Schüss Parkhaus 15

This is not a review of an exhibition space but an overview of its striking impact on the Orlando art scene. Parkhaus 15 will be closing its physical space in Orlando this coming weekend. Sandra Zanetti and her staff of volunteers re-purposed a single car garage in an apartment complex, converting it into a vortex of creativity to see and experience something scarce in the city of Orlando, exemplary and fresh art. To top it off, they started this during the height of COVID. Sandra has stated that Parkhaus 15 was born out of frustration with the lack of alternative spaces for artists in Central Florida.

Sandra curated local and national artists, creating contemporary conversations lacking in Central Florida. Contemporary art should be more than just visual gratification, the mastery of the medium, or catering to the dollar. Art should spark uncomfortable conversations, educate you on different views and cultures, make you question your place in the neighborhood and the universe. It should expose you to beauty, question your reality, and demonstrate the complexity of this world from an LGBTQ perspective, a minority perspective, a gender perspective, a disability perspective, a religious perspective… throw the kitchen sink into the mix! Parkhaus has accomplished more in a year than the Orlando Museum of Art or City Arts has in their history because of their apparent fear to take risks or fail.

This Thursday and Friday will be the last opportunity to step into the physical space of what remains of the original Parkhaus 15. Sandra plans to create a VR app so the gallery can continue to exist and be viewable with Oculus VR headsets. I wish her a fond farewell as we lose another creative mover and shaker in the Orlando area. 

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“Taking Aim” An Exhibition at the Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts

“Taking Aim” An Exhibition at the Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts.

Final post for October AIR, postcards and more…

Final post for October AIR, postcards and more….

Postcard #5 by Robert Clarke-Davis

Postcard #5 by Robert Clarke-Davis.

Postcard #4 by Robert Clarke-Davis

Postcard #4 by Robert Clarke-Davis.

Tinted Windows by AIR Ivan Riascos

Tinted Windows by AIR Ivan Riascos.

Review of the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art at the OMA

I was very excited to have witnessed this past weekend, the inaugural show of the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art at the Orlando Museum of Art. It is the first time such an award and show has been executed in Central Florida and it has long been overdue. In the past the Orlando Museum of Art has been somewhat conservative but has been progressing slowly to bring a current exhibition of what is happening currently in the contemporary art world. Giving visitors a visual experience that there is more beyond abstraction, tropical sunsets, palm trees, nudes, and low-brow art. We have longed moved away from art movements of Impression, Pop Art, and Surrealism and it is nice to finally see a show that is refreshing, which is rare for viewers in Central Florida to experience unless you frequent museums in South Florida or Art Basel in South Beach. The artists that gave my senses the most impact both visually and mentally, and which I will be writing about in this post were: Sarah Max Beck, Vanessa Diaz, Ezra Johnson, Jillian Mayer, and Agustina Woodgate.

Sarah Max Beck is a sculptor. I heard her speak a couple of months ago about her process and how she got to this point as an artist making tapestries using plastic bags. It was a very personal story of how she was a caregiver and she did not know what she was doing with her life at that moment, so she started weaving plastic bags that were used to deliver newspapers, bargain newsletters, and such. Viewing these large quilts you see how colorful and beautiful plastic bags can be but at the same time upon closer inspection the smell, and the texture of the plastic makes it feel abrasive and uncomfortable unlike a normal quilt. Thoughts of large amounts of waste and longevity start to creep into my mind. Her work makes me think of El Anatsui, who also made fabric like tapestries using scrap metal which is found in large quantities in his country. Sarah’s quilts references our waste culture.

Vanessa Diaz is another artist that I had the opportunity to see prior to this exhibition, and I must say the venue where her artwork is displayed plays a big part on how I experienced her work. Her work are site specific installations, and the ones I responded to the most at the Orlando Museum of Art were; Here Enticement is Not Always Difficult, Upon Which Everything Rests, and Where Traps Can Be Set at One’s Good Pleasure. She takes objects and gives them a new form or function giving you a different perspective on an everyday object, for example Where Traps Can Be Set at One’s Good Pleasure is made up bedposts she found, which she then seamlessly joined two top ends to make them into one long piece, giving them a look of big bulky javelins piled on the floor forming a bonfire before it is lit. I found this piece funny and at the same time very real making a comment on what happens in relationships in the bedroom. Here Enticement is Not Always Difficult, and Upon Which Everything Rests made me think of missing parts of a history unknown to me, sadness, new type of furniture design, and viewing objects differently than what they have been intended for.

