Words and Objectivity 2016

WORDS AND OBJECTIVITY

An Exhibition and Curatorial Workshop with Mireia Sentis

INTRODUCTION

In March of 2016 Kipp Gallery at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania hosted Spanish artist Mireia Sentis for a spring 2016 featured artist exhibition and student workshop. Born in Barcelona, Mireia grew up in Paris and studied at Oxford and in Florence. She is a writer, photographer and curator who has directed and anchored cultural radio and TV programs in Spain and the UK.  Her work spans four decades reaching across multiple disciplines including photography, journalism, visual art, broadcasting and criticism.  She started working at United Nations headquarters in 1972 and since then has been living and working in New York, Barcelona and Madrid. In 1983, she began exhibiting her photographic work throughout Europe, South America and New York, receiving critical acclaim from respected columns in Artnews and The New York Times.  In 2008 Mireia was the recipient of a retrospective exhibition at the Círculo de Bellas Artes (Madrid) and at Arts Santa Mònica (Barcelona, 2010). Early in her career Mireia directed the Spanish television program Dos en raya (TV2) interviewing primary figures from the arts and culture.  She is the author of Al límite del juego (To the Limit of the Game, 1994), a portrait of SoHo in the 1960’s and 70’s, and En el pico del águila: una introducción a la cultura afroamericana (In the Eagle's Beak: An introduction to African American Culture, 1998). She is also the founder/director of BAAM (Biblioteca Afro Americana in Madrid), which publishes previously untranslated writings in Spanish.   

ABOUT THE PROJECT

WORDS AND OBJECTIVITY is an evolving project that unfolds in two phases.  During phase one from March 17^th – 25^th Mireia Sentis transformed Kipp Gallery into a classroom where select IUP student artists participated in a concept development and curatorial workshop.   During this workshop, students were asked to consider the contradictory notion of photographic objectivity while investigating collaborative possibilities for their own work.  Ultimately the student artists worked together with Sentis to mount an exhibition of their own work in addition to photographs from Sentis’ series “Words.” Phase two of the project opened on Thursday March 31, 2016. 

STUDENT ARTISTS

Anthony Bookhammer

Ashely Bouton

Cody Bloom

Jen Blalock
Kizan Ayton Green

Rachel Precht

Kyle Reidmiller

Sarah Balough

Sheila Valentin

MIREIA’S BIO

“The work of Mireia Sentis reveals the myriad, crisscrossed paths along which contemporary creation has traveled in recent decades.  From New York to Barcelona and Madrid, Sentis has combined her photographic work with journalism in the press and television, exhibition curation, art criticism and essay writing. She set off on this journey in New York in the 1970s, which provided her with freedom of movement and action, a curiosity for means, themes and formats, cosmopolitanism and an interest in in-depth learning about cultures she never saw as minorities, but rather always as constituent parts of her living environment.”

Mireia Sentis. Photo, Essay, Communication

Curator: Aurora Fernandez Polanco

Arts Santa Monica

Delicate Membrane 2015

Artworks by Josefina Concha and Daniel DiCaprio
Sept 10 – October 8, 2015
Artist Talk with Daniel DiCaprio Thursday Sept 10, 2015 at 5:00pm in Room 118A
Reception to follow.
Kipp Gallery

This two-person exhibition features the work of fiber artist Josephina Concha and the sculptural jewelry of Daniel DiCaprio.  Both artists draw inspiration from micro and macro elements found in the natural world and their unique creations at once appear synthetic and organic.  DiCaprio’s wearable sculptures employ 3-D printed objects amidst delicate hand-formed metals.  Josephina Concha harnesses the volume of woven and stitched fabric to evoke skin-like formations that appear fungal.  Delicate Membrane brings each of their artworks into a conversation concerning the value of synthesized form and the beauty found in nature.

Daniel DiCaprio
dandicaprio@gmail.com
http://dandicaprio.com/home.html

Josefina Concha
josefinaconchae@gmail.com
www.josefinaconchae.com

The Mountain and the Bumblebee - 2014 - 16

In 1842 the geologist and land surveyor John C Fremont led a prestigious expedition to explore the Rocky Mountain territory. In his travel log Fremont records an unlikely high‐altitude encounter with a bumblebee where he imagines each of them to be the first of their species ever to brave such geological extremes. This unlikely encounter is suggestive of America’s unique brand of landscape nationalism that has historically attempted to reconcile both expansionist and conservationist thought. Romantic descriptions of Fremont’s adventures were published in the Emigrant’s Guide to California and effectively united the interests of science and nature within the cultural framework of national inheritance. After all, “landscapes are culture before they are nature; constructs of the imagination projected onto wood and water and rock.” *

The Mountain and the Bumble Bee brings together selected works by contemporary artists and poets who confront broadly defined notions of landscape as both cultural icon and raw material. Working in a variety of media including photography, sculpture, painting, digital media and poetic verse, featured artists maneuver the complex web of references contributing to our understanding of landscape. Scenes from Hollywood westerns abut survey photographs and miniature paintings to highlight America’s often‐contradictory role as both steward and exploiter of the land.

