KEVIN B. CHEN
The View From There

July 2013

 

The John Erickson Museum of Art (JEMA) is pleased to announce Kevin B. Chen’s exhibition, The View From There. Chen’s exhibition fills the JEMA gallery with a six-part graphite drawing of an expansive cityscape featuring synthesized architectural references from around the globe. Chen presents his fictional cityscape in such a way that the buildings occupy only a small portion of the paper. In The View From There, the cityscape fills a narrow space along the bottom of the picture plane. A massive untouched, white space floats above the city offering viewers room for contemplation. Chen states that his architectural imagery is not referencing real buildings, but rather representing “a prototypical modern urban landscape. The economic, cultural, religious, and territorial relationships between buildings and people form complex and oftentimes contentious spheres of interaction.” The View From There will travel upcoming JEMA exhibitions and most recently opened at Microdot Gallery, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, from July 19th – August 2nd, 2013.

Kevin B. Chen is represented by Jack Fischer Gallery in San Francisco, CA. He has exhibited throughout the San Francisco Bay Area including at Southern Exposure, New Langton Arts, Blankspace, California State University Chico, Mission Cultural Center, LoBot Gallery, SomArts Gallery, and Kearny Street Workshop. Originally from New Jersey, Chen graduated from Columbia University in 1994, with a degree in religion and psychology. Today he lives and works in Oakland, CA. [Continue]


Selected Solo Exhibitions include:
Jack Fischer Gallery (two-person show), San Francisco, CA, 2013.
Museum of Pocket Art at David Bruno Gallery, St. Louis, MO, 2011.

Selected Group Exhibitions include:
Actual Scale, Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA, 2013.
SpaceBi: Taking Up Space, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA, 2012.
Size Matters, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA, 2011.
Nuit Blanche (Lost in Translation), Ampersand International Arts, San Francisco, CA & Paris, France, 2004.

> View Kevin B. Chen’s Exhibition
> View the events related to The View From There

   
 
     
PARAIC LEAHY
Tight Squeeze

August 2012-2013

 

The John Erickson Museum of Art (JEMA) is pleased to announce Paraic Leahy’s exhibition, Tight Squeeze. For this exhibition, Leahy has installed high-density fiberboard on the gallery walls and painted two wall-sized murals on the fiberboard. Much of the raw fiberboard in the installation remains exposed and untouched and serves as negative space for his imagery. One mural depicts an abstracted, fragmented, architectural form. The other mural features a mysterious tree snare. Annette Moloney, JEMA’s curator for this exhibition, writes, “In the mediums of painting and drawing, [Leahy] presents what he describes as ‘non-scenes’, often focusing on images such as wounded animals as well as somewhat disrupted portraits. While the work is meticulously detailed, it is often unfinished, leaving viewers to question why.” Moloney traveled Leahy’s Tight Squeeze exhibition to take part as a show-within-a-show-within-a-show in The Museum of Miniature exhibition organized by artists and curators Tess Leak + Marie Brett at the Skibbereen Arts Festival, Co Cork, Ireland, July 28th – August 4th, 2012. More recently, Tight Squeeze was on view at Microdot Gallery, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, from July 19th – August 2nd, 2013. Thanks to Brendan Jamison and David Turner for traveling the exhibition to Microdot.

Paraic Leahy has received numerous awards including the Ucross Foundation Fellowship (Wyoming, U.S.A), North Tipperary Artist Support Scheme, Arts Council of Ireland Travel and Training Award, Claremorris Open Exhibition (Second Prize) and the Tyrone Gutherie Centre Bursary Award. He graduated from Limerick School of Art and Design in 2008 with an Honours Degree in Fine Art Painting. He is a Founding Member and Technician with Occupy Space, in Limerick City, Ireland. [Continue]


Selected Solo Exhibitions include:
The Nag Gallery, Dublin, Ireland, 2014.
Behold the Scaffolding on which Beauty is Built, Ormston House, Limerick, Ireland, 2013.

Selected Group Exhibitions include:
Modessqe 1st International Painting Contest, Warsaw, Poland, 2013.
Isolated Borders, curated by Kunsthaus, The Old Police Station, London, England, 2012.
The Water Tower Art Fest, Sofia, Bulgaria

> View Paraic Leahy’s Exhibition
> View the events related to Tight Squeeze

   
 
     
JIM DRAIN
KEYS TO THE COSMOS

May-June 2012

 

The John Erickson Museum of Art (JEMA) is proud to announce Jim Drain’s JEMA exhibition, Keys to the Cosmos . Drain’s exhibition is on view at Warning Art Gallery, for the exhibition WARNING! This Is Contemporary Art, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, from May 25-June 15, 2012. WARNING! This Is Contemporary Art is curated by Brendan Jamison and Brian Nixon. For his exhibition at JEMA, Jim Drain has transformed the gallery space into a shimmering cosmic space filled with found objects, figurative sculpture, and exploration.