Ezra Johnson’s paintings I found very refreshing using very lose brush strokes, collaging pieces from magazines and other sources, and using dark colors. Reclining Nude I found both sexy and vulgar at the same time. Reclining Nude and Coffee Table Group had a mix of influences such as; graffiti, Henri Matisse, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It has been four years since I have witnessed a passionate use of brush strokes so determined in emitting genuine emotions. He also had paintings he used to create a stop motion video animation titled Stranded in a House, which heavily references William Kentridge. The video is under three minutes long but the desperation of the main character going in and out every room in the video trying to find a way out this house starts to set in.

Jillian Meyer’s work spoke to me the most, because she made me think about how technology is around us on an everyday basis, and sometimes goes undetected because, we are getting accustomed to it, or we do not question it. She uses video, installation, photography and humor to make us aware of the real world and virtual world. Simulacrums of catchy 80’s pop-tune videos (Mega Mega Upload), home shopping network, DIY’s Youtube videos, online portraits, and the sky, she makes the viewers question our interaction with the virtual world. In a small skit from her video titled PostModem, she uses satire of the home shopping network where you can purchase in just only three easy payments of $399.99 your own personal vortex where you can never feel the loss of someone close to you because you can place them in there eternally and at the same time get rid of unwanted items easily, such as a tamagotchi. Thinking about it don’t we all live in our own constructed vortex already? In her installation Cloud Swing, the viewer is welcomed to sit on a swing set, but the sky is just a projection with our shadows breaking the visual plane as we swing back and forth. Her artwork makes the viewer question the virtual versus reality, the analog versus the digital and the big roles they play in our lives.

Agustina Woodgate was this year’s recipient of Florida Prize in Contemporary Art. I can understand why since they are very beautiful pieces. Seven Seas, Milky Way, and Peacock are all made from the skin of stuffed toy animals, which references oriental rugs. Seven Seas and Milky Way start to morph into visual maps of some sort, which play well with her other two pieces; Simplified Maps and Beginning Maps, where she took world maps that hang in almost every world history class in schools, then she sanded them down erasing all the words, borders, or any information and leaving only the hues that represented the country.  In these two bodies of work she creates her own maps that have no boundaries that have been defined by society or will ever be.

Overall this exhibition is a delight in the Orlando area, and must see for people to become informed about the world of contemporary art, and the Florida artists that help create them.

Pt. 3 (Final) of my thesis

En El Nombre de…(In Thy Name of…) Inkjet Print, 2014.

 

THE EXPERIENCE

The second body of work for my thesis exhibition celebrates a real life experience that seemed to pose the question, “Is God speaking to me?”

The experience in question happened about two years ago, when a blue notebook appeared on top of an electrical transformer in my neighborhood.  After several days of noticing the book go unmoved, my curiosity finally won and I opened the book.  I was amazed to find pages filled with color slides, with images touching on religious themes of astronomy, idolatry, creationism, morality, natural disasters, paganism, history, and religious iconography.  The slides may have been used as part of a sermon, because each page was labeled by subject matter and with a brief description in Spanish.  I began to wonder, “Is this experience directed only at me?”  I thought this because I found this notebook two houses down from my address, and because I collect things related to photography.  Furthermore, the writing throughout the notebook was in Spanish, and the majority of the enclosed images related to religion in some form.  In the past people who claim to have communicated with God typically describe their experiences as voices in their heads, some type of apparition, or something that they alone understand.  My own, strange experience could be characterized in those terms.

The sculptures Zarza Ardiente (Burning Bush), and El Vitral de Pedro (Peter’s Stained Glass Window) are inspired by this experience (Figs. 11, 12).  I began to relate my experience to Moses and the Burning Bush because both of us interacted with an inanimate object that was the vehicle for communication with a higher power.  I do believe my unusual experience was addressed to me, and it became my responsibility to create artwork to share with people.

My intentions with Zarza Ardiente was to recreate a life-size, common electrical transformer that is found in the suburbs, but at the same time is an object that does not seem part of this world, to evoke a spiritual feeling, since I wanted it to coincide with my experience, and to be more spiritual than religious.  With the slides my intention was to create a vehicle that had a double function.  I wanted to simulate a stained glass window, because as a child I would sit in church looking at the beautiful colors emanating from the glass and their distorting effect upon the landscape on the other side while I wondered what was transpiring in the world.  The other function was a light box, because I wanted to emulate daylight and a light box is a tool that photographers use to view slides.

Each slide depicts an issue that troubles the world and is still connected to everyday life, but that offers no resolutions or explanations.  I titled the piece El Vitral de Pedro, because Saint Peter is the founding father of the Catholic Church.  I wondered if St. Peter could look at this window, how would he interpret these slides?  Is the subject matter of the slides a consequence of him having created God’s church?  Would St. Peter be happy, angry, or sad?  My intentions for the window were to display the slides in a grid, so that those who view it can face, as I did, the dilemma of deciphering its message.

