TONIGHT OPENING of International Artist in Residence Wilhelm Neußer at Boots

Boots Contemporary Art Space is pleased to announce the 2009/2010 International Artist in Residence, Wilhelm Neußer.

BIRDHOUSEINCATTREE      February 19th – March  2010

GUY OVER SEES INSTALL AT BOOTS

Guy, Boots new gallery dog has been hanging out during the install of BIRDHOUSEINCATTREE, an exhibition by International Artist in Residence, Wilhelm Neußer. The space is looking good and is slowly being filled with paintings and sculptures.

For the last couple of days Neußer had been focusing on installing 2 sculptures in the front gallery space.  With high hopes Guy wanted to join in the efforts but “that whole not having thumbs thing” turn out to be a problem…. maybe next time Guy.

Hope everyone can join us this Friday on the 19^th for our opening reception. 6:30pm – 10:00pm.

For more information please visit our web site at http://bootscontemporaryartspace.org/blog/home/

About Wilhelm Neußer

Wilhelm Neußer lives and works in Cologne, Germany. He studied with the sculptor Harald Klingelhöller at the Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts.  His work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions and in 2007 he was awarded the prestigious ZVAB Phönix art prize for emerging artists.

For more information on the artist visit: www.wilhelmneusser.de

Upcoming show International Artist in Residence Wilhelm Neußer

Boots Contemporary Art Space is pleased to announce the 2009/2010 International Artist in Residence, Wilhelm Neußer.

BIRDHOUSEINCATTREE      February 19th – March  2010

Opening reception February 19th 6:30pm- 10:00pm

For his upcoming show at Boots, opening February 19^th, 2010, Neußer embarks on an unusual expedition in the wild world of domesticated animals. With the notion of “bird house in cat tree” the artist presents the animal lover as architect, thereby revealing our desire to construct nature.

• Art Organization: Laumeier Sculpture Park

Mark Newport: Self-Made Man at Laumeier

The early February weather may not be all that inviting, but that’s no problem for Sweaterman!

Join us tonight (February 5) for the opening reception of Laumeier’s spring exhibition, including a performance by the artist as Sweaterman.  Laumeier Sculpture Park presents Mark Newport: Self-Made Man, an exhibition that explores the role of modern man and modern-day heroes.  Newport’s human-scale, hand-knit superhero costumes, photographs, video and embroidered comic book covers will be shown in the Park’s indoor galleries.

Mark Newport is a man who knits like no other.  The Michigan-based artist creates human-scale, acrylic-knit superhero costumes that question the role of heroes in contemporary culture. Some of these costumes reflect the comic book legends that many of us grew up with.  Newport also expands on the genre with creations of his own. Batman and Captain America are presented on equal terms with Newport’s Sweaterman and Y-Man.

Free Opening Reception: February 5, 6-8 PM

Enduring and Fading with Sara Greenberger Rafferty

The three artworks Sara Greenberger Rafferty has on view in Love & Theft at White Flag Projects all prominently feature 1970’s-era comedians (Valerie Harper, Vicki Lawrence, and Joyce Dewitt). While these works could be considered portraits, their goals are a far cry from what is traditionally expected of the genre.

The stand-up comedian is more than a random fixation for Greenberger Rafferty; rather, the aesthetics of stand-up comedy act as a metaphor for her artistic practice. Like the comic, her work stands alone; it’s not overly ornate or overwhelmingly large, and it’s accessible and human in scale while attempting to be engaging. Greenberger Rafferty’s process and choice of materials also complement the vulnerable stand-alone humanity of her works. She scans, prints, splashes, and rephotographs each image, lending the slick C-prints mounted to Plexiglas a somewhat abused, and discarded quality.

Like most appropriation art, what is interesting about these altered images is not only the present artwork but also the necessary reconsideration of the original object, and the effect Greenberger Raffterty’s strategy has had on it. The fluid stains on a Vicki Lawrence photograph that originally appeared on the 1972 album cover for The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, make Lawrence look like a demonic teenage boy. In contrast, Valerie Harper turns both gory and rain-soaked, longingly gazing to the right as if searching, and Joyce Dewitt transforms into a spectral, skeletal floating head.

