Reuben is pleased to announce a new tv shorts series called the Dave the Lightbulb Man Show.
Co-produced by RKAM client Thunderhorse video.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Looking to serve you more
Reuben Kincaid has informed that he is looking for new works and projects for 2009.
If you have an idea or proposal for a solo project space exhibition please contact RKAManagement@gmail.com.
If you have an idea or proposal for a solo project space exhibition please contact RKAManagement@gmail.com.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Radar Eyes Opens In Houston
If anyone is going to be in Houston make sure you check out the Radar Eyes show at the Art Car Museum, it will be up until November 9th. http://www.artcarmuseum.com/
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
All Stars Show
The Bridgeport All Stars show is a snapshot of work made by artists living and working in the community of the future.
People like: John Salhus, Linda Kim, Steve Badauskas, Steven Stankowicz, Rachael Marszewski, Rachel Welling, Brad Biancardi, Mr. Thor, Ryan Murray, Peter Skvara, Justin Goh, Gabe Lanza, Ian Whitmore, Vicki Fowler, PHOR, Ray Emerick, Chris Smith, Ed Marszewski, Gina Hutchings, Nicole Lucaroni, Henry Glover, Thorne Brandt, Dave the Lightbulb Man, Aron Gent, Jose Mesarina, Nate Lee, Carl Virgo, Zipporah Hodges, Jorge Golgo Quintero, Al Pocious, Mike Pocious, Daniel Mejia, Elizabeth Buchanan, Michelle Faust, Nat Ward, Patrick Willie, Rebecca Meyer & others.
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 23, 2008 7pm
The Co-Prosperity Sphere • 3219 S Morgan Street • Chicago IL 60608
Performances: 10pm by Mutual Divorce, Church Bus and Waterbabies.
Food design by Tony’s Catering ($5 donation after 9pm)
Open Saturdays 3-6pm and by appointment 773.837.0145 For additional programs visit lumpen.com
The show was supported in part by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council. They rock.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Hic et Nunc
The show will only be up for a two more weeks, so make sure you stop by and see it before it's gone. E-mail me at arongent@arongent(dot)com for an appointment.
Leah Evans Interview by Brian Ulrich
The interview was conducted on June 7th in Leah’s booth at the 57th street art fair in Hyde Park.
Bryan- So I think you could start by telling me a little about your background. I read your bio on the wall of your booth, but I think I need a little more detail about how you came from Kansas to Madison and how you started doing these art fairs.
Leah- I grew up in Kansas in the Flint Hills, which are geologically distinct. I went to KU for textile design. Then right after I graduated I started working at a National Park in Michigan. There, I met my boyfriend and he wanted to go to school in Madison, so I went with him. I kind of like the upper Midwest. Madison is a great place to work if you’re an artist, but not a great place to sell art. So that’s part of why I’m doing the art fair thing.
B- So how did you decide to become an artist? And where you making art before your undergraduate?
L- I grew up going to these craft fairs as a child. My family has always been working with their hands or constructing something; mostly woodworking. My dad actually is showing his woodworking in the tent next to mine.
B- Really? That’s great that you guys are next to each other.
L- When I graduated high school my parents really wanted me to go to college. They didn’t care what I did, they just wanted me to get a degree. I was first thinking of fashion but then I realized that I wasn’t cut out for that and just stumbled upon textile design and realized that I could work with my hands.
B- So I’m really interested in how people decide to become artists, because step one is going to school and step two is making a living with your art. Have you ever shown your work at galleries?
L- At some, whatever presents itself. I haven’t actively tried to show my work at them. It’s this act of progression, it’s like this is what I like to do and this is what I know how to do, so what else would I do? I kind of make enough money to stay afloat and I just don’t think about it. This is what I do, and it seems to be working right now.
B- So then how did you starting doing these fairs? Did you make a choice once you graduated to make art for the fairs?
L- So when I graduated I kept making work. I grew up going to the fairs with my parents, so I decided to try it. My parents were disappointed with me. They told me that it was a horrible way to make a living. So I started applying to the shows and getting into some of the better shows and they kind of got excited for me. It’s pretty great. I work for myself, and at least break even at the shows. I rarely lose money.
B- Do you feel that there is a community of people that go to these fairs? And do you try and keep in touch with those people? Or do you just set up your booth and then go home?
L- No, it’s definitely a community all its own. I don’t know of another place where you would experience the same thing. It’s kind of grueling. You’re on the street for two to five days at a time; putting yourself out there trying to sell your work. We are all in the same boat and help each other out. You have to deal with thunderstorms, a chance of getting mugged- there are definitely things that you don’t experience with any other job. We can all commiserate with each other. It’s a great group of down to earth people who probably couldn’t find another job.
B- I’ve been photographing at these fairs for a little while and I see that’s how they survive in the world; not just monetarily but actually functioning. That’s just what they have to do with themselves.
L- It’s interesting; a lot of the people live in fairly isolated areas. They find these interesting places to live in the country where it is inexpensive and they start their own artist communities. There is a lot in the South where they start these communities to live and do fairs to sell their art and make a living.