 

Zarza Ardiente (Burning Bush) Acrylic, LED lights, and sound, 2014.

 

El Vitral de Pedro (Peter’s Stained Glass Window), Lightbox, and found slides, 2014.

 

El Vitral de Pedro (Peter’s Stained Glass Window), Lightbox, and found slides, 2014.

El Vitral de Pedro (Peter’s Stained Glass Window), Detail, Lightbox and found slides, 2014.

 

CONCLUSION

My spirituality developed from my experiences in Catholicism as well as nature, society, relationships, and family.  Also, by visiting museums, exhibitions and galleries, I have found ways to further reflect upon the world’s current situation.  Simply going to Mass and hearing the sermon of the week no longer mediate my view of the world.

I have learned that my artwork is working like the religious imagery that I had a hard time connecting with in the beginning, in such way that the photographs and the sculptures demonstrate my understanding of the scriptures, my faith, my culture, my time period, and my wanting to share a spiritual experience.

This self-exploration shows my struggles with my faith, whether I make light of it or at the same time hold it in high regards.  I believe in a higher power, but to say that it is definitely God, Allah, or Buddha, I cannot decide.  I struggle with the need to give it a face or a body, something that I can identify, something tangible and thus similar to the doubt that Thomas had.

 

Art World aka Theme Parks.

So I live in Orlando, Florida, the world’s foremost expert in theme park experiences.  Over the weekend I flew to NYC to view James Turrell’s, Aten Reign at the Guggenheim, and Paul McCarthy’s, WS at the Park Avenue Armory.  Both were in a sense a theme park based experiences that overtook the entire interior of building they were exhibiting at.  Two polar opposite artists in every sense of the word, from the issues they address, Turrell dealing with the spiritual and how light affects our lives, and McCarthy addressing consumerism that is heavily driven with sexuality and fantasy, to the medium they work in, Turrell principally works with light, and McCarthy with video, and over the top installations.

James Turrell’s piece takes over the entire rotunda at the Guggenheim (http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view/james-turrell ).  They altered the circular staircase to accommodate for the visual aspect in creating the experience of Aten Reign.  To fully enjoy this piece one needs to dedicate an hour of laying on the first floor, or grabbing a seat along the perimeter.  The best way to describe the piece is to imagine a slow moving color field, which envelops you.  The majority of the time is spent looking up that at the graduation through a spectrum of various colors.  The center circle remains a neutral white that is not apparent at first.  This neutral white is actually the natural light filtered from outside.  The more you look at it the more it becomes like a meditative piece.  You start to think how beautiful the world is in having witnessed such a beautiful creation, or things that you overlooked because you are too busy to notice the subtle changes in your daily surroundings.  Another aspect that is overlooked in the piece is that it’s a wonderful place to people watch.  Seeing the people’s reactions while they look up or lay down.  The security guard futilely repeating to the visitors that photography is prohibited.  Also the colors in Aten Reign causes a chain reaction to the colors in the room, so depending what you are wearing you will see colors become fluorescent or a different color.

Paul McCarthy’s WS, is the taking of Walt Disney’s tale of Snow White (http://gothamist.com/2013/06/18/paul_mccarthy.php#photo-1 ), and twisting the story with many references such as: biographical (the set and house is a replica of where the artist grew up), art history (Olympia by Manet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympia_(Manet) ,  The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden by Masaccio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_from_the_Garden_of_Eden), Oedipus (the relationship between the characters White Snow, the mother figure and Walt Paul aka Paul McCarthy, the son), Hollywood set designing, and to add a final topping to the cake McCarthy mimics a Disney store where actual Snow White merchandise can be purchased.  This show has an age restriction of no one under 17 is allowed to enter.

I will admit that prelude to visiting WS, I saw Llyn Foulkes retrospect show at the New Museum.  Some of Foulkes work was heavily influenced by the Mickey Mouse Club handbook where his belief that Disney’s intentions are to brain wash children’s minds.

Below is an excerpt from the THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB handbook:

The primary purpose of the club is two fold:

a) It provides an easily arranged and inexpensive method of getting and holding the patronage of youngsters.

…Everyone knows how strong the “gang” instinct is in children.  The Mickey Mouse club is unique in that it…implants beneficial principles, the latter so completely shorn of any suggestions of “lessons” of lecturing, that children absorb them almost unconsciously.”

While viewing WS I saw the same issues being address by McCarthy.  His installation in the main room consisted of 3 large screens on one side of the room, with duplicate videos being shown on 3 other large screens.  They show a party that is unraveling with White Snow and her different personification (each personality wears a specific color yellow, blue, and red), since there are 3 princesses then there has to be 3 Prince Charmings, Walt Paul, and 9 dwarfs.  The movie is 7 hours long, so if you want to see the ending you need to stay till the closing.

