert: So would you say your work creates a place of solitude?

Martin: No, I would not say that at all.  Much of it strives to create a visual cacophony – a lot of things coming at you at once.  A lot of times it’s hard to decipher what is important. Occasionally, there is some aggression.

The painting, “Every Other Weekend” is about having to go to my dad’s every other weekend. On one side, there is my face, and the other is a gorilla representing my father. I use animals to personify human aggression and vibrant colors to create dissidence.

Robert: The work is also really big, so you are confronted by color, shape and icon.

Martin: I like to work really big also. No smaller than 4feet by 4 feet and above.

Robert: I wonder with the changes in culture now, cartoons and pop culture have changed since we were kids.  I wonder what types of imagery and personal subjects you think you will look to in the future. How do you think they have changed for you and will change in the future?

Martin: I hunt on the Internet a lot. I don’t think I have extrapolated everything form my childhood, but eventually I think I will come to a point where I am talking about what is going on now as an adult man.

Painting childhood as a theme and making art as an adult, there is something everyone can relate to. There is simplicity in childhood, but there are just as many messages that can be conveyed in talking about childhood as in adult life. I have a lot of fun making work, and I don’t think it would be as much fun working with adult ideas.

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Most of you have already been keeping up with the sideline bet between the Indianapolis Museum of Art's Max Anderson and the New Orleans Museum of Art's E. John Bullard on who will win the Super Bowl game. Up for grabs? The IMA's Turner painting against NOMA's painting by Claude. For those of you who have not been keeping up you can catch the play by play, by Tyler Green of Modern Art Notes. 


Sadly, Max and the IMA have lost the Super Bowl bet and will therefore be loaning its Turner Painting to the New Orleans Museum of Art.


Bravo to both Max Anderson and the IMA and to E. John Bullard and NOMA for making this entire dialog an entertaining one. 


Bon Voyage Turner... You will be missed.

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For further details and openings, check out the IDADA First Friday Map.


IMOCA

Records:
Work by Kathryn Refi

Opening Reception 6pm - 11pm



Mt. Comfort (a space for champions)

David Schalliol
The Isolated Building

Opening Reception 7pm - 11pm

[Note: this is the first opening in their new space at the Murphy Arts]



Big Car Gallery

Metamorpher:
New work by Erin K. Drew

Opening Reception 6pm - Midnight



Harrison Center for the Arts

A Beautiful Mind
new work by Elizabeth Guipe Hall

Opening Reception 6pm - 9pm



wUG LAKU'S STUDIO & gARAGE

Undertow
Paintings and collage by Kate Oberreich

Opening Reception 6pm - 10pm



AV Framing Gallery

"Strumpets and Squares"
New Works by Jenny Elkins

Opening Reception 5pm - 9pm



Carreno Studio & Gallery

Profusion
Works by Bernie Carreno

Opening Reception 6pm - 9pm

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Christopher West Presents


Do-it-yourself Utopias
New work by Jeff Eisenberg


For his first solo exhibition in the Midwest, Eisenberg focuses on DIY architecture and the theory in biology called convergent evolution that describes the acquisition of similar or same biological traits in different species, such as wings in both bats and birds. Eisenberg sees something very similar going on in the buildings of disparate communities that, for different political or ideological reasons, choose to unplug from the grid and create alternatives to conventional society and it’s surrounds. The drawings that he creates to explore these observations depict imaginary structures with some sense of logic and order, yet no discernible use or purpose. A loose cosmology of hobo magic, paranoia, superstition, and a hippie can-do spirit permeates the work: Fetishes and feathered charms hang from branches nailed to boards that bar entrances; bric-a-brac building supplies precariously engineer dwellings that read both as friend and foe.

Eisenberg lives and works in San Francisco, CA and is currently serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN. He received his MFA in Painting at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005. He has exhibited his work extensively throughout the world including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Lisbon and London. This is his first exhibition with the gallery.


Opening Reception: February 4th, 5-8pm


Christopher West Presents
646 Massachusetts Ave.






Dean Johnson Gallery


The Secret Museum
Recontextualized Objects by the Committee of Vigilance 


What was lost, is found.
What was plain, is beautiful.
What was discarded, is treasure.

Such is the manifesto of the Indianapolis based Committee of Vigilance. For the second installment of Secret Museum in Indianapolis, the collective finds high style and design in lost and often discarded objects. Found photographs and a World War II era practice bomb make up just a small portion of the work in this exhibition in which these objects have been re-assimilated into a contemporary vernacular. By presenting the work in new and imaginative ways and, in some sense, even highlighting their flaws, what was old is beautiful again.