B- Do you see it as a political gesture or a counter culture thing to make your work outside of this whole art world thing?
L- No, I don’t see it as being against something. A lot of the work at these fairs is the same, and really only about five percent of it is fascinating work that you wouldn’t see anywhere else.
B- How do you feel about the audience that comes through these fairs? Do you try and build relationships with the people that buy the work?
L- I think that there are very few people that connect with what I’m doing, and when they do; I think it is a very special thing. They somehow find a way to come back and support me. I have had students that have followed my work and when they have a decent paying job they come back and buy a piece. It’s really satisfying to know that people who aren’t just throwing around money want to buy my work, but for people who it’s a big deal to buy my work for $300, simply because they like it.
B- In last five years there has been this boom in the art world about purchasing works as investments.
L- I wasn’t aware of that…(laughs) I think I heard something about that. I’m kind of outside that experience.
B- In my opinion the commoditization of the art world has become quite big. The work is judged on its sale ability value, not its aesthetic value. I think it’s interesting in how you describe the people who buy your work. It seems they buy it as this object they enjoy, not because when they turn fifty or sixty they can sell it or donate to a museum because of its value.
L- Maybe some of the people I sell to typically don’t even buy art, they are just taken by the piece and enjoy it for its aesthetic qualities.
B- I guess we should probably talk about your maps and maybe we could start with if they are direct references of places, and what is the inspiration behind the maps and why you choose the different elements that are in the maps.
L- My maps are not specific places. I kind of start with an idea and lately I have been focusing on impacted landscapes. This new series is based on strip mining, where they are searching for different types of materials; zinc, coal, lead. So when they are done digging for these materials the areas fill up with water and become these man made lakes. A lot of my work explores the boarders of different elements like roads and rivers and different settlements that interact with those natural and geographical elements. It explores how our society deals with land and also with its terrain and water systems.
B- It’s great how you approach this medium, because instead of starting with the form you start with the subject, allowing the subject to dictate the form.
L- A lot of people come to my booth and look at my work and say, “wow, I’ve always seen a quilted landscape while looking out of airplane windows.” I always viewed it as dissecting these lands into strips and piecing them back together. (It starts to rain heavily and the fair is about to close) I think I need to start packing up.
B- Do you need a hand in packing up?
L- Do you think you could pull down the front flap the booth so we don’t get any more water coming in? It’s interesting how we can be carrying our entire year’s income at one of these fairs, and it could all be destroyed fairly quickly.
B- Well we’re here to help, so if there’s anything else- let us know.
Bryan- So I think you could start by telling me a little about your background. I read your bio on the wall of your booth, but I think I need a little more detail about how you came from Kansas to Madison and how you started doing these art fairs.
Leah- I grew up in Kansas in the Flint Hills, which are geologically distinct. I went to KU for textile design. Then right after I graduated I started working at a National Park in Michigan. There, I met my boyfriend and he wanted to go to school in Madison, so I went with him. I kind of like the upper Midwest. Madison is a great place to work if you’re an artist, but not a great place to sell art. So that’s part of why I’m doing the art fair thing.
B- So how did you decide to become an artist? And where you making art before your undergraduate?
L- I grew up going to these craft fairs as a child. My family has always been working with their hands or constructing something; mostly woodworking. My dad actually is showing his woodworking in the tent next to mine.
B- Really? That’s great that you guys are next to each other.
L- When I graduated high school my parents really wanted me to go to college. They didn’t care what I did, they just wanted me to get a degree. I was first thinking of fashion but then I realized that I wasn’t cut out for that and just stumbled upon textile design and realized that I could work with my hands.
B- So I’m really interested in how people decide to become artists, because step one is going to school and step two is making a living with your art. Have you ever shown your work at galleries?
L- At some, whatever presents itself. I haven’t actively tried to show my work at them. It’s this act of progression, it’s like this is what I like to do and this is what I know how to do, so what else would I do? I kind of make enough money to stay afloat and I just don’t think about it. This is what I do, and it seems to be working right now.
B- So then how did you starting doing these fairs? Did you make a choice once you graduated to make art for the fairs?
L- So when I graduated I kept making work. I grew up going to the fairs with my parents, so I decided to try it. My parents were disappointed with me. They told me that it was a horrible way to make a living. So I started applying to the shows and getting into some of the better shows and they kind of got excited for me. It’s pretty great. I work for myself, and at least break even at the shows. I rarely lose money.
B- Do you feel that there is a community of people that go to these fairs? And do you try and keep in touch with those people? Or do you just set up your booth and then go home?
L- No, it’s definitely a community all its own. I don’t know of another place where you would experience the same thing. It’s kind of grueling. You’re on the street for two to five days at a time; putting yourself out there trying to sell your work. We are all in the same boat and help each other out. You have to deal with thunderstorms, a chance of getting mugged- there are definitely things that you don’t experience with any other job. We can all commiserate with each other. It’s a great group of down to earth people who probably couldn’t find another job.
