Superheroes: Icons of Good, Evil & Everything In Between

SUPERHEROES

Icons of Good, Evil & Everything in Between exhibition catalog

SUPERHEROES Icons of Good, Evil & Everything in Between

October 1, 2011 – January 7, 2012

Curated by 516 ARTS with Neilie Johnson

516 Central Avenue SW Downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico www.516arts.org

Who Wants to be a Superhero?

by Neilie Johnson

"I'm trapped... trapped like a rat on this insane planet..."

— Norrin Radd, AKA, the Silver Surfer

Though

spoken by an energy-manipulating, silver-skinned alien from the planet Zenn-la, these words can’t help but resonate with us. Each of us, at one time or another, has felt powerless, oppressed or put-upon and dreamed of having the ability to effortlessly transcend our mundane lives.

Is it any wonder we perennially gravitate toward the Superhero? For us, Superheroes not only represent good trumping evil and order winning over chaos, they represent humanity reaching its collective potential. They’re us, only better.

© 2011, 516 ARTS Published by 516 ARTS, 516 Central Avenue SW, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87102 tel. 505-242-1445, www.516arts.org Design by Suzanne Sbarge. Printed by Don Mickey Designs.

FRONT COVER: Boneface, Soc!, 2011, archival digital print, 38 x 28 inches BACK COVER: Mark Newport, Ends Man, hand knit acrylic and buttons, 80 x 23 x 6 inches

Though many of us think of Superheroes as cape-wearing crime-fighters living in secret, high-tech lairs, their origins can be traced back to the world’s oldest civilizations. For millenia, humanity has created exemplars of fortitude and achievement both to entertain and inspire, and long before Batman and Spiderman dazzled us with their exploits, heroes like Beowulf, Gilgamesh and Hercules galvanized their respective cultures with acts of strength, daring and super-human courage. Even our own relatively young nation has its own folksy-mythological figures like Paul Bunyan and John Henry. Regardless of age or place of origin, these larger-than-life figures have enabled us to live out our dreams of adventure and peril, salvation and revenge, and while it might be easy to dismiss these heroic icons as nothing but adolescent male power fantasies, they’re really so much more.

The majority of the public thinks of Superheroes — especially 20th century Superheroes — as all-powerful bodyguards, peace keepers, or in the extreme, Messiahs, but what’s often forgotten is how most Superheroes came to be.

After all, they didn’t start out musclebound and invincible. The majority of 3

What’s interesting about these characters..is that in the face of great personal tragedy, they chose to move forward, using their new-found abilities for Good. them were regular Joes (or Janes) who adopted their new identities only after undergoing some sort of life-changing trauma such as a disfiguring accident or loss of a loved one. In an odd way, their calamaties comfort us because whatever terrible ordeals we might have to endure, Bruce Banner, Peter Parker and Clark Kent have had worse. What’s interesting about these characters and others like them though, isn’t that they were rewarded for their hardships with Spider Sense or X-ray vision. It’s that in the face of great personal tragedy, they chose to move forward, using their new-found abilities for Good.

Of course, for every extraordinary character who teeters on the brink and ends by falling to the side of good, there’s another who falls to the side of evil, hence the Lex Luthors, Moriartys and Jokers. Just as cunning and powerful as their light side counterparts, these Supervillains tap into our aggressive, self-interested sides, the parts of us that wish we could ignore our consciences and act on impulse and without regret. In addition to these icons of uber-good and uber-evil, a third kind of hero has risen in recent decades, born perhaps from the ever-increasing complexity of our collective experience. Figures like The Crow, John Constantine and Hellboy are perhaps easier for us to identify with than either the Superhero or the Supervillain because they most accurately reflect our own lives; not swinging fully to either end of the moral spectrum, they instead hover in a fog of moral ambiguity.

The heroic in its purest, most recognizable form can be seen in the work of New Mexico native and professional comic artist Aaron Campbell, who expertly conveys the Superheroic in his drawings of The Green Hornet.

Campbell’s stark, black and white drawings of the fedora-ed vigilante take us to the gritty streets of 1930s Chicago where the action-packed violence of the city’s criminal element is rendered in blood-curdling detail.

By contrast, Campbell’s monumental image of supernatural mob assassin Jackie Estacado and his quiet, pensive depiction of a thoughtful Sherlock Holmes show us the stillness and isolation of the hero both pre-and-post conflict.

If Campbell’s images show us the hero triumphant both in action and in repose, U.K. artist Boneface shows us the hero’s more vulnerable human side, the side that sometimes takes a beating. Unusual in their frank portrayal of the hero’s fragility, these raw, visceral portraits are unapologetically brutal and force us to consider not only the violence inherent in enforcing order, but the price in blood we routinely ask our heroes to pay.