Jim Drain is represented by Greene-Naftali Gallery in New York and his work is included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. He has exhibited at nationally and internationally including the Whitney Biennial (2002), Lyon Biennial, and exhibitions with Deitch Projects in New York. Drain is included in many major publications including the prestigious sculptural survey book Vitamin 3-D New Perspectives in Sculpture and Installation (2009). Originally from Cleveland, Drain graduated from RISD in 1998 with a BFA in sculpture. Today he lives and works in Miami, Florida. [Continue]

Selected Solo Exhibitions include:
tbd, Prism Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. 2012
New and Destroyed Works, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL., 2011.
Saturday's Ransom, Locust Projects, Miami, FL., 2010.
I Will Show You the Joy-Woe Man, Workspace at the Blanton Museum. University of Texas, Austin, 2009.

Selected Group Exhibitions include:
Transmission LA, MOCA Geffen, Los Angeles. Curated by Mike Diamond.
Dadarhea, Canada Gallery, New York (curated by Jim Drain and Devin Flynn).
A New York Minute, The Garage; Moscow, Russia, curated by Kathy Greyson (both solo and in collaboration with Ara Peterson).
Pig Presents. Deitch Projects, Long Island City, New York, curated by Gelitin and Paola Pivi, 2009.
The Third Annual Roggabogga, The Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (as part of the collaborative Forcefield), 2002.

> View Jim Drain’s Keys to the Cosmos Exhibition

   
 
     
GALEN OLMSTED
ANGEL SHIT

May-June 2012

 

JEMA is proud to travel Galen Olmsted’s exhibition Angel Shit to Warning Art Gallery, for the exhibition WARNING! This Is Contemporary Art, curated by Brendan Jamison and Brian Nixon, from May 25-June 15, 2012. Galen Olmsted works as a sculptor, installation artist, and ceramic artist. He utilizes porcelain as a material to explore ideas of formlessness, entropy, and to destabilize “porcelain’s exalted status as a pure material.” He creates multiple tubular and ball-like biomorphic abstractions with porcelain. Olmsted exhibits this work, which he calls Angel Shit, in a scatter art style, grouping the works into piles reminiscent of wreckage or cast-off organic forms. Art critic, Jenni Davidson, writes “Galen Olmsted’s Angel Shit subverts porcelain’s pure and white associations and re-interprets it as the dross of the earth’s surface.” For Olmsted’s JEMA exhibition, special custom modifications were made to the JEMA galleries to allow his work to most effectively reach the public. Olmsted’s work has been reviewed in Culture24, View TV Belfast, and Culture Northern Ireland. [Continue]

Selected Exhibitions include:
Angel Shit, University Gallery, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL., 2012.
(Un) Contained, WARPhaus Gallery, Gainesville, FL., 2012.
Currents: Past & Present 2011, Thomas Center Gallery, Gainesville, FL., 2011.
The Weave is Loose, but the Wool is Warm, WARPhaus, Gainesville, FL., 2010.
Feats of Clay, juried international, Lincoln, CA., 2008.

> View Galen Olmsted’s Angel Shit Exhibition

   
 
     
NEXT CHAPTER PROJECT SPACES
June 2010-Ongoing

 

JEMA is pleased to present the museum’s new wing of Next Chapter Project Spaces. These new galleries are predicated on the idea that a piece of paper may function as viable (and economical) museum exhibition space. Numerous Next Chapter spaces recently opened in Small Wonder at Golden Thread Gallery (Belfast, Northern Ireland), Museum All-Over/Museo Ovunque at Raccolte Frugone museum (Genoa, Italy), and UnimediaModern Contemporary Art (Genoa, Italy) with installations by an international range of artists including: William Artt, Karin Bamford, Martin Boyle, Derrick Buisch, Laurie Cinotto, Craig Coleman, Joy Drury Cox, Joelle Dietrick & Owen Mundy, Aideen Doran, Leah Floyd, Adam Frezza, Tony Hill, Connie Hwang, Brendan Jamison, Joanna Karolini, Wes Kline, Joshua Kubisz, Fiona Larkin, LuLu LoLo, Cyriaco Lopes, Ciaran Magill, Miguel Martin, Deirdra McKenna, Arnold Mesches, Craig Miller, Julia Morrisroe, Robert Mueller, Aisling O’Beirn, Katy Olmsted, Eleanor Phillips, Erika Reid, Peter Richards, Kelly Rogers, Dan Shipsides, Bethany Taylor, John Westmark, and Summer Zickefoose. The Next Chapter Project Spaces involved multiple curators including: Maria Flora Giubilei (Raccolte Frugone Museum), Caterina Gualco (UnimediaModern Contemporary Art), Brendan Jamison (Independent), Sarah McAvera (Golden Thread), Sean Miller (JEMA), and Eleanor Phillips (Independent).