B- I’ve been photographing at these fairs for a little while and I see that’s how they survive in the world; not just monetarily but actually functioning. That’s just what they have to do with themselves.
L- It’s interesting; a lot of the people live in fairly isolated areas. They find these interesting places to live in the country where it is inexpensive and they start their own artist communities. There is a lot in the South where they start these communities to live and do fairs to sell their art and make a living.
B- Do you see it as a political gesture or a counter culture thing to make your work outside of this whole art world thing?
L- No, I don’t see it as being against something. A lot of the work at these fairs is the same, and really only about five percent of it is fascinating work that you wouldn’t see anywhere else.
B- How do you feel about the audience that comes through these fairs? Do you try and build relationships with the people that buy the work?
L- I think that there are very few people that connect with what I’m doing, and when they do; I think it is a very special thing. They somehow find a way to come back and support me. I have had students that have followed my work and when they have a decent paying job they come back and buy a piece. It’s really satisfying to know that people who aren’t just throwing around money want to buy my work, but for people who it’s a big deal to buy my work for $300, simply because they like it.
B- In last five years there has been this boom in the art world about purchasing works as investments.
L- I wasn’t aware of that…(laughs) I think I heard something about that. I’m kind of outside that experience.
B- In my opinion the commoditization of the art world has become quite big. The work is judged on its sale ability value, not its aesthetic value. I think it’s interesting in how you describe the people who buy your work. It seems they buy it as this object they enjoy, not because when they turn fifty or sixty they can sell it or donate to a museum because of its value.
L- Maybe some of the people I sell to typically don’t even buy art, they are just taken by the piece and enjoy it for its aesthetic qualities.
B- I guess we should probably talk about your maps and maybe we could start with if they are direct references of places, and what is the inspiration behind the maps and why you choose the different elements that are in the maps.
L- My maps are not specific places. I kind of start with an idea and lately I have been focusing on impacted landscapes. This new series is based on strip mining, where they are searching for different types of materials; zinc, coal, lead. So when they are done digging for these materials the areas fill up with water and become these man made lakes. A lot of my work explores the boarders of different elements like roads and rivers and different settlements that interact with those natural and geographical elements. It explores how our society deals with land and also with its terrain and water systems.
B- It’s great how you approach this medium, because instead of starting with the form you start with the subject, allowing the subject to dictate the form.
L- A lot of people come to my booth and look at my work and say, “wow, I’ve always seen a quilted landscape while looking out of airplane windows.” I always viewed it as dissecting these lands into strips and piecing them back together. (It starts to rain heavily and the fair is about to close) I think I need to start packing up.
B- Do you need a hand in packing up?
L- Do you think you could pull down the front flap the booth so we don’t get any more water coming in? It’s interesting how we can be carrying our entire year’s income at one of these fairs, and it could all be destroyed fairly quickly.
B- Well we’re here to help, so if there’s anything else- let us know.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Hic et Nunc
"Staring Contest" Jon Gitelson, 2008Hic et Nunc
(Here and Now) A survey of new guard photography
Featuring the work of:
Claudia Burns
Sean Fader
Jon Gitelson
Mandukhai Kaylin
Jason Lazarus
Aron Gent
Tealia Ellis Ritter
Terttu Uibopuu and Sarah Mckemie
Brian Ulrich
July 18, 2008 7pm
Co-Prosperity Sphere
Chicago Il 60608
Ph: 773.837.0145
July 18, through August 8, 2008
Opening reception July 18, 2008 7pm - 11pm
Gallery hours: Saturday 1-5pm and by appointment
The show is supported by Public Media Institute, a non profit arts
organization. publicmediainstitute.org
An exhibition catalog will be available for purchase at the closing of the exhibition (August 8) which includes an essay written by Michael Weinstein.
Friday, June 20, 2008
RK presents thunderhorse, Michael perkins and Pure Magical Love is The Capricorn
Thunderhorse Video collective will be setting up their space adventure ride at the Hyde PArk Art Center this Saturday as part of the Clothesline:Movememnt festival @ Hyde Park Art Center
come in the evening. stay for the magic. then go back north around 10pm to see the show in Bridgeport with Adam farcus at 32nd place and Morgan >> visit: http://www.secondbedroomproject.blogspot.com/
Details:
June 21, 3pm - 10pm
Clothesline: Movement @ Hyde Park Art Center
5020 S. Cornell
On the day of the summer solstice and the International Day of Music HPAC is hosting the third clothesline event and its shaping up to be the best and most exciting of all.
http://www.hydeparkart.org/exhibitions/2008/06/clothesline.php
7:30pm: Pure Magical Love is The Capricorn
8:30pm: Michael Perkins
The Art Center will host a Dance Party on the plaza to celebrate the month-long exhibition of Videodance, which will be projected in excerpts on the Jackman Goldwasser Catwalk Gallery. The evening includes live dance and music performances and art demonstrations. Lumpen and Reuben Kincaid Artist Management will present the Thunderhorse Party planet redux and ThinkArt will present artist David Gista, who will be demonstrating his technique of drawing with torches.