Greenberger Rafferty’s pieces confer a range of emotional suggestion – from sadness to isolation, failure to obscurity. Juxtaposing these apparent sentiments against the backdrop of comedy strikes an oppositional note that allows the images to capture both the viewer’s visual and emotional attention. Greenberger Rafferty’s work in Love & Theft brings faded celebrities back into view and allows us to witness their slow dissolve.

Love & Theft will remain on view at White Flag Projects until Saturday, February 13. For more details on the exhibition and other events at White Flag Projects, visit www.whiteflagprojects.org.

-Lynna Borden, Intern

• Art Organization: Amy Broadway, The Pulitzer

Catching up with White Flag Projects

Matthew Strauss, the founder and director of White Flag Projects, describes the current and upcoming exhibitions for 2010.

Vito Acconci at White Flag Projects

A 1983 interview with boundary-pushing artist/poet/designer Vito Acconci will be screened this Wednesday, January 20th, from 5-7 p.m., as the latest installment of White Flag’s DRINKS series. In addition to the video screening, which will commence at 6 p.m., the evening promises complimentary cocktails and good conversation (well, maybe).

Vito Acconci, a Bronx-born and Brooklyn-based artist, began his artistic endeavors with the written word. Though his work has since transitioned into photography, video, and performance-based installations, he never really left his passion for writing behind. Works such as Trademark (1970), where Acconci turns himself into a kind of human printing press by smearing self-induced bite marks with ink and subsequently pressing his ink-laden body parts onto paper, evidence, in one form or another, Acconci’s reverence for language.

Associated with both the conceptual art and body art movements of the late 1960’s, it’s no surprise that Acconci is known for his confrontational and often visceral performance pieces. He is perhaps most notorious for Seedbed (1972), in which he lay beneath the floor of Manhattan’s Sonnabed Gallery, masturbating and muttering his sexual fantasies about gallery go-ers through a microphone connected to a loudspeaker. The piece not only blurred the lines between public and private, removing control from Acconci and forcing it onto his unknowing subject, but also created a relationship between the artist and the public that was both intimate and disturbing. More recently Acconci has been exploring his interest in arguably more tame undertakings, such as architecture, and even founded his own architectural firm, Acconci Studio, in 1988.

Acconci received a B.A. in literature from Holy Cross College and an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Iowa. He has had solo shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, among others. He has also taught at a number of impressive academic and arts institutions including Cooper Union, Yale University, Parsons School of Design, and Brooklyn College.

DRINKS with Vito Acconci will be held Wednesday, January 20th from 5-7 p.m.; interview screening is at 6 p.m. For more details on the DRINKS series and other events at White Flag Projects, such as our current exhibition Love & Theft, visit www.whiteflagprojects.org.

- Lynna Borden, Intern

• Art Organization: Amy Broadway, The Pulitzer

Catching up with the Sheldon Art Galleries

Olivia Lahs-Gonzales, Director at the Sheldon Art Galleries, gives an overview of the Sheldon’s current exhibits.

Show Ending, New Year Beginning!

For those of you in St. Louis still looking for something exciting to do to bring in 2010, start with Grand Center’s First Night on New Year’s Eve. First Night is always full of exciting entertainment and activities and is an incredibly unique experience. The buttons you receive during First Night can be recycled for discounts at different Grand Center locations. Bring it in to the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and you’ll receive free admission OR $5.00 off of a Contemporary membership.

The rest of the first weekend in 2010 can be spent at the Contemporary since it will be the last couple of days of the current exhibition. For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there will close on Sunday, January 3. On Saturday, January 2, visitors can go on the Last Chance Tour in order to check out the show and the twenty artists one more time. Then on closing day, the 3rd, the Contemporary is hosting a Piñata Closing Party. Since the beginning of the show Mariana Castillo Deball’s Klein bottle-shaped piñata has hung above the Performance Space. On this day, guests will get to take turns swinging at the piñata. Yes, there are assorted objects and candies inside, and yes, guests will get to swarm to these prized possessions as they fall to the ground. There will also be festive music and free margaritas and the artist will be present! Learn more about Mariana Castillo Deball by reading the Artist Blog Series post on 2buildings1blog.org.

• Art Organization: Amy Broadway, The Pulitzer

Catching up with the Contemporary

Alex Elmestad, a graduate research assistant from University of Missouri–St. Louis, describes new media he’s working on at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.