Employing the same use of eye-popping color, Washington D.C. artist Lawrence Getubig acquaints us with the Superhero in a more upbeat, playful manner. Moody photographs of miniature paper cut-outs silhouetted against brilliantly glowing backdrops make us feel we’re stealing a peek at something amazing, albeit through a keyhole. In these high contrast tableaux, action is the emphasis as heroes dash, duel and ass-kick, their near-anonymous outlines allowing us to easily super-impose ourselves upon them.

This desire to step into the tall, lace-up boots of the Superhero becomes more explicit in the work of Albuquerque artist, Benjamin Johnsen, North

In these high contrast tableaux, action is the emphasis as heroes dash, duel and ass-kick, their near-anonymous outlines allowing us to easily super-impose ourselves upon them.

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Aaron Campbell, House of Mystery, Page 7 (detail), 2011, ink on paper, 11 x 17 inches

Boneface, Smack!, 2011, archival inkjet print, 38 x 28 inches

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Superheroes are by nature outsiders, which is what makes them so appealing to the powerless and the disenfranchised.

Dakota artist Joel Jonientz and Michigan artist, Mark Newport. In Super Ordinary, Johnsen approaches the idea of the common man adopting a secret Superhero identity through a tongue-incheek video of a real-time phone booth costume change and written job petition to the local city council. Jonientz’s chalk animation takes a similarly humorous turn, with stop-motion images showing his and his brother Jeff’s Superhero alter-egos locked in hilariously non-mortal combat. And drawing attention to the absurdity of most Superhero outfits and to the average guy’s perhaps less-thansuper abilities, Newport’s Superhero costumes are hand-knitted from equal parts colored yarn and irony. Far from being “faster than a speeding bullet,” the artist sits in the gallery space for hours, laboriously knitting a protective force field.

Superheroes are by nature outsiders, which is what makes them so appealing to the powerless and the disenfranchised. Through her video, How to be Zumarella and her action still prints, Chicago artist Min Kim Park presents strong women throwing down in distinctly un-girlie, Superheroic ways. Her subjects kick, fly and tumble their way through the frames, challenging us, with intense direct eye contact, to jump into the ring. Conversely, Massachusetts artist Cullen Washington Jr.’s majestic mixed media pieces take a subtler, if no less powerful approach, their gritty, multi-layered surfaces eloquently elucidating the hopeful significance of the Superhero ethos to inner city kids.

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presence of Native American women in a culture that might otherwise marginalize them. In keeping with the theme of the outsider, Mexico City artist Dulce Pinzón celebrates through vibrant color photos, the superhuman courage and tenacity of the immigrant who leaves family, friends and all things familiar to seek a better life in alien (and often hostile) territory. Similarly, San Francisco artist David Gremard Romero lays claim to the Superheroic for himself and his inner circle by combining Renaissance techniques with images and textiles that touch upon ideas of identity, transformation, homoeroticism and Mesoamerican ritual.

In accord with Washington’s work, Santa Fe artist Jolene Yazzie takes a message of empowerment to the reservation through bold, graphic wall murals depicting fierce, beautiful, Native American women warriors. Combining traditional imagery with a graphic novel aesthetic, Yazzie asserts the

In their multiplicity, Superheroes and villains represent the dichotomy between the cerebral and the physical as the work of Albuquerque and Santa Fe artists David Cudney and Esteban Bojorquez so clearly represent.

Cudney’s kinetic sculpture Mental Man goes inside the mind of the man/ hero/villain, describing him through metal gears and exposed brain matter as pure mental machination. Bojorquez’ Mr. Bends on the other hand, examines the possibility of the hero becoming nothing more than stomping feet and monocular vision—a huge, inflated, golem-like embodiment of pure physical force.

Mark Newport, Argyle Man, 2007, hand knit acrylic and buttons, 80 x 23 x 6 inches

Min Kim Park, Maggie, from the Zummarella series, 2008, injet print, 38 x 42 inches

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Since their origin, Super beings have continued to be important to us because whether heroic, villainous or a morally-indistinct hybrid of the two, they represent us both as we are and as we could be.

they represent us both as we are and as we could be. Through the years they’ve changed as we have, becoming as complex and varied as the world around us.

Moreover, despite their super powers, these spandex and leather-wearing icons have shared both our triumphs and our sorrows and their epic contests have become our modest struggles writ large. When all is said and done, our fascination with the Superhero is bound to be everlasting because deep down, we know the silver-skinned figure zipping by on the surfboard isn’t an alien from the planet Zenn-la—he’s us.