This is a free event!
View the promotional video below or right here:
come in the evening. stay for the magic. then go back north around 10pm to see the show in Bridgeport with Adam farcus at 32nd place and Morgan >> visit: http://www.secondbedroomproject.blogspot.com/
Details:
June 21, 3pm - 10pm
Clothesline: Movement @ Hyde Park Art Center
5020 S. Cornell
On the day of the summer solstice and the International Day of Music HPAC is hosting the third clothesline event and its shaping up to be the best and most exciting of all.
http://www.hydeparkart.org/exhibitions/2008/06/clothesline.php
7:30pm: Pure Magical Love is The Capricorn
8:30pm: Michael Perkins
The Art Center will host a Dance Party on the plaza to celebrate the month-long exhibition of Videodance, which will be projected in excerpts on the Jackman Goldwasser Catwalk Gallery. The evening includes live dance and music performances and art demonstrations. Lumpen and Reuben Kincaid Artist Management will present the Thunderhorse Party planet redux and ThinkArt will present artist David Gista, who will be demonstrating his technique of drawing with torches.
This is a free event!
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Seripop at Bongout!
Our Seripop buds are touring europe and did a mini Exhibition in the Bongout Shop in Berlin
Opening Saturday, Juni 7th at 7PM
From Juni 7th till June 28th 2008
Seripop is a whacky and prolific duo of graphic designers from Montreal. Renowned since 2001 for their handmade DIY-psychedelic-punk noise rock concert posters (Lightning Bolt, the USA is a Monster, TV on the Radio, XBXRX, An Albatross, Wolf Eyes, Black Dice…), they have adopted silkscreen printing as their favourite medium. It seemed normal that we should invite them to make the Bongout showroom their home for a few weeks.
Seripop ist ein abgedrehtes und arbeitswütiges Grafikerduo aus Montreal. Die seit 2001 für ihre handgemachten DIY-punk-psychedelischen Konzertposter für Noise-Rock-Konzerte (Lightning Bolt, the USA is a Monster, TV on the Radio, XBXRX, An Albatross, Wolf Eyes, Black Dice…) bekannten Grafiker haben den Siebdruck als bevorzugte Ausdrucksweise für sich entdeckt. Es schien uns also geradezu logisch, sie für ein paar Wochen in den Bongout- Showroom einzuladen.
Bongout Showroom
Torstraße 110
10119 Berlin
Germany
Opening hours: Tue-Sa, 12 - 07 PM
+49(0)30 280 93 758
Monday, June 9, 2008
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Baby Robots
Curated by Dave Teng Olsen and Mike Rea
Dave and I are very excited about all of the work and think this may be one of the best Baby Robots ever. As you may or may not know this is an auction show and we have work starting at prices as low as one dollar. A great opportunity to purchase an amazing piece of work for a low price. So please join us for the first Baby Robots of the Year. Where/ Chicago at the Co-Prosperity Sphere 3219 South Morgan Street, Chicago Illinois, 60608 . on May 16th. Biding starts @ 7:00 pm and concludes @ 10:00pm, and if all goes well you will be leaving with your very own baby robot. See you there, for more info please go to http://gbr.siamesebirds.com/
Gimme Baby Robots is a large artist collaborative founded in 2005 in Madison, WI. It is comprised of over 100 artists throughout the United States. The show is a one-day event that happens during the year in which all of the art is auctioned off at very affordable prices to allow everyone a chance to own a great piece of original artwork.
-Mike Rea
Studio Visits
Jeremy Uglow DrawingWhile Reuben Kincaid has been visiting holland for the last week, I have been busy doing studio visits in the cheese state. I visited the Kincaid house in Whitewater, WI, where Jeremy Uglow showed me some of his new paintings he's been making for his future solo show in the fall. The show still needs some work, but I think with some hard work over the summer it's going to be great.
Leah Evans Studio
Later that afternoon I visited with fiber artist Leah Evans at her studio in Madison, WI. Her show will be in July and August at the project space. She will also be at the 57th Street Art Fair in Hydepark on June 7th and 8th, and at the Bucktown Arts Festival on August 23rd and 24th.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Version Fest 2008
Last night was the opening of Version Fest 2008, which kicked off the 10 day arts and culture festival. Tonight will be the opening of the main show "Dark Matter" at CPS1 and tomorrow come check out Rueben Kincaids Booth at the NFO-XPO. All of the information is at versionfest.org
Also check out the story behind the Dark Matter theme at WBEZ
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Mike Rea Interview on Fecal Face Dot Com
Written by Ryan Christian
Throughout my formative days in school I eventually decided that almost everyone is pretty willy nilly in the wood shop. Maybe my generation has phobia of power tools to some extent or a larger ratio of us are mega sensitive to saw dust. It could have been a geographical concern, but I didn't think that the case either being that I was in rural Illinois. The tightest thing I had even seen made out of wood was maybe a big tree, or a really fancy birdhouse, or the structure of a swanky home being built. There wasn't anything interesting and wooden in my life.