> View Selected Next Chapter Projects by Artists Listed Above
> View Video of JEMA Director’s Report Introducing Next Chapter Spaces

   
 
     
BEN PATTERSON
BOLLYWOOD LOVE: OBJECT OF DESIRE
June-August 2010

 

JEMA is proud to announce Ben Patterson’s exhibition BOLLYWOOD LOVE: OBJECT OF DESIRE (A Non-Motion Pictures Installation for the John Erickson Museum of Art). Patterson’s JEMA exhibition opens simultaneously at Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast, Northern Ireland and at UnimediaModern Contemporary Art in Genoa, Italy on June 4th & 5th, 2010. Ben Patterson, is internationally known for his affiliation with Fluxus movement/group and his diverse multidisciplinary experimental work in the realms of music, sound poetry, collage, performance, and installation. His works Variations for Double-Bass, Paper Piece, among others, are strong contributions to the early Fluxus era as well as notable contributions to the dialogue of contemporary multidisciplinary art. Patterson has exhibited and performed widely in numerous venues in locations such as Brisbane, Australia, Argentina, Delhi, India, Prague, Czechoslovakia, Winnipeg, Canada, Tusa, Sicily, and elsewhere. In addition to creating art and composing, Ben Patterson operates the Museum for the Sub-Conscious. [Continue]

Please view BOLLYWOOD LOVE exhibition and video and stills of Patterson’s Paper Piece performed @ JEMA

> View Ben Patterson’s BOLLYWOOD LOVE: OBJECT OF DESIRE
> View video of PAPER PIECE @ JEMA
> View stills of PAPER PIECE

   
 
     
BRENDAN JAMISON
REICHSTAG ZUCKERTÜTE KUPPEL
June-December 2009

 

JEMA is pleased to announce Brendan Jamison’s Reichstag Zuckertüte Kuppel (Reichstag Sugar-cube Dome). This exhibition by Belfast-based sculptor Brendan Jamison, features a sugar-cube dome sculpture depicting the world famous Reichstag dome designed by Norman Foster. The addition, of a sugar-cube dome to the JEMA galleries and collection commemorates the 10th anniversary of the addition of Foster’s dome to The Reichstag in Berlin, Germany. On June 16th, 2009, at Queen Street Studios Gallery in Belfast, Northern Ireland Jamison held a special event to wrap the Sugar-cube dome. Artists from Belfast, members of Queen Street Studios, and JEMA staff were on hand to ceremoniously prepare and wrap the dome for international travel. On Sunday, June 28th, at 8:30 pm, Jamison’s Reichstag Zuckertüte Kuppel was delivered, unwrapped, unveiled, and exhibited at Platz der Republik, The Reichstag, Berlin, Germany. On Tuesday, September 8th, Jamison and JEMA traveled Reichstag Zuckertüte Kuppel to the Samuel P. Harn Museum in Gainesville, FL. to begin its U.S. tour. [Continue]

> View Brendan Jamison’s Reichstag Zuckertüte Kuppel.
> View Reichstag Zuckertüte Kuppel in Belfast, Berlin, and Florida.

   
 
     
KELLY COBB and CONNIE HWANG
ART MUSEUM DUST COLLECTION
March 2009

 

JEMA is pleased to announce Kelly Cobb and Connie Hwang’s new Art Museum Dust Collection. Cobb and Hwang have created new works utilizing microscopy images by Sean Miller which document art museum dust from around the world. Connie Hwang has created an Art Museum Dust Montage which covers JEMA’s walls. Kelly Cobb has transformed art museum dust imagery into a digitally woven fabric and Cobb’s Art Museum Dust Collection Weaving is exhibited as a floor treatment for this exhibition in the JEMA galleries.