Transcending (or perhaps fusing) the mental and the physical, Los Angeles artist Aaron Noble forgoes the literal depiction of Superheroes and Supervillains in favor of presenting their essence in the abstract. His acrylic paintings writhe and twist, swoop and contort, looking in their ragged, ectoplasmic form, like either the ethereal waftings or desperate grapplings of Superheroic apparitions. Continuing in this spectral vein, Albuquerque artist Mark Ouellette’s painting Dream features a heroic, yet disturbing portrait of a soaring, be-caped infant who in her nascent state, represents the promise and transformative potential found within every newborn baby.

Since their origin, Super beings have continued to be important to us because whether heroic, villainous or a morally-indistinct hybrid of the two,

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Aaron Noble, Column, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 84 x 60 inches Collection of Megan Wilson, Emeryville, California

Neilie Johnson is a freelance writer and art director specializing in popular media. Her work has been published in publications such as PLAY, Geek, InQuest Gamer and MovieFan and is regularly featured on some of the most highly-trafficked entertainment sites on the web. A recipient of the Northwestern Fellowship award, she holds an M.F.A. degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois as well as a B.F.A. degree from The University of New Mexico.

She has worked as an illustrator, art instructor, video game tester and production assistant on animated films and interactive games. Currently, she divides her time between writing about mass media entertainment and providing the primary artistic vision for the interactive game projects of Pixelux Entertainment.

David Gremard Romero, Red Yacatecuhtli Lienzo, 2009, hand embroidered & painted silk, with ribbon

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Esteban Bojorquez

Boneface

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Mister Bends is a man with the power in his hands to bend both space and time...

You can feel all of his love even through his rubber gloves if your heart, mind and soul are pure but if you have evil intent you’re going to get bent by a pain that you just cannot endure Some say that his race came down from outer space some say he’s from the bottom of the sea some say that he’s a ghost from a shipwreck off the coast some say that he’s just like you and me.

Liverpool, England

“They deserved it.”

He came from another dimension, where others looked just like him.

Boneface’s secret Lair is now located somewhere in the wastelands of Liverpool, UK. His works of evil have been shown around the world, including galleries in San Francisco and Sydney. His mad campaign to conquer the entire world is slowly coming together... Described as ‘slimed pop-art’, Boneface’s work is jammed with the color schemes of early 1990s Marvel and 1950s monster comics. Featuring superheroes and villains, leather clad ghouls and skulls galore, Boneface combines dark imagery with badass characters. Just don’t ask what’s underneath their masks.

— excerpt from The Mysterious Legend of Mr. Bends by Steven Durose

Originally from Santa Monica, California, Esteban Bojorquez first gained recognition as an innovative surfer and surfboard designer. In the 1980s he spent eight years working on The Shack, an environmental installation covering an acre of land. He has continued his exploration into a diverse array of media and has participated in several exhibits in the United States and abroad.

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Mr. Bends, 1990, assemblage, 113 x 88 x 34 inches

Left to right: Crack!, Zing!, 2011, archival digital prints, 38 x 28 inches

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Aaron Campbell Albuquerque, New Mexico

“My graphic novel work is primarily concerned with storytelling and technique... I approach the page like a cinematographer staging a scene, searching for the most compelling angles, seeking the most heightened sense of drama. I work in dark spaces letting just meager light creep in to illuminate the action drawing the viewer deep into the tension of the narrative.”

Aaron Campbell received his B.F.A. degree in Illustration from The Maryland Institute, College of Art and his M.F.A. in llustration as Visual Essay from The School of Visual Arts in New York. He has worked as an illustrator for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Steve Jackson Games, and Eos Books, among others. In 2009 Campbell returned to his childhood dream of drawing comic books as the artist for The Trial of Sherlock Holmes, an original mini-series written by Leah Moore and John Reppion and published

by Dynamite Entertainment. He was then invited to work on the Green Hornet property that Dynamite had recently licensed. He is currently the artist for Matt Wagner’s Green Hornet: Year One.

David Cudney Albuquerque, New Mexico

“Mental Man, a ‘submerged assemblage’, introduces a new superhero to the world. Mental Man possesses superior mental powers and the ability to generate super ideas. Unlike other superheroes, like Brainiac who only possesses great knowledge, Mental Man generates new thought and knowledge. His telekinesis, or psychokinesis, is only a secondary power and a byproduct of the intensity of his brain activity. Mental Man does not differentiate between good or evil ideas and has contributed his super ideas to both villains and heroes. Submerged in a “think tank” of cerebrospinal fluid, Mental Man generates and transmits his ideas to others. There is such tremendous energy produced from his thinking that telekinetic activity occurs all around him. Mental Man’s abilities ultimately have the power to save mankind or bring about its destruction.”