Then back in 2006, I go to this Mike Rea guys opening at the Butcher Shop/ Dogmatic Gallery in Chicago. The space (a very large one) was jam packed with these, super elaborate, grandiose, all wooden sculptures. I had never been immediately engaged by work like that before upon entering a gallery, it was more like walking in to a theme park than an art show.
Since then he has continued to artistically push it to the limit and top himself over and over again. I even saw him eat a bacon cheddar burger pretzel dog once, that's ambition.
Check the rest out at Fecal Face Dot Com
Sunday, February 24, 2008
HOW 2008 International Design Awards: Best of Show
Artist collective Seripop Wins Best of Show, Congratulations from Reuben!
Poster Children: Seripop
by Bryn Mooth
Ordinarily, the judges’ debate about which entry out of nearly 4,000 stands out as the Best of Show is intense but fairly short-lived. Every contender gets a fair shake, but there’s typically a quick consensus.
Not this year. Judges Nathan Hendricks, Debbie Millman and John Foster carried on a spirited discussion for about two hours, as they weighed which of the 10 Outstanding Achievement winners would score the top honor.
The project that finally emerged as Best of Show was noteworthy not just because of its magnitude (a series of 16 screen printed posters) but also because of its craftsmanship and style. The Montreal design shop Seripop created, illustrated and printed these gig posters for the underground music promotion company Blue Skies Turn Black. While the judges debated whether a no-creative-limits project for a risk-taking client and a narrow audience truly merited their votes, they agreed that the posters’ uniqueness stood out. “This is the culmination of everything that was good about the whole show,” says judge John Foster.
Check out the rest of the article at Howdesign.com
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Artist Interview: By Jay Wolke
Jay Wolke: Is this whole thing your studio?
Philip Matesic: This is my studio. This semester I’ve converted it into a cafe for four hours a day, serving art students coffee and hopefully engaging them in this social exchange with me or with other coffee drinkers.
JW: Well, do you have anything like milk or creamer? As long as you’re in the business, I might as well really push you. Oh, the real thing! This is great, thank you.
PM: No problem.
JW: I guess I’m here to give you the once over, beat you around the mid-section a little bit. So what’s with this café? Are you going to become a restaurateur? I guess I’ll start with a silly question, why a café?
PM: I have started these projects within other communities since I’ve been in grad school. I did this project last semester with a street vender in Pilsen, where I had sewn this winter shelter for him. He sells tamales on 18th street, so I improvised this shelter for him as he waited for people to come by. For my second project, I placed electric outlet covers I made over free outlets in the city that I would find. I would go around testing random outlets around the city and leave these covers for people to find.
JW: So, you would tag these outlets with your outlet cozies.
PM: Exactly. People would think that they were CTA things until they got closer and they saw this comic like lightning bolts on the red covers.
JW: I was going to say, it looks a little like batman or a marvel comic kind of thing.
PM: So, I found a courtyard on Roosevelt and State Street right by the red line, and there were six working outlets and I was wondering what I would do. Then, I saw some people walking through and I asked them what they would want in the station, provided they could use the outlets. Over the next two weekends I asked everyone who walked through the courtyard and tallied the responses up. Then, for an afternoon I set up a cell phone charging station, the internet, music and food. I was taking this free electricity from the city and giving it to the people that lived there.
JW: It’s interesting how you describe it as free electricity. Which actually brings up an interesting question, because it in fact brings up this idea about the grid and its alternative uses. So how do you feel that your work brings up utility? What does that mean to you? Are you just this cultural squatter no matter where you are; is there a kind of unbounded nomadic utility in your work?
PM: I think that’s a really good read on the work, because a big component to all the work is mobility and being nomadic. I think that squatting is a good term because squatting is a short-term, ephemeral action, and my projects are very much like that. It’s all about me in these different locations I find myself, deploying something to engage people in conversation or to utilize some language or resource.
JW: So then have you ever stuck yourself as an open user into a system when it was a closed? Has that ever happened to you?
PM: It hasn’t happened to me yet. I feel that I’m trying to take these open systems and make them more open. I’m not this artist who says, I want to have a giant inflatable stage in this courtyard and play my kazoo as a performance for the public to watch. I feel that would be a breach for security and to the people who use the courtyard. I felt that my project had to be more democratic.
JW: So then what is your definition of transgression and how does it play into your work? And why is it so important to be transgressive as an artist?
PM: I’ve thought a lot about that during the trajectory in making these urban interventions. One of my first projects I made were tents that fit under these modernist sculptures that would blend in with the pieces. I would find a piece I liked, take its measurements, build the piece in studio and then set it up under these sculptures. For a few hours, as people would walk by, they would not even notice the tents. I feel that my work is slowly transitioning away from being transgressive and moving more towards opening a dialogue between people.
JW: So then what exactly do you want your viewer to experience? It’s one thing to express a personal need as an artist to truly create something but it’s another thing to create something that has an impact on a community or a viewer. Transgression, in a way, is designed to provoke and in a particular way to shock and take risks and it places unexpected artifacts into conventional environments. So ultimately moving away from transgression, what are you trying to communicate with all this communication?
