(late) Fall News

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FALL FAIR ROUNDUP

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Echo Art Fair 

The Echo Art Fair was an enjoyable experience. The downtown Buffalo central library location perfectly framed my book and collage works. The selection of participating artists and organizations made for good company and conversation. I got the feeling artists and visitors alike were pleased with the whole affair. You can read what The Buffalo News had to say about it here. Founding director Frits Abell and Sarah Kolberg did a fine job pulling it all together.

To sit with a view in the comfort of a good periodical

was the collaborative site-specific installation Roberley Bell and I put together for Echo. When we did our site visit with John Massier of Halwalls (who coordinated the installation component of the Fair), the periodical nook off the library's main hallway appealed to us all. The fact Roberley had offered me her collection of garden magazines only an hour before sealed the deal. The wall label copy is below.  Many thanks to Courtney Grim for helping install, de-install, and coordinate the parking situation. 

ROBERLEY BELL & SCOTT MCCARNEY

For Echo, Bell and McCarney have created To sit with a view in the comfort of a good periodical, a semi-private environment within the larger public context of the library in which to experience sculpture-as-book and book-as-sculpture — an intersection of the art fair and library experiences. Bell's brilliant colors and bulbous forms adorned by a miniature bird interact with a piece created by McCarney fashioned from discarded magazines. Bell's forms reference contemporary architecture (blobitecture) whose organic structures are made possible with computer-aided design that is based, paradoxically, on nothing that exists in nature. McCarney's contribution parallels this concept by physically altering garden magazines to visualize the immateriality and speed of accessing digital information. A glass rock-formed vase filled with fresh flowers reveals the passing of time, reinforces the "slow" experience of reading a book and introduces found natural form to the scene.

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VSW Pub Fair

This first (hopefully) annual independent publishing fair was a smashing success. Skúta, who came up from New York for the day, called it "the fairest of them all."  Housed in the VSW auditorium, it was small enough to prevent the panic visitors often feel at large book fairs, but did not skimp on interesting vendors and knowledgeable visitors. I got a chance to turn the camera on Gerry Szmanski, fresh from a 19th Century fashion show, fairing with newly house-proud Alice Carver-Kubik and Jamie Allen: 

Skúta traveled by train from Manhattan for the fair, carrying his People's Editions in a vintage leather valise – a dedicated Willy Loman without the angst. He paused for a portrait in front of Thievin' Stephen's Wall Therapy mural on Cayuga Street before heading back to the station on Sunday:

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NY ART BOOK FAIR

This years Fair was more of a crush than ever. Skúta and I shared a table, as usual, and branded ourselves "ScottatúkS" in hopes of encouraging more collaborative projects down the road. I tried something a bit different by bringing more boxed multiples and some prints, which wasn't much of a success. Skúta attracted a big crowd of hipsters with his "People's Editions" valise, so I got a buzz from that. Our neighbors included J.A.B., VSW Press, Purchase Center for Editions and Warren Lehrer – just like old times.

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EXHIBITION ROUNDUP

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Memory Theatre 2013

This exhibition celebrating the Memorial Art Gallery's centennial continues through December 29, 2013, and is well worth a visit.  A review in CITY Newspaper can be viewed here.

Memory Loss, Material Meditation on Mending Al=Mutanabbi Street, and A Selection of Cards are exhibited in the case at the right of this installation picture provided by Marie Via, curator of the exhibition.

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ImageART 2013: I DO!?

ImageART's fourteenth iteration was hosted by Visual Studies Workshop in their newly renovated front building galleries. The theme of marriage equality assembled a more diverse group of artists and work than ever before -- men, women, gay, straight, local and from out of state. Three works of mine were on display, two pictured in context below. Co-chairs Alice Carver-Kubik and Jeffrey Cougler, along with the committee of committed volunteers, deserve a hand for their tireless efforts. (Thanks to Jeffrey for the installation photographs, too.)

Above: MARRIED (far left). Below: Balls & Chain (far right)

I DO!? Panel Discussion: 
Marriage Equality and Art's Engagement with Social and Political Movements

Nigel Maister coordinated this event for the exhibition's closing weekend. The panel consisted of Anne Tischer and Bess Watts, long-time LGBT rights advocates based in Rochester; Douglas Crimp, Fanny Knapp Allen Professor of Art History at the University of Rochester; Jonathan D. Katz, director of the doctoral program in Visual Studies at University at Buffalo, and me. Douglas provided a critical framework to express a queer questioning of marriage as an institution, the "question mark" of I DO!?, which was not directly addressed in the exhibition. Anne and Bess showed us where the rubber hits the road in grass-roots activism with dedication and compassion. Jonathan moderated with historical insight and personal experience. The whole evening was streamed live and can be experienced in it's entirety on vimeo by clicking here.

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think small 7

October 25 - December 22, 2013

artspace

Zero East 4th Street, richmond, VA

This international invitational biennial exhibition is a fundraising event for artspace, a non-profit gallery for the visual and performing arts. All the work is miniature (no larger than 3 inches in any direction). Chuck Scalin, an artist and educator in Richmond (he was my teacher at VCU back in the good old days) would assign his illustration students to create a work that was 3 x 3 inches. He transposed that idea to this fundraising event for the artist-run gallery in 2011, and extended the invitation to me. Making work for it is always a fun challenge and a great way to contribute to a good cause. My piece for this year's show, A Penny for Your Thoughts, is pictured below. An index of the participating artists and their contributions can be found here.

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Out of Print: Winter Art Exhibition

November 1, 2013 - March 29, 2014

Albany Public Library, Pine Hills Branch

517 Western Avenue, Albany New York

Judie Gilmore, who curated this exhibit, came to Rochester for a studio visit last July. It was fortuitous timing as she has worked for the City of Philadelphia MuralArts Program and the South Wedge was freshly graced with Wall Therapy mural projects. We had a nice tour of the work in my neighborhood and around Market View Heights before it started to rain. 

Judie cholse several Hypertext prints and a framed version of The Swimmer, along with a rare Diderot/Americana volume from the '90s plus two Encyclopedia Britannicas for inclusion in the show. She also met Doug Manchee while visiting and includes prints from his Due Date series.

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NEW BOOK

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MARRIED

While I was organizing pieces for the ImageArt I DO!? exhibition this summer, Keith came into the studio and started flipping through the prints before they were framed. That was the inspiration to make this book. The portrait was made by Mark Watts in my garden and rendered in the style of the "Pictures" series by Gilbert and George. The book comes sewn into it's own bridal veil mesh bag, like the jordan almonds I remember pocketing off tables at wedding receptions as a kid.