City Wide Open Studios 2010

Alternative Space

lizantle — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 02:56:46 +0000

The final weekend of City Wide Open Studios brought me (and many others) to the Alternative Space on College Street:

I enjoyed seeing all the different ways artists used the space. From simply hanging work to transforming it entirely, each artist offered something unique.

Here are just a small handful of favorites:

Margaret Roleke — I was struck particularly by the many layers in Roleke’s work. I loved how the natural light added even more dimension to the above all black piece.

Roleke with “Tinkerbelle at War”

At first glance, not only did the work look two-dimensional, but I also did not even see Tinkerbelle lurking in the background! On further inspection, the toy soldiers emerged and the piece reminded me of a giant game of Risk. Finally Tink appeared, adding yet another layer.

Kelly Kapp — I enjoyed Kapp’s mobile-like sculptures of household appliances and other plastics. Here too I had to look twice before realizing each object’s identity!

“The Peep Show” — In search of the bathroom, we opened the curtain slowly, unsure if we were really allowed in. Low and behold, a small group of chairs and a projected video of break dancers awaited us. The element of discovery here was great!

Janice Barnish — I enjoyed Barnish’s quiet installation: “Flight Assistance.” Tiny plastic compasses covered the floor and brightly colored binoculars poked out of the blinds, perched on window ledges. Birdbath-like structures stood empty.

“The Bough House” – I approached this work feeling a little nervous, but decided after a few moments to just follow the direction and

CRAWL

As you make your way through the smashed hole in the wall and look around at the debris covering the ground, you get a sense of urgency and perhaps anger. Then you look up at the branches jabbed through the walls above you and notice they are actually carefully lodged in and almost intricately woven together.

Once on the other side, you stand up to meet a delicate installation hanging from the ceiling paired with smashed oranges on the ground. The natural light floats in from the open screen door adding to a sense of eery release.

As other bloggers have noted, many people wondered whether to crawl or not to crawl. I sure am happy I did!

All in all, I had a wonderful time discovering the many artists at the Alternative Space and throughout this year’s City Wide Open Studios!

Thanks Artspace! And thanks New Haven!

Liz Antle is a writer, artist and New Haven native. She graduated from New York University in 2005 with a degree in English. Liz has since taught both preschool and kindergarten. She is currently taking classes at Paier College of Art, making coffee at Koffee?, and substitute teaching. Liz is primarily a printmaker and has participated in several group shows as well as embarking on a solo exhibition at Creative Arts Workshop in January 2009. Liz’s studio will be open October 3rd — make sure to check it out!

Tim Nikiforuk

destinypalmer — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 18:18:36 +0000

After walking around for a few minutes after the opening and seeing work by Tim Nikiforuk was definitely an artist that I enjoyed seeing. I didn’t get a chance to chat with him but his work was something I personally enjoyed. His choice of medium and line work inspired me as I walked into the door. Nikiforuk’s work involved intricate line work, bold saturated colors and a possible mix of medium. These organic forms twisted, contrated and expanded to the ends of the page, as if he were trying to connect these organisms to one another.

Tim Nikiforuk exhibited drawings that I must say made me quite jealous. His talent for controlling graphite in order to creative such beautiful portraits. These portraits capture the viewer’s gaze, locking you in to capture every detail until you move around the structure of the face, where his pencil work loosens up relieving you to lock eyes with the next portrait.

Neighboring Tim Nikiforuk, was an unknown artist, who created this towering structure out of beer cans, from companies I have never heard of before. I think some of those can’s may have been older then I am. I wish I knew whose work it was.

Destiny Palmer is a recent graduate of Massachusetts College Art and Design. She received her BFA in Fine Arts after studying at the Yale/Norfolk Program and traveling to South Africa. We’re happy to welcome Destiny back to Artspace, where she has been a Teen Docent, a Summer Apprentice, and a Youthview Young Curator. She adds, “Even though I have traveled and studied many places, City-Wide Open Studios in New Haven is the only reason I believed I could do all of those things. It was my first interaction with the contemporary art scene.”

Artist for Sale?

destinypalmer — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 17:24:48 +0000

I thought Erector Square was overwhelming. So much creativity and so many artists who opened their spaces and showed their work. Alternative space truly made a come back. I was great! Happenings and music performances took over College St in New Haven. Alternative Space is not just a place to see art, its where you experience it. Eric Iannucci sold himself or he had himself up for sell… and his work too. Iannucci created work that was constructed and assembled with bits and pieces from so many other things. Clock parts, gears, springs, instrument parts, frames, the list goes on. But the best thing was that everything was on sale!f his work reminded me of Willie Bester’s work. Both artists create work that is so detailed, that allows the viewer to be curious.

Eat this art: Alternative Spaces and SERA

bethanneroyer — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 03:12:52 +0000

You have 5 more hours to enjoy the wonders of Open Studios—which are open tomorrow (Sunday the from 12-5 PM. The Alternative Spaces @ 196-212 College Street are host to a plethora of wonderment and surprises in storefronts you might not otherwise have a chance to explore. Spaces @ 300 George Street and 39 Church Street are also open.