JEMA proudly traveled this exhibition to Spazio Utopia Contemporary Art, in Campagna, Italy and the Museum of Arts and Sciences, Macon, Georgia. On March 11th, 2009, the exhibition arrived in Genoa, Italy and traveled in a series of museum interventions organized by Genoa-based curator Caterina Gualco of UnimediaModern Contemporary Art. Art Museum Dust Collection traveled to the following institutions: Villa Croce Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Museo di Strada Nuova, Galleria d’Arte Moderna of Genoa, Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola, l'Aula Magna dell'Università di Genova, and UnimediaModern Contemporary Art. [Continue]

> View Kelly Cobb and Connie Hwang’s Exhibition
> View Art Museum Dust Collection in Genoa, Italy

   
 
     
LULU LOLO
Sculpting and Collecting Campagna
August 2008

 

JEMA is pleased to announce LuLu LoLo’s exhibition Sculpting and Collecting Campagna. On August 8th, 2008, LuLu LoLo, JEMA’s new Dust Collecting Specialist, opened her JEMA exhibition, Sculpting and Collecting Campagna, at Spazio Utopia Contemporary Art, in Campagna, Italy. This project coincided with Campagna’s annual Rassegna Dell'Acqua-La Chiena exhibition curated by Angelo Riviello. For her exhibition, LuLu declared the entire town of Campagna a work of art. Performing as a sculptor, collector, archeologist, and conservator - LuLu LoLo worked to dust, maintain, and celebrate Campagna (down to the smallest particle). The collected bits of Campagna were archived in a new JEMA gallery, lined with shelves, cases, and vials to hold and organize the dust. As LuLu dusted Campagna, she traveled her JEMA exhibition through the town, met citizens, conducted research, and offered JEMA museum tours to viewers. Performing as a museum collector and sculptor, LuLu imported Campagna’s finest dust into JEMA’s collection. As JEMA gathered dust it filled like an hourglass - marking the time the museum remained open in Campagna. Compagna became a reductive sculpture of sorts and the JEMA exhibition space became an additive sculptural project. Like chipping marble or sanding wood LuLu LoLo highlighted the finest in Campagna’s nature (macro and micro). LuLu’s removal and collection of dust coincided with the purification of the town of Campagna when the town’s streets are intentionally flooded with the river Tenza for the annual celebration of La Chiena. Click to read more about LuLu LoLo.

> View Sculpting and Collecting Campagna at JEMA
> View LuLu LoLo collecting the dust of Campagna, Italy

   
 
     
ANDREA ROBBINS and MAX BECHER
Bavarian By Law is in Place
May - September 2008

 

The John Erickson Museum of Art is proud to announce Bavarian By Law is in Place, an exhibition by Andrea Robbins and Max Becher. Robbins and Becher document the conditions of cultural simulation, mimesis, and artifice that occur due to political events, tourism, entertainment, and cultural longing. Their collaborative photos function as "surreal nonfiction" and demonstrate a lucid vision (as much as this is possible) of the growing global phenomenon of displacement, fabricated identity, and cultural confusion. In 1995/96 Robbins and Becher created the photographic series Bavarian By Law which documented the people, architecture, and landscape of Leavenworth, Washington. Leavenworth was a subject of interest for Robbins/Becher due to a Bavarian town makeover that took place in the 1960’s. Robbins/Becher write, “In the 1960's, after a period of economic decline… Leavenworth, Washington decided to alter its image in order to attract tourism… Bavaria was chosen as the new look for the town, not because of any significant cultural connection, but mostly because the surrounding landscape resembles alpine Germany.” In May 2008, JEMA traveled Bavarian By Law is in Place to Leavenworth, Washington and the exhibition opened at 12:53 pm and coincided with Leavenworth’s 2008 Mayfest Celebration and annual Mayfest Parade. Mayfest is one of the events originally photographed for Bavarian By Law. When JEMA director, Sean Miller joined the Mayfest Parade procession the subject matter of the photos and the exhibition aligned and Bavarian By Law was in place. [Continue]

> View Bavarian By Law is in Place at JEMA
> View Bavarian By Law is in Place at JEMA in Leavenworth

   
 
     
CYRÍACO LOPES
REALDOLLAR
June - September 2008

 

The John Erickson Museum of Art is proud to announce REALDOLLAR, an installation by Cyríaco Lopes. This multimedia project utilizes photo-based work, video, and music, to address aspects of cultural exchange between Brazil and the U.S. as it relates to their national economies. Lopes states, “REALDOLLAR traces a parallel between the inequality of exchange [between the nations] both in terms of currency and culture.” REALDOLLAR is a continuation of a project (of the same name) created by Lopes in 2003 when he used a grant from the Contemporary Art Museum in Saint Louis to buy $1000 of Brazilian art and R$1000 of U.S. art (1000 Reals, the Brazilian currency). He was able to acquire 7 multiples by Brazilian artists (Lygia Pape, Waltércio Caldas, Carlos Zílio, José Resende, Nuno Ramos, Marcos Chaves, and Hilal Sami Hilal), and only one multiple by a U.S. artist (a photograph by David Levinthal). The collected works were then donated back to the museum. Instead of exhibiting the art, Lopes exhibited the packaging and with prices in Reals and Dollars, accompanied by labels referring to the actual pieces. [Continue]