PM: My work still has an element of transgression, it’s just not as aggressive as some artists currently making work. I’m trying to make projects in a nicer way to hopefully engage the viewer and allow them to feel comfortable while interacting with the piece. This can operate in two ways, first there needs to be an element to provoke curiosity that hopefully allows a person to come up to me during a performance and engage in some form of a social exchange. Or it makes the viewer feel uncomfortable in which they walk away, not thinking too much of the work.
JW: So anyway you look at it, it’s a provocation and in that sense your work is as much about creating a social exchange as it is about creating a particular artifact.
PM: Sure, that’s largely a part of the projects. As I make them I look forward to that social exchange, from its idea to its design, to the deployment, and the potential that the social exchange that could happen. Then, finally how to bring it back to an art audience, because I feel a lot of the social exchanges that occur are really magical moments that happen with the people I am working within the different communities. This is a way of translating a project so that it can have the same effect on a person in a gallery environment.
JW: So this suggests the idea of how things and places are more a catalyst for other things and less of an end in and of itself. So I see all of these maps in your studio and looking at these abstractions somehow lend themselves to the meaning of these places. It reminds me of the term, “psychogeography” and how you are emotionally moving about these places.
PM: I do have these emotional connections to the locations where I do my performances. I bought this t-shirt a while ago that said Lake Zurich (Illinois) and my girlfriend is from Zurich, Switzerland. I ended up wearing it for a few weeks and people kept asking me if that’s where I went to school . I then realized it was only 45 minutes north of Chicago. So then I started doing research and found out that this utopian thinker named Seth Paine founded Lake Zurich in 1836. Upon visiting the town, it turned out to be this rich suburb with BMW’s and huge Mc-mansions. I tried to think how the town was still connected to this utopian thinker. I later found out that the grade school was called the Seth Paine Elementary. I thought that it was very radical that they kept the name of the utopian founder. So I ended up doing this utopian workshop in one of the classes where I dressed up as Seth Paine, told the kids about his life story and had each kid draw their own utopia and explain the pictures. During the entire workshop, I was dressed as Seth Paine. In doing that project I was trying to bring the community closer to its location through teaching and enacting a part of their radical history.
JW: Your work has this wonderful stream of idealism running through it. You advocate a kind of utopian thinking on the part of everyone you engage with, from plugging into public utility outlets; the idea that we should all benefit from the fortunes around us. How is all that idealism working out for you? Do you have faith in your work to change the world or is it a comment on the lack of communication or the loss of idealism in the world?
PM: I think that art is a radical gesture, but small. I became interested in art because I like how certain projects can have an impact on myself and change me perspective for a moment time and maybe have an impact on a few other people. I’m not trying to be overly critical about things, but have an optimism about these alternate types of thinking.
JW: So now were do you go from here after graduate school? I’m sure Chicago played a certain roll in your life, but where do you go from here?
PM: My girlfriend lives I Zurich, Switzerland and I really don’t know if I’m going to stay in Chicago and keep working within this art community or move and continue my nomadic art practice in Europe. Did you know what you were going to do after grad school?
JW: No, I still don’t know what I’m going to do! When you leave school you lose that safety net, you may have to shout louder when you get out. Your work deals very much with risk and as your life becomes more risky, it will be interesting to see if you’re willing to incorporate as much risk in your art as in your life. I hope you will.
Philip Matesic: This is my studio. This semester I’ve converted it into a cafe for four hours a day, serving art students coffee and hopefully engaging them in this social exchange with me or with other coffee drinkers.
JW: Well, do you have anything like milk or creamer? As long as you’re in the business, I might as well really push you. Oh, the real thing! This is great, thank you.
PM: No problem.
JW: I guess I’m here to give you the once over, beat you around the mid-section a little bit. So what’s with this café? Are you going to become a restaurateur? I guess I’ll start with a silly question, why a café?
PM: I have started these projects within other communities since I’ve been in grad school. I did this project last semester with a street vender in Pilsen, where I had sewn this winter shelter for him. He sells tamales on 18th street, so I improvised this shelter for him as he waited for people to come by. For my second project, I placed electric outlet covers I made over free outlets in the city that I would find. I would go around testing random outlets around the city and leave these covers for people to find.
JW: So, you would tag these outlets with your outlet cozies.
PM: Exactly. People would think that they were CTA things until they got closer and they saw this comic like lightning bolts on the red covers.
JW: I was going to say, it looks a little like batman or a marvel comic kind of thing.
PM: So, I found a courtyard on Roosevelt and State Street right by the red line, and there were six working outlets and I was wondering what I would do. Then, I saw some people walking through and I asked them what they would want in the station, provided they could use the outlets. Over the next two weekends I asked everyone who walked through the courtyard and tallied the responses up. Then, for an afternoon I set up a cell phone charging station, the internet, music and food. I was taking this free electricity from the city and giving it to the people that lived there.