David Cudney has been an installation and assemblage artist with an interest in kinetic sculpture and performance art for over thirty years. A primary component in his work is water, be it the sound, color or even the feel, water has the power to transform. David’s exploration into water has led to the focus of what he describes as “submerged assemblage”. He has lived and created for the last ten years in New Mexico, and has exhibited throughout the United States.

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House of Mystery, Page 8 (detail), 2011, ink on paper

Mental Man, 2011, mixed media submerged assemblage, 70 x 24 x 24 inches

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Lawrence Getubig Washington, D.C.

“American science fiction movies, television shows, cartoons and superhero comic book escapades were regular imports growing up in the Philippines in the 1980s. Thanks to action figure toys, the stories and narratives continued well beyond the screen and comic pages. These photographs revisit playing with those toys and boyhood narratives. I draft and sculpt black cardboard cutouts of myself, including the superheroes I adored. I construct, light and photograph them with a film camera without the help of Photoshop, in homemade sets. These photographs explore my relationship with fantasy and desire with respect to the mythological American male hero.”

Lawrence Getubig received his M.F.A. degree in 2008 from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and he holds a B.S. degree from the University of Oregon. His work has been shown at the galleries in Boston, Woodstock, New York and Eugene, Oregon. Getubig has been awarded the School of the Museum of Fine Arts International Travel Grant, the Yousuf Karsh Prize in Photography and the Boit Award. He has worked at various art institutions, including the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Chester College, and the Cloud Foundation, and is currently Assistant Professor at Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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Kansas Hoedown (Superman), 2011, archival inket print, 24 x 30 inches

David Gremard Romero San Francisco, California

“The unifying themes behind my current body of work are Lucha Libre, or Mexican Free Wrestling, and the confluence of cultures brought about through conquest and emigration in the Americas, both ancient and modern.

Masks, capes and tights become important accessories of the luchador as a modern day super hero/warrior. My work deals with the syncretism of lucha libre costumes and pre-Hispanic and colonial mythology. The works also touch on the homoerotic connotations of hyper-masculine activities like wrestling and male bonding at sporting events. Most importantly, my pieces bring a contemporary Chicano perspective to colonial painting and the textile traditions of the Americas and to larger issues of multiculturalism and history.”

David Gremard Romero was born in Los Angeles in 1975 to a Mexican mother of Native-American descent who had emigrated to the United States illegally, and a Caucasian-American father from the South. David was raised Roman Catholic in the strictest sense; the mysticism, pageantry and visual drama of this faith have continued to inform his work. He learned to sew and embroider at a young age from his mother who was a seamstress.

He works with Zapotec Indians in the Southern Mexican state of Oaxaca on the embroidery of his textile pieces.

Frightened Enmascaradas (detail), 2006, ink and gouache on paper, 8.5 x 9 inches

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Benjamin Johnsen Albuquerque, New Mexico

“Gone In a Flash explores the unseen side of the moment in which the audience suspends disbelief to follow a superhero. The business attire, left on the floor of the telephone booth, belongs to a hero who has sprung into action... Does this superhero have to come back for his suit later, or does he additionally help by clothing the homeless of his fair city? Super Ordinary connects the superhero to the everyman through my personal struggles in the real world. In this instance, the fantastical superhero is shown as a persona used to cope with the very real challenges of finding employment, turning away from reality to find an escape. These works help to focus the line between fantasy and reality, showing how we identify with each and the ways we cross the barrier between them.”

Benjamin Johnsen was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He received his B.F.A. degree in 2005 from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. In 2009, he graduated from the University of New Mexico with his M.F.A. degree. He is interested in how experience and place combine, via an internal/external interface, to inform identity. Gleaning from personal narrative, his own experiential vantage point is offered in simulation to create tangible emotive connection through sculpture, land and electronic arts.

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Super Ordinary, 2011, digital print, inkjet print, video, variable dimensions

Joel Jonientz Grand Forks, North Dakota

“In this work, I investigate time based image manipulation, the act of drawing and the possibilities of narrative. My process explores the inherent progression of an idea as it develops over time. This audio-visual composition explores the idea that identity is a narrative created to help comprehend past experience. Like all good stories, this requires a combination of fact and myth.

In the creation of this narrative drawing I am composing an autobiography.

Through words and images, I explore events and relationships in my life.”