> View Lopes Exhibition Images

   
 
     
GREGORY GREEN
Caroline A NEW FUTURE:
A Project of the New Free State of Caroline

April - September 2008

 

The John Erickson Museum of Art proudly invites the public to visit and view a new official consulate of The New Free State of Caroline. On April 5th, 2008, JEMA visitors in Belfast, U.K., gained the opportunity to “see a little art”, visit an official consulate, and become citizens of a new free state. The New Free State of Caroline is a nation founded in 1996 by artist Gregory Green. On April 1, 2008, Green approved the opening of a new Caroline Consulate, at JEMA, in the city of Belfast. Green and Sean Miller (newly appointed Caroline Consul General) traveled the mobile Caroline Consulate throughout Belfast on a variety of cultural and diplomatic efforts including: greeting citizens, delivering presentations, accepting interviews, meeting British Naval personal, a flag-raising ceremony at the Europa Hotel, and issuing the first passport of the New Free State of Caroline to Belfast resident, Caroline Pugh.

In May, JEMA traveled Caroline Consulate to the Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD., where it remains until August 2008. Click to read more about Green and the New Free State of Caroline.

> View Belfast Consulate for the New Free State of Caroline
> View Diplomatic Events In Belfast

   
 
     
YOKO ONO
IMAGINE PEACE
April, 2008

 

For the month of April, the John Erickson Museum of Art (JEMA) is in Belfast, U.K. and we are proud to travel Yoko Ono’s IMAGINE PEACE exhibition to Golden Thread Gallery, Flaxart Studios, and other venues in Belfast. Yoko Ono’s exhibition at JEMA includes her text-based work IMAGINE PEACE (2007) as well as WISH PIECE (1996).

Viewers are invited to attend JEMA’s new outdoor sculpture garden and contribute to two of Ono’s Wish Trees by writing wishes on provided pieces of paper and adding them to the branches of the trees. In time, all wishes will be gathered and sent to The IMAGINE PEACE TOWER on Videy Island, Rekjavik, Iceland. Click to read Ono’s statement for IMAGINE PEACE.

Yoko Ono is a major contributor to the field of international Conceptual Art. Her early work as part of the international avant-garde and her affiliation with the Fluxus group is filled with diverse groundbreaking work in the areas experimental film, sound art, site-specific works, and performance. Her collaborative activist projects with John Lennon and her keen ability to send political messages through mass media outlets preceded and anticipated the work of many contemporary interventionist artists. In 2000–2001 Yoko Ono’s exhibition, Yes, won the International Association of Art Critics/USA Award for Best Museum Show Originating in New York City.

Selected Solo Exhibitions include:
Yoko Ono: Between The Sky And My Head, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany, August - November 2008.
Yoko Ono: Touch Me, Gallery LeLong, New York, NY, April - May 2008,
Yes, Yoko Ono, SFMOMA, SF, CA. June – September 2002.

Selected Group Exhibitions include:
Bucharest Biennale, Bucharest, Romania, May - June 2008.
WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, P.S.1 MoMA, Video installations, February - May 2008.
Paul McCarthy's Low Life Slow Life Part 1, California College of Art, San Francisco, CA, Films of Yoko Ono, 7 February 2008 - 12 April 2008.

> View Ono Exhibition
> View What’s New Events for Ono Exhibition in Belfast

   
 
     
ARNOLD MESCHES
Coming Attractions 2: Man-Made
September, 2007

 

The John Erickson Museum of Art proudly presents Coming Attractions 2: Man-Made by Arnold Mesches. Coming Attractions 2: Man-Made is a drawing-based installation featuring wall-to-wall frenetic marks of pen and ink imagery.
Mesches creates densely populated urban scenes composed of seemingly endless layered, linear depictions of architecture, humanity, advertising signage, and evidence of gluttonous consumption. Mesches’s grim, foreboding, non-stop cityscape functions as a net that ensnares its populous and blocks any possibility of even a horizon or sky. Mesches offers an all-encompassing image of information and materialistic overload and no exit routes are available from his scenes of intricate urban sprawl. JEMA was pleased to exhibit Coming Attractions 2: Man-Made at Deitch Projects’s Art Parade 2007 in SoHo, NYC (sponsored by Deitch Projects, Creative Time, and Paper Magazine). [Continue]

Click to learn more about Mesches and Coming Attractions by reading Robert Storr’s new essay “By the Rivers of Babylon”

> View Mesches Exhibition
> View Mesches Opening at Art Parade 2007 in SoHo

   
 

     
JOHN KIELTYKA
Guards
September, 2007

 

The John Erickson Museum of Art is pleased to present the exhibition Guards by John Kieltyka. The Guards exhibition includes selections from Kieltyka’s photographic series of B&W portraits documenting the guard staff from the Seattle Art Museum (SAM). Guards was created in 1994 when Kieltyka worked as a museum guard for SAM. The JEMA gallery that exhibits Kieltyka’s Guards is a replica of a gallery at SAM. This third floor gallery was a location where museum guards, including Kieltyka, were regularly stationed.