Participating visual artists and poets:

Rick Barot, Patrick Bizarro, Robin Clarke, Mathew Conboy, Todd Davis, Wesley Dunning, Heather Green, BA Harrington, Chele Isaac, Chris McGinnis, Erika Osborne, Josh Reiman, Gwyneth Scally and Meg Shevenock

* Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory (New York: Alfred A. Knopf), 61


Venues:
Kipp Gallery, Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Fall 2014
Media Arts Gallery, Robert Morris University. Spring 2015
Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. Philadelphia PA. Summer/Fall 2015
SPACE Pittsburgh. Winter 2015/16
Pennsylvania College of Art and Design. Lancaster Pennsylvania. Spring 2016

Children of the Romantic Age - 2014

Children of the Romantic Age is an exhibition of artworks by Brooklyn artist Gwyneth Scally curated by Chris McGinnis in the Spring of 2014.

Gwyneth's work explores "... the historical underpinnings of our attitude towards the natural world, as well as our contemporary methods of experiencing it.  In some of these works, the Romantic movement, with its emphasis on transcendent and sublime natural encounters, is implicated in depictions of a literal romance between man and wild beast, rendered with the drama of overwrought Harlequin novel covers.  As a foundation for this series, I conducted extensive research at the National Archives in Washington DC, compiling photographic references of historic polar expeditions, including those of Admirals Peary and Byrd, and the English explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton.  The Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration combined the most dramatic aspects of the Romantic Movement with the conquering entitlement of the Colonial Age, and as such provides an excellent foil for the examination of our current attitudes towards nature and its resources.  For example, Endurance and the I-10 depicts the ice-bound ship of explorer Ernest Shackleton, now stranded, not in the Weddell Sea, but in the arid desert landscape bordering Interstate 10 south of Phoenix.  In other images, the imperiled pine forests of Arizona are combined with high-end modernist “cabins” and space-age camping gear, describing the products and means through which we mediate and romanticize our contact with Nature.  These images of “cabins”- often multi-million dollars homes lifted directly from Dwell magazine- describe the irony of treasuring Nature through building on it.  In these works, trees, animals, humans and their structures all seem to melt and bleed, suggesting that both the civilized and natural worlds are in a state of instability and flux."

Songs Sonnets and Stolen Lines - 2014

Songs Sonnets and Stolen Lines is an exhibition of paintings and kite drawings by artist Teresa Getty.  The works were curated by Chris McGinnis for a solo exhibition of the artists work at Kipp Gallery in 2014.  Getty’s work is inspired by literary memories from her childhood, including rhymes, song lines, and poems. During her creative process, Getty scribbles notes and reminders that form a visually lyrical movement throughout the work. This movement is likewise extended into the entire installation composed of roughly 25 paintings on panel and stretched paper that range in size from six inches to 5 feet in size. Getty considers her work to be “process-driven” documents that are “rooted in contemplating the commensal relationship between man and machine.” She experiences this relationship first-hand having a daughter whose life is dependent upon a machine.

Teresa Getty's website

Alloy PGH 2013

Alloy Pittsburgh is a unique visual and performing arts project co-founded by Pittsburgh artists Sean Derry and Chris McGinnis. The project was developed in collaboration with the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area and the Kipp Gallery at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Alloy Pittsburgh offers 15 emerging artists from the greater Pittsburgh region the opportunity to develop temporary site-based artworks for the Carrie Furnace National Historic Landmark.

http://alloypittsburgh.blogspot.com/

Anika Hirt

Anna Mikolay

 Carl Bajandas

 Dan Wilcox

 Edith Abeyta

 Emily Scuili

 Kara Skylling and Meghan Olson

Kyla Grout

 Laurie Barnes

 Michelle Colbaugh

 Ryan Keene

Will Schlough

We Two Founts - 2013

We Two Founts is an exhibition produced by Chris McGinnis and Kipp gallery.  The show was guest curated by Marc Mitchell and featured the work of both Mitchell himself and multimedia sculptor Derek Larson