Between the video screens there is a large set of the interior of the house where the evidence and bodies of the party gone wrong remain, including the smells of the food left over.  The sets are the same location viewed in the videos.  Of course you can’t forget the magical forest where White Snow and the Dwarfs reside in, which was recreated but in plastic plants and trees that have the color of human excrement and somewhat shape like it.  Also located within the forest the artist offers you an exterior view of the house, with its white trim and yellow siding.  The side rooms in the armory include videos showing.  These videos are chapters to the story.  One video includes Prince Charming having intercourse with an animated sex doll of White Snow, basically he is trying to revive our princess.  The strongest video for me was Adam & Eve, Etant Donnes.   Seeing WS and Walt Paul running naked in slow motion and the slowing down of the audio their voices calling in agony, you feel the pain, shame, and the gravity of the crime they have committed.  It heavily references The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

Going through the different viewing aspects of the installation; eye level, peeping through windows, cut out holes, from below, and from up above, you feel like you are in a Disney amusement ride minus the cart on the rails, and the innocence.  The viewer is constantly bombarded visually and especially auditory, no matter where you go it mixes with other sounds of the installation.

Both exhibitions or should I dare to say theme rides, was such an interesting clash of perspectives, but powerful and strong artistic statements.  One installation being so meditative and spiritual, while the other installation being perverted and decadent, showing the ugly side of humanity in a very pessimistic way.  But of course real life works the same way in that you have good days and bad days and to me this is the beauty of seeing both works back to back.

Review of SNAP! in Orlando

SNAP! took place this past weekend, which is a five-day photography festival.  Three years running and with each year the festival grows in bring in a talented scope of photographers/artists that work in this medium.  This year’s theme was Motion to Light.

Over the years SNAP! has shown photographs that are very beautiful, and this year is no exception, for example Jill Greenberg’s portraits of horses; sharp, clean, large, luscious, and mesmerizing to look at, in other words eye candy.  SNAP! organizers try to bring different genres of photography such as: fashion, commercial, documentary, portraiture, and conceptual, but the main qualification that dominates what gets into the show is eye candy, and I believe this to be a handicap sometimes.

In this critque I have decided to only write about photographs/art I found interesting in the festival:

Stephen Knapp’s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqWnU3ClG6I) light painting titled Next Yesterday, grabbed my attention at first glanced.  This piece was installed on the second floor with one directional light, its beam broken up my various shapes and sizes of glass that created color fields as the light shined through.  It reminded me a little of Dan Flavin’s installations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Flavin), but without the fluorescent tubes, and this twist grabbed my attention with is jagged edges, and the way the light traveled from intense colors to soft hues in various directions creating a kaleidoscope on the wall.  His photos on the other hand were too closely related to Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and I felt the images functioned as documentation of his light installations.

George Rousse’s work came to mind when I saw Jeff Frost’s photographs, but the videos he made I found strong and captivating, again a twist on something that has been done before, but mixing video and stop motion into the artwork.  He showed three videos titled: Flawed Symmetry of Prediction, Modern Ruins, and War Paint for Trees, the videos not only references George Rousse’s work, but National Geographic, NASA, movies, and news broadcasts. His installations that referenced George Rousse came to life in their creation, but at the same time he wants the audience be aware that no graphics or CGI was used to create the videos, which I believe is not necessary.  Why destroy the illusion of what is transpiring? Does the audience need to know?

The last body of work that caught my eye was the large photos of Kerry Skarbakka (http://www.skarbakka.com/portfolios/struggle.htm).  Where each image is a self-portrait of him falling from different scenarios, such as a balcony, a tree, a cliff, stairs and slipping on something in the living room.  Two images where he falls from the tree, and him is slipping, closely references Sam Taylor-Wood’s photographs (http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/sam%20taylor%20wood), where the overall feel of the movement is that of levitation and not the movement of falling, which results in being weak in what his body of work. When he blurs the line of reality and makes you believe that he is actually falling, he makes the viewer’s mind race with several questions i.e.; Did he survived his fall without major injuries?  To what point of desperation is an artist driven to capture what he is trying to convey?  Were there props to break his fall? Or how many attempts did the artist do until he felt it was perfect? And this is what makes these images intriguing and beautiful.

I want to educate people on the history of photography and to point out the differences between past and present photographers/artists, and how they work, this is why I name artists that I see have something in common.  I firmly believe SNAP benefits the Orlando area in educating the public on current themes and trends in photography that is seldom seen here since we live in a world dominated by theme parks.