Kieltyka writes, “Just about every guard I met was an artist of some sort; there were painters, photographers, musicians, actors, writers... We walked. And walked. And walked. Once the excitement of looking at the art faded, the monotony set in... For people who wanted so much to be a vital part of the art community, we were essentially anonymous.” JEMA proudly exhibited a gallery with selected images from Kieltyka’s Guards series at Art Parade 2007 in SoHo, NYC (sponsored by Deitch Projects, Creative Time, and Paper Magazine). [Continue]

> View Kieltyka Exhibition Images
> View Guards at Art Parade 2007 in SoHo

   
 
     
JOHN FEODOROV
dead houses
July, 2007

 

JEMA is pleased to present dead houses, an installation by John Feodorov. dead houses utilizes photographic murals of abandoned homes, appropriated toy houses, sound elements, and a partially deconstructed gallery wall to create a portrait of architectural entropy. With this vision, Feodorov examines the displacement that routinely occurs to various homes and communities in the U.S. due to gentrification and suburban sprawl. Gilded monopoly-like game pieces sit on pedestals throughout the installation referencing standardized look-alike “model homes.” Feodorov writes, “On a hill near my own neighborhood, several blocks of low-income housing were recently bulldozed to make room for a new real estate development... at one time they supplied shelter, warmth, and perhaps even comfort to families in need... these squalid vacant dwellings... contained remnants of dreams.” [Continue]

> View Feodorov's Exhibition

   
 
     
KRISTIN LUCAS
Outside
May, 2007 - ongoing

 

JEMA is pleased to announce Kristin Lucas’s exhibition, Outside. This exhibition utilizes the JEMA galleries as a hub for public forum discussions meant to define and locate the Outside in Weimar, Germany. Described by Lucas as “part reality shakedown, part philosophical journey”, her project “seeks to bring together participants in search of the Outside.” Throughout April and May, Lucas traveled with JEMA varying the museum’s location throughout Weimar. Lucas held gallery talks, meetings, and public events. She used JEMA as a public space to discuss the Outside with archivists, philosophers, architects, students, children, seniors, historians, environmentalists, artists, professors, local business owners, tourists, translators, video game enthusiasts, activists, and concerned individuals. [Continue]

> View Lucas's work in the JEMA galleries
> View Kristin Lucas "Outside" Events

   
 
     
SEAN TAYLOR
100 Paces
February, 2007

 

The John Erickson Museum of Art is pleased to announce Sean Taylor's exhibition 100 Paces. For this exhibition, Tayor collaborated with a platoon of regular Irish Defense Force soldiers. 100 Paces is a video and photo-based installation based on a site-specific choral/drill and sound piece created for Clarke Square at the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, Dublin, Ireland.

Taylor's 100 Paces appropriates formalized drill combinations and the musical repertoire of the Irish Defense Forces. Singing, shouting, and marching sounds compliment the movements of the soldiers and create a unique contemporary choral/performance piece. [Continue]

> View Taylor's video, 100 Paces
> View Opening for Sean Taylor

   
 
     
SAYA MORIYASU
audience
December, 2006

 

It is with great pleasure that the John Erickson Museum of Art announces Saya Moriyasu’s installation, audience. For this site-specific work Moriyasu created 50 hand-made, figurative, ceramic sculptures. Her installation portrays a diverse art audience of 50 individuals of varied ages and personalities. Moriyasu describes her audience as a depiction of a “ghost audience” that haunts the “white cube” of the gallery. The gallery walls are bare and there is no art to view. With the exception of the exhibition sign at the gallery entrance there is nothing on the walls. However audience continues, undaunted, to view work and socialize. [Continue]

> View Moriyasu Exhibit Images
> View Moriyasu's Opening Images

   
 
     
BETHANY TAYLOR
Emissions & Remissions
October, 2006

 

The John Erickson Museum of Art proudly announces Bethany Taylor’s exhibition, Emissions and Remissions. In this site-specific work Taylor uses string as a drawing medium and weaves delicate, transient drawings made from thread. Taylor’s string imagery metaphorically unravels and unfolds on to the gallery walls to reveal vapors, water, gases, floods, humans, plants, and animals struggling to adapt to climate change. The drawings scatter throughout JEMA’s gallery, only to escape and wander beyond the museum space. The drawings literally become uncontainable transmissions as they migrate outside of JEMA’s museum space and disperse on to the walls of Ice Box Gallery and dissipate on to the streets of downtown Tacoma. [Continue]