In an old liquor store, Eric Litke is showing polaroids in handmade frames. There is a series of images of the same cross, kids playing video games, diamond signage, and architectural exteriors. If you ask nicely, he might let you use the bathroom behind the bar.

In the windows of this same space are hand-painted signs by Gene Beery—a contemporary of Sol LeWitt who worked as a security guard @ Moma and offers messages like this:

And this:

A few spaces over, Margaret Roleke makes amazing constructions using toy soldiers and tinkerbell stickers. Robert Greenberg interprets history through a crocodile’s lens, and behind his space, you can crawl into a space behind a wall, provided you have a sense of adventure, good knees, and you look out for crushed oranges.

This piece was delightful in that it made noise (typewriter, powered by the artists) and smelled great. (Again, those crushed oranges) plus, there was something in the crawling that brought me back to a mental space I hadn’t inhabited since I was small. I like art that engages the senses in ways I wasn’t expecting. This piece makes you crawl under a thicket of tree parts suspended in the drywall, and you might miss it if you aren’t paying attention. Some folks asked me what was happening back there and I replied, “ART?”

Co-op students have transformed a storefront with paint and a visual vortex. Their enthusiasm and willingness to discuss the transformation of the space was excellent.

In SERA, a nail salon of pink and mauve profusion offers a selection of treatments, from an inner beauty treatment, to artist swapping services, manifesto massages, and nail treatments from an attendant behind a pink fabric wall. The place was swarming with photographers, which was slightly distracting, but Albert Municino led my friend Dawn & I through the inner beauty treatment, which was both technologically advanced (there was a powerpoint presentation) and utterly human all at once. We learned new words, imaginary words, and experienced an inner beauty treatment that reduced our fear & rage to manageable levels. I was wondering if I would feel cynical about the treatment, but in fact I felt better when it was over, like a person made open to the possibilities of imagination. Here’s a view into the space from the reception area:

On to the massage/manifesto portion of the day: here is a legit journalist and an artist discussing manifestos? Art? Massage? The wisdom of sharing a pillow with strangers?

I do not like the scent of nail polish, so I passed on that, but did get a totally amazing choose-your-own-manifesto massage from the man behind the installation, Ted, who read to me from the Situationist Manifesto accompanied by a found soundtrack of religious music/sermoning found in the salon at the time of it’s grand re-opening preparations. I tried hard to get an actual journalist Allan Appel to get a massage, specifically the cyberfeminist massage, but he wanted only to witness the experience. In talking about it, I realized it was indeed different from many other artworks I’ve experienced because I wasn’t using my eyes. It was engaging my nose (frankly, the pillow smelled very floral) my ears (manifesto & found Korean tape) my sense of touch (duh, the massage) and not my eyes at all. But of course, Ted said, he was using his eyes. I got my friend Mary to get a massage and we both confessed later to thinking Ted was grand—was it the manifesto that made us happy? Or just the magic of being touched? Did we actually absorb any of the manifestos? We all agreed that we wished we’d been able to tip our humble art servants like one does in an actual salon.

Before we left, we each took a crumpled note from the floor. That made us feel even better about ourselves and our salon experience.

Upstairs, Kim Mikenis displayed off her deliciously colorful artworks, puppetry scripts and outfits, and new work that incorporates the shadowpuppet figures from her shows into art pieces.

Down the hall, I stepped into a camera obscura room built by Colin Burke and watched Crown Street pass by upside down. I sat in the darkness watching the world outside gliding by, astonished and quiet.

I asked Burke if he had a camera obscura room in his house. “No,” he said, he didn’t have a spare room for it. I’d describe it as more compelling than a fish tank, and equally relaxing.

Kevin Van Aelst’s photographs of the mundane turned meaningful delighted a young biochemist on the second floor. She loved chromosomes and his gummy worm visions of it.

A tower of beercans in another room were visually striking. Sadly I don’t know who to attribute these to. [David Coon - ed.]

I admired Harvey Koizim’s photographs of Farmer’s Markets and wished for an apple image in this season of apples. In another space, I enjoyed one of the other pleasures of open studios, free food. I ate a wee macoun and wandered back downstairs.

There, we chatted with Elvira Ormaechea about painting the lake—or ? I guess we talked about a method of preparing a wooden surface with layers of an ancient primer but it had a really exotic name and I wasn’t taking good notes at this point in the day. I really liked her work, and her name too, obviously. It too is beautiful. Whatever the process was called, we expressed our delight at the surfaces this meticulous process produced.

If you can, get over to the space at the Alternative Space before the weekend is over, I can guarantee you won’t regret it. You can feed your mouth, your eyes, your inner beauty, your muscles, your ears, your heart. That place is bursting with awesome. Here is the sun, bursting with awesome through the pinhole that makes the camera obscura work:

Loving Open Studios: Artists in the Alternative Space Edition

bethanneroyer — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 02:15:39 +0000

Loving Open Studios: Artists in the Alternative Space @ 196-212 College Street

Eric Litke