SPECIAL PROJECTS + PERFORMANCES
There are a number of unique special projects and performances pl;anned in conjunction with the conference. Some are seeking your participation. These include:
Signs for the Public Sphere
A project organized by UT Knoxville Graduate Student Jessica Gatlin This project will consist of a series of ten different 12 x 18 inch white metal signs to be posted on sign posts around Knoxville during the 2015 SGC International Conference.
Prints in Peculiar Places
“Prints in Peculiar Places” will be a series of special “printstallations” to take place during the conference. Working with the City of Knoxville, the KCDC Public Building Authority, the L&N STEM Academy and various private business owners, we have identified a series of locations where printworks can be installed during the week of the conference. This initiative is being coordinated by Raluca Iancu, a third-year graduate student from the University of Tennessee. On the evening of Thursday, March 19th the “Prints in Peculiar Places” art walk will take place starting around 6pm and will lead conference delegates from the Knoxville Convention Center to receptions and events in Downtown Knoxville. Selected projects are suitable for a general audience.
Below is a list of other projects and performances planned in conjunction with the conference.
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SPECIAL PROJECT: “Inflatable Sphere”
Martin Mazorra and Mike Mike Houston, Cannonball Press, Brooklyn, New York
Wednesday March 18-Saturday March 21, various locations.
Collaborating with students from The University of Tennessee, Martin Mazorra and Mike Houston of Cannonball Press will create a suite of relief blocks featuring a over twenty constellations, which will be printed on a specially designed rip-stop nylon 16-foot diameter sphere. The 3D star map will be inflated with a high-powered commercial blower and will be placed at various locations throughout the conference. Based in Brooklyn, NY, Cannonball Press has been publishing twenty-dollar woodcuts and letterpress prints since 1999. From the start, their mission was to produce high-quality, affordable one-pass black and white prints by artists whose work they admire, and that mission remains the same today. Around 2004, in addition to publishing, they started to make large-scale collaborative woodcut prints, sculptures, performances, and installations. Examples include a 13-foot equestrian statue featuring a donkey basketball player, a 5-foot tall working cash register, a 14-foot yeti, a tent city, a 20-foot woodcut tornado, and a 60-foot parade snake. They have exhibited extensively in the US, as well as in Estonia, South Africa, Finland, Maui, Germany, Hong Kong and Denmark. Cannonball has lectured at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and were named US Artist Ford Fellows in 2009.
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SPECIAL PROJECT: “The Flood: Large-scale Woodblock Installation”
Sean Caulfield, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Wednesday March 18, all day, World’s Fair Park, Clinch Ave Viaduct
For this project Caulfield will install a 23 x 31 foot woodcut titled The Flood. In this work he explores the subject of an industrial landscape transformed by water in order to raise larger environmental questions. He will paste-up this work (or sections of this work) using traditional Japanese chine collé glue on the Clinch Avenue Bridge beginning on Wednesday March 18th. On the last day of the conference the work will be removed using water, and will not leave any damage or residue.For a (PDF) handout describing Caulfield's methods, CLICK HERE.
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SPECIAL PROJECT: “Sphere Draw-a-thon”
Joshua Bienko and Claire Stigliani, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Thursday March 19, 9:00-17:00, Product-Publisher-Program Fair, KCC, Exhibit Hall B
For this project, UTK Drawing faculty members Joshua Bienko and Claire Stigliani will set up a Drawathon with paper and drawing supplies provided by Jerry's Artarama. Make your mark, and come participate in this large-scale collaborative endeavor.
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SPECIAL PROJECT: “Rubber Stamping”
Carl Gombert, Maryville College, Maryville, Tennessee
Thursday and Friday March 19-20, 9:00-17:00, Product-Publisher-Program Fair, KCC, Exhibit Hall B
Carl Gombert will create a 100 square foot (10 x 10 feet) rubber-stamped monotype consisting of 25 unique hand-stamped mandalas. Choosing from among the hundreds of images in his large and eclectic collection of stamps, Gombert will begin each mandala with a central image and then let it grow improvisationally to fill the sheet. When complete, the 25 individual mandalas will be arranged in a 5 x 5 grid to create the larger quilt-like structure.
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SPECIAL PROJECT: “Freebird”
Midwest Pressed, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa
Friday March 20, 10:00am-7pm, UTK Art and Architecture Building
What can encapsulate a multitude of cultural paradigms better than a pile of screenprinted particle board and refuse made into a hobo palace replete with cliché’ imagery forged in the fires of the American frontier? Nothing. Freebird is the answer to this and so many other complex questions in this printmaking world of ours. The Midwest Pressed team, along with a crack team of students, will pop the lid off this can of beans and stir in some live printing, southern rock, shoddy construction, and a big dollop of time-crunch to bring this dish to life in a single day. Some folks say that this idea is thinly veiled cultural criticism meant to expose the elitist interior of the public sphere through site-specific juxtaposition of anti-art aesthetic and unattainable formalist expectations, others call it an “installation.” However, it’s really just physical poetry made from the cheapest recyclable materials produced by this fair land, or China. Stop by the atrium of the (Art and Architecture Building) on Friday of the conference to soak up this savory stew of Sweet...Home...Collaboration! About Midwest Pressed: Aaron Wilson and Tim Dooley founded Midwest Pressed in 2011 in Cedar Falls Iowa and grew out of collaborative artworks that began through teaching as colleagues at the University of Northern Iowa. Freebird is made possible by the generous support of the Office of the Provost, the College of Humanities, Arts, and Sciences, and the Department of Art of the University of Northern Iowa.
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PERFORMANCE: “Dancing Ink”
Sukenya Best, Virginia Union University, Richmond, Virginia
Saturday March 21, 10:00-11:30, KCC, Exhibit Hall B
Best’s monotypes are created by rolling a loose layer of lithography ink, for a soft ground effect, onto a flat surface. The matrix is usually 4 x 8 foot plexiglass at 1/32 inch thickness. The inked surface is then covered with fabric, and placed on the floor. At this point the matrix becomes a dance floor that responds to the pressure and movement of invited dancers (the mark makers).
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PERFORMANCE: “Skin Anthem II”
Alejandro Arauz, Nipissing University, North Bay, Ontario, Canada
Saturday March 21, Portfolio Session 3, 12:00-13:10, KCC, Exhibit Hall B
This demonstration/performance is intended to expand printmaking’s role in performance art. The shared principle between the creation of a print on paper and the creation of a psychosomatic impression in the mind is pressure; whether physical or psychological. For this demo/performance, Arauz, as the printer and performer will substitute the press with the human body, using non-traditional machinery and matrix processing. To learn more, CLICK HERE.