> View Taylor Exhibit Images
> View Taylor's Opening

   
 
     
SCOTT BETZ
NC2MI&MI2NC
March, 2006


 

JEMA is pleased to announce a web-based video and site-specific work by Scott Betz, titled NC2MI&MI2NC. Betz’s site-specific project utilizes JEMA's location variability to create a traveling exhibition that is informed by its route through the United States. JEMA travels Betz's exhibition from his home state of North Carolina to the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art (UICA), in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In addition, the video NC2MI&MI2NC is exhibited concurrently at the Sawtooth Art Center in Winston-Salem. NC2MI&MI2NC traces the events of 1926, 1958, and 2005 in North Carolina and ties these events to Michigan and U.S. history. [Continue]

> View Betz Exhibit Images

   
 
     
MICHAEL McCAFFERTY
Body Compass
January, 2006

 

JEMA is pleased to announce Body Compass, an exhibition by Michael McCafferty. Body Compass is a title McCafferty uses to describe a series of varied installations, earthworks, ritual-style performances, and body art produced over the last 30 years. This exhibition includes a floor installation and photographic documentation of selected site-specific performances and earthworks. For this installation, McCafferty requested JEMA's location variable gallery space be physically moved and aligned North, South, East, and West. JEMA itself becomes an architectural compass.

McCafferty, a prominent Northwest artist, discussed his thoughts concerning artmaking and ritual in Lucy Lippard's 1983 book Overlay. McCafferty stated, “The difference between artmaking and ritual is one of efficacy; artmaking is one step behind impact. Ritual solicits, elicits impact by humbly building and tapering off.... Artwork is social but more personal in the making. Ritual is social."
[Continue]

> View McCafferty Exhibit Images

   
 
     
DERRICK BUISCH
Pink Flag
December, 2005

 

JEMA proudly announces Derrick Buisch's exhibition Pink Flag. Buisch presents 21 paintings inspired by the punk band Wire's 1977 LP Pink Flag. Wire's debut release, Pink Flag, featured 21 songs in 35 minutes of recorded music. Wire's intense, raw, minimal approach to Punk music has served as an important creative marker for Buisch informing his art philosophy and approach to painting.

Buisch states, "This seminal album has over the past 20 years served as a point of reference to a few of my creative activities. Recently, in the last 7 years, Wire has been integral to the way that I have tried to approach what could otherwise be perceived as very pure painting." [Continue]

> View Buisch Exhibit Images

   
 
     
MARK TAKAMICHI MILLER
One Hour Photo Paintings
January, 2005


 

JEMA is pleased to announce Mark Takamichi Miller’s exhibition One Hour Photo Paintings. Miller, a Seattle-based artist, finds subject matter in the return bins at Costco photo centers. Miller browses and borrows snapshots from the public pick-up bins and obtains a wide variety of imagery from anonymous amateur photo enthusiasts. This imagery becomes the basis for his work. Miller reproduces the snapshots faithfully without changing the composition or color. However, he imbues them with extreme “painterly” surfaces, and de-emphasizes the details over the formal qualities found in the original. Initially, Miller attempted to return the photos. He brought the photos back to the bins for customer-pick-up (and even include photos of his paintings). Unfortunately the CEO of Costco went to an exhibit of this work and has put controls in place to prevent the altered “second set” from being returned to the customers.

Miller’s oil paintings for this exhibition are sculptural and covered with extreme applications of paint. In these figurative pieces the piled paint literally holds 3-D characteristics that correspond to the human proportions it is depicting. Miller states, “The painterly application de-emphasizes the story of the people and… emphasizes the unintentional formal elements.” [Continue]

> View Miller Exhibit Images
> View Miller's Opening

   
 
     
LAURIE CINOTTO
Limited Space and Creative Living Are Compatible
When a Room Works Double Duty

October, 2004

 

JEMA is delighted to present a new installation by Laurie Cinotto entitled Limited Space and Creative Living Are Compatible When a Room Works Double Duty. Cinotto’s visual vocabulary pulls from craft items, trinkets, old photos, and aged personal possessions. Her found materials are collaged, assembled or recontextualized in ways that expose the dark or sad side of decoration, ornamentation, and kitsch. Cinotto's work questions how we create memories and consider the passage of time. Her work often incorporates themes of sentimentality, domesticity, and women’s work.