JW: It’s interesting how you describe it as free electricity. Which actually brings up an interesting question, because it in fact brings up this idea about the grid and its alternative uses. So how do you feel that your work brings up utility? What does that mean to you? Are you just this cultural squatter no matter where you are; is there a kind of unbounded nomadic utility in your work?
PM: I think that’s a really good read on the work, because a big component to all the work is mobility and being nomadic. I think that squatting is a good term because squatting is a short-term, ephemeral action, and my projects are very much like that. It’s all about me in these different locations I find myself, deploying something to engage people in conversation or to utilize some language or resource.
JW: So then have you ever stuck yourself as an open user into a system when it was a closed? Has that ever happened to you?
PM: It hasn’t happened to me yet. I feel that I’m trying to take these open systems and make them more open. I’m not this artist who says, I want to have a giant inflatable stage in this courtyard and play my kazoo as a performance for the public to watch. I feel that would be a breach for security and to the people who use the courtyard. I felt that my project had to be more democratic.
JW: So then what is your definition of transgression and how does it play into your work? And why is it so important to be transgressive as an artist?
PM: I’ve thought a lot about that during the trajectory in making these urban interventions. One of my first projects I made were tents that fit under these modernist sculptures that would blend in with the pieces. I would find a piece I liked, take its measurements, build the piece in studio and then set it up under these sculptures. For a few hours, as people would walk by, they would not even notice the tents. I feel that my work is slowly transitioning away from being transgressive and moving more towards opening a dialogue between people.
JW: So then what exactly do you want your viewer to experience? It’s one thing to express a personal need as an artist to truly create something but it’s another thing to create something that has an impact on a community or a viewer. Transgression, in a way, is designed to provoke and in a particular way to shock and take risks and it places unexpected artifacts into conventional environments. So ultimately moving away from transgression, what are you trying to communicate with all this communication?
PM: My work still has an element of transgression, it’s just not as aggressive as some artists currently making work. I’m trying to make projects in a nicer way to hopefully engage the viewer and allow them to feel comfortable while interacting with the piece. This can operate in two ways, first there needs to be an element to provoke curiosity that hopefully allows a person to come up to me during a performance and engage in some form of a social exchange. Or it makes the viewer feel uncomfortable in which they walk away, not thinking too much of the work.
JW: So anyway you look at it, it’s a provocation and in that sense your work is as much about creating a social exchange as it is about creating a particular artifact.
PM: Sure, that’s largely a part of the projects. As I make them I look forward to that social exchange, from its idea to its design, to the deployment, and the potential that the social exchange that could happen. Then, finally how to bring it back to an art audience, because I feel a lot of the social exchanges that occur are really magical moments that happen with the people I am working within the different communities. This is a way of translating a project so that it can have the same effect on a person in a gallery environment.
JW: So this suggests the idea of how things and places are more a catalyst for other things and less of an end in and of itself. So I see all of these maps in your studio and looking at these abstractions somehow lend themselves to the meaning of these places. It reminds me of the term, “psychogeography” and how you are emotionally moving about these places.
PM: I do have these emotional connections to the locations where I do my performances. I bought this t-shirt a while ago that said Lake Zurich (Illinois) and my girlfriend is from Zurich, Switzerland. I ended up wearing it for a few weeks and people kept asking me if that’s where I went to school . I then realized it was only 45 minutes north of Chicago. So then I started doing research and found out that this utopian thinker named Seth Paine founded Lake Zurich in 1836. Upon visiting the town, it turned out to be this rich suburb with BMW’s and huge Mc-mansions. I tried to think how the town was still connected to this utopian thinker. I later found out that the grade school was called the Seth Paine Elementary. I thought that it was very radical that they kept the name of the utopian founder. So I ended up doing this utopian workshop in one of the classes where I dressed up as Seth Paine, told the kids about his life story and had each kid draw their own utopia and explain the pictures. During the entire workshop, I was dressed as Seth Paine. In doing that project I was trying to bring the community closer to its location through teaching and enacting a part of their radical history.
JW: Your work has this wonderful stream of idealism running through it. You advocate a kind of utopian thinking on the part of everyone you engage with, from plugging into public utility outlets; the idea that we should all benefit from the fortunes around us. How is all that idealism working out for you? Do you have faith in your work to change the world or is it a comment on the lack of communication or the loss of idealism in the world?
PM: I think that art is a radical gesture, but small. I became interested in art because I like how certain projects can have an impact on myself and change me perspective for a moment time and maybe have an impact on a few other people. I’m not trying to be overly critical about things, but have an optimism about these alternate types of thinking.
JW: So now were do you go from here after graduate school? I’m sure Chicago played a certain roll in your life, but where do you go from here?
PM: My girlfriend lives I Zurich, Switzerland and I really don’t know if I’m going to stay in Chicago and keep working within this art community or move and continue my nomadic art practice in Europe. Did you know what you were going to do after grad school?