Ann Fahey writes in Art Papers (1999), “ Cinotto has manipulated what is familiar, so that we believe we recognize what is being presented to us, but on second glance we realize that all is artifice. These objects merely allude to something familiar, or American. In this way, the impression is of a diary, very autobiographical, eerily personal, while the reality is of a more universal set of objects that represent everyone’s diary, an entire culture’s collection of keepsakes.” [Continue]

> View Cinotto Exhibit Images
> View Cinotto's Opening Images

   
 
     
Permanent Collection Exhibition
June, 2004


 

The John Erickson Museum of Art spent the month of June at the Limerick City Gallery of Art in Ireland. JEMA exhibited works recently chosen for its permanent collection. The exhibition included works by Kim Anderson, Craig Coleman, Kate Coleman, Lauren Garber, John Kieltyka, and Steve Panella. JEMA Director, Sean Miller, traveled with the collection and was available to answer questions and offer tours. For more about JEMA’s Permanent Collection visit The Collection page.

> View Permanent Collection Exhibit Images
> View the Permanent Collection's Opening

   
 
     
LAUREN GARBER
in holding in
April, 2004


 

JEMA is pleased to present Lauren Garber’s exhibition in holding in.
Garber is a Florida-based artist. She creates drawings inspired by ideas of “separation, constraints and restrictions, migration, chance, and ultimately loss.” Through economy of line and rich surfaces, Garber creates beautiful drawings that “suggest the constant negotiation between the intuitive and the physical manifestation of thought and desire.”

Garber most recently exhibited work in Thinking in Line- A Survey of Contemporary Drawing, an exhibition curated by Ron Janowich and
John Moore. [Continue]

> View Garber Exhibit Images

   
 
     
KIM ANDERSON
Ways of Seeing Inside Out
February, 2004


 

The John Erickson Museum of Art proudly announces an exhibition of oil paintings by Kim Anderson. This latest JEMA exhibition is titled, Ways of Seeing Inside Out and features oil paintings inspired by video footage of esteemed art critics and writers. The exhibition will feature portraits of such personalities as John Berger, Arthur C. Danto, Clement Greenberg, Robert Hughes, Lucy Lippard, and Barbara Rose. Currently video footage (sometimes film) of these theorists is degrading and discoloring. As technology advances and time passes the footage of these important thinkers awaits two possible fates: (1) to fall out of circulation or (2) become digitally re-mastered for DVD. We will never view these critics again as we view them now.

The discolored, blurry image of the critic serves as a metaphor for the test that time holds for their theories. JEMA commissioned these critic portraits from Anderson. We are interested in the idea that the video stills (for the most part) were often pulled from footage where the critics also controlled somewhat the presentation of their image. [Continue]

> View Anderson Exhibit Images

   
 
     
MANDY SHEEDY
The Forces That Make Us Live or Die
January, 2004


 

Mandy Sheedy, an artist based in Portland, Oregon, exhibits an installation titled The Forces That Make Us Live or Die. The installation includes photographic wallpaper featuring imagery of the artist's body. Sheedy pressed herself against a flatbed scanner and allowed the folds of her skin to create repetitive patterns. She duplicated these patterns and used them to create wallpaper imagery. A repeated image of a tattoo is even visible on the wall imagery. Within the gallery, Sheedy has stacked delicate, deteriorating, hand-sewn bags of soil. Vegetation sprouts from the bags through tiny holes. The bags offer a heavy physical earthy presence within the space and simultaneously evoke symbols of life, death, and the hereafter. [Continue]

> View Sheedy Exhibit and Opening Images
> Read about Sheedy's Opening

   
 
   
SERGIO VEGA
High Art
Winter, 2003


 

Sergio Vega presents a photographic installation that explores critical issues related to High Art through the testimonies of parrots recorded in the jungles of Brazil. The series Stills from the Genesis According to Parrots addresses topics such as the Creation of the Garden of Eden in South America, art making, cultural narcissism and colonialism. In 1999 Sergio Vega received The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Visit the What’s New? section for more on High Art. [Continue]

> View Vega Exhibit Images
> View Vega Opening

   
 
     
JESSE PAUL MILLER
self-portrait (studio)
July, 2003


 

The first exhibit at JEMA was the work of Jesse Paul Miller. Jesse is a Seattle artist that currently resides across the street from the Seattle Art Museum. His exhibition entitled self portrait (studio) marked the Grand Opening of JEMA.

Below you can find a link to Jesse Miller’s artist statement. In his statement Jesse Miller (no relation to Sean Miller) mentions that he moved into a loft once occupied by Sean Miller. That space is also part of the subject of Jesse Miller’s exhibition at JEMA. [Continue]

> View Exhibition Images
> View Installation and Opening