JW: No, I still don’t know what I’m going to do! When you leave school you lose that safety net, you may have to shout louder when you get out. Your work deals very much with risk and as your life becomes more risky, it will be interesting to see if you’re willing to incorporate as much risk in your art as in your life. I hope you will.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Reuben Kincaid on Location:
Outside television producers Telefantasy Studios
We’re standing around outside a Bestwestern coffee shop in Hollywood, just off the 101 freeway drinking coffee while we wait for our table. I’m here with the producers from Telefantasy Studios to talk with them about their new project “Multinauts,” their student grant program “Hondas for poor kids,” and some of the driving forces behind their production trio. The group consists of Riley Swift, Christine Adolph, and Jennifer Juniper Stratford (JJ) who have given us such classics as TV.2525, Willow Don’t Cry, the Dungeon Majesty series and the inspiration behind the “We're Rollin',They're Hatin'” theme of version 7.
As we are called to our table we spot Rebecca Romijn Stamos (minus the Stamos) and Jerry O’Connell (detective from Crossing Jordan) enjoying a morning Coke float. It’s great to be in LA and I’m glad that Telefantasy had the time to meet with me. The team has been working day and night on the production of “Multinauts”, which will premiere its first episode at the next Version Fest in April. The three of them are outside television producers, which means they don’t have the luxury of a writers’ strike and have to work straight through to make the spring deadline.
The new series Multinauts is a multi-dimensional time-traveler show that JJ says, “is a straight up adventure show.” It has three characters from different dimensions and time periods that join together to fight the corporate villain “Oysters Rockefeller.” The show will be shifting from Telefantasy’s traditional public access production style to a new television network aesthetic and will be more along the lines of their music video “Willow Don’t Cry”. The time and place for the premiere has not been set, but make sure you bring your Dungeon Majesty Fan Club card to get reserve seating and member gifts.
The original series Dungeon Majesty has given telefantasy studios the most critical acclaim and has put them on the map in the LA television community. The idea for the series started back in April 2004 while the three were playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons (Riley’s the Dungeon Master) and decided to make a show about the game. The show isn’t them just playing a game of D&D, but it’s an adventure series with detailed models, special effects, blue screens and improvisational acting(the best kind). The series currently consists of six twenty-five minute episodes and ten shorts that explore the many different aspects of D&D. The production value has increased every episode, but is still deeply rooted in a public access aesthetic. Each show leaves you wanting to make your own detailed outfit of your D&D character to wear to your next match, so watch! It’s on the “tube”.
As we finish our meal and settle up the bill, we walk towards our trusty Honda in the lot and grab one more glance at Rebecca Romijn’s perfect ponytail. Til’ next time, it’s Aron Gent signing off for Reuben Kincaid on location.
Check out more at www.dungeonmajesty.com and make sure to take your card with you!
We’re standing around outside a Bestwestern coffee shop in Hollywood, just off the 101 freeway drinking coffee while we wait for our table. I’m here with the producers from Telefantasy Studios to talk with them about their new project “Multinauts,” their student grant program “Hondas for poor kids,” and some of the driving forces behind their production trio. The group consists of Riley Swift, Christine Adolph, and Jennifer Juniper Stratford (JJ) who have given us such classics as TV.2525, Willow Don’t Cry, the Dungeon Majesty series and the inspiration behind the “We're Rollin',They're Hatin'” theme of version 7.
As we are called to our table we spot Rebecca Romijn Stamos (minus the Stamos) and Jerry O’Connell (detective from Crossing Jordan) enjoying a morning Coke float. It’s great to be in LA and I’m glad that Telefantasy had the time to meet with me. The team has been working day and night on the production of “Multinauts”, which will premiere its first episode at the next Version Fest in April. The three of them are outside television producers, which means they don’t have the luxury of a writers’ strike and have to work straight through to make the spring deadline.
The new series Multinauts is a multi-dimensional time-traveler show that JJ says, “is a straight up adventure show.” It has three characters from different dimensions and time periods that join together to fight the corporate villain “Oysters Rockefeller.” The show will be shifting from Telefantasy’s traditional public access production style to a new television network aesthetic and will be more along the lines of their music video “Willow Don’t Cry”. The time and place for the premiere has not been set, but make sure you bring your Dungeon Majesty Fan Club card to get reserve seating and member gifts.
The original series Dungeon Majesty has given telefantasy studios the most critical acclaim and has put them on the map in the LA television community. The idea for the series started back in April 2004 while the three were playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons (Riley’s the Dungeon Master) and decided to make a show about the game. The show isn’t them just playing a game of D&D, but it’s an adventure series with detailed models, special effects, blue screens and improvisational acting(the best kind). The series currently consists of six twenty-five minute episodes and ten shorts that explore the many different aspects of D&D. The production value has increased every episode, but is still deeply rooted in a public access aesthetic. Each show leaves you wanting to make your own detailed outfit of your D&D character to wear to your next match, so watch! It’s on the “tube”.
As we finish our meal and settle up the bill, we walk towards our trusty Honda in the lot and grab one more glance at Rebecca Romijn’s perfect ponytail. Til’ next time, it’s Aron Gent signing off for Reuben Kincaid on location.
Check out more at www.dungeonmajesty.com and make sure to take your card with you!
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