Joel Jonientz was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. He earned his undergraduate degree from The Evergreen State College with an emphasis in Experimental Animation, and received his M.F.A. degree in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design. While his work explores multiple avenues of artistic practice including painting, drawing and installation, it is primarily focused on technology-based arts and new media, specifically fine art animation. Joel’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions. His time-based works have additionally been broadcast on television and shown in film festivals across the nation. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of North Dakota where he directs the time-based media emphasis.

Still from Better Brother Battle, 2010, digital video, run time 1 minute

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Aaron Noble

Mark Newport Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Los Angeles, California

“What makes a hero? How does action or inaction define a person? How do these relate to common ideas of masculinity?

These questions form the basic foundation for the hand knit super hero costumes I have been working on since 2003. These costumes combine personal protective gestures like hand-knit sweaters and the public image of the hero from comic books to explore how we understand the heroes in relation to male and female social roles and expectations. The prints, photographs and performances each expand these ideas by placing the costumed hero in situations that explore his daily life, super powers and real or imagined circumstances.”

Mark Newport earned his B.F.A. degree at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1986 and his M.F.A. degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1991. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Canada and Europe, including solo exhibitions at The Arizona State University Art Museum; The Cranbrook Art Museum; The Chicago Cultural Center; and Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, Missouri. He has received numerous grants including from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the Herberger College of Arts at Arizona State University. It is included in the collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art; The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum; The Cranbrook Art Museum; The Racine Art Museum; 4Culture, Seattle; City of Phoenix Public Art, Microsoft and Progressive Insurance. His work is represented by Greg Kucera Gallery and Lemberg Gallery. Newport is the Artist-in-Residence and Head of Fiber at the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

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Ends Man, hand knit acrylic and buttons, 80 x 23 x 6 inches

“I am an analog artist whose subject is the digital age. I start by making an abstract collage using contemporary superhero comics as my sole source material. I am seeking to create archetypal, non-human forms that express the full potentials of speed, power, amorality and fecundity that the superhero form hints at but constrains within a familiar pulp narrative.

These collages become the models for works on paper, canvas and wall, in which I reproduce Photoshopped visual effects in brush and acrylic and test the expressive limits of the visual language developed by brilliant midcentury cartoonists like Jack Kirby, Wally Wood, Neal Adams and others.”

Aaron Noble attended the San Francisco Art Institute in 1981-82 and is a cofounder (in 1991) of the Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP) in San Francisco, which he directed from 1997 to 2001. He has done permanent outdoor murals in San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, Indonesia, Taiwan and Beijing; and temporary wall paintings at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, White Columns in New York and the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, among others. His work has been exhibited at Blum & Poe and Track 16 in Los Angeles, PeerUK in London, Pavel Zoubok Gallery in New York and many others. He is represented by Kaycee Olsen Gallery in Los Angeles and Guerrero Gallery in San Francisco, and is a member of Brooklyn Artists Alliance and the Artists Pension Trust.

Revolutionary Motorcycle, 2006, gouache on watercolor paper, 19.5 x 32 inches

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Marc Ouellette

Min Kim Park

Albuquerque, New Mexico

“Dream was inspired by a photograph of a friend’s baby: the lighting on her face, her expression of determination and the contrasting vulnerability of her nudity. She seemed to be flying. Her determination—and what appeared to me as aspiration—transformed her beyond her age. I felt she needed something to visually accentuate her heroic posture. Since we are not inclined to think of females as caped crusaders, I painted her a red cape.

Monster is inspired by the larger-than-life character of Frankenstein, not because he was a brute but because he was lonely and sad. There is an image in the book of Frankenstein in pursuit in the Arctic, where he is described as a large black mass scrambling over the ice. I relate to that figure. Having had two brain surgeries for cancer, I have been through a lot (of stitching), and I suppose my creative disposition sometimes sets me apart from people.

I feel like an outsider looking in. But then again, maybe we are all monsters some of the time.”

Marc Ouellette studied music and philosophy at the State University of New York, New Paltz. After performing in a rock band, he turned his focus to visual arts in the 1990s. Since 2000, he has been painting in oil. His work is represented by Box Gallery in Santa Fe and is in private collections throughout the United States.

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Dream, 2011, oil on canvas, 60 x 60 inches, Courtesy of Box Gallery, Santa Fe

Chicago, Illinois

“The Zummarella series is a caricature of the absurdity and arbitrariness of the relationship between the authority and the subordinate. It explores dynamics of subordination, bodily imposition, power struggle and social hierarchy. I employed makeshift props and costumes, and staged episodic narratives played out between two women who pantomime acts of heeling through erotic subjugation, scolding, and blurring the line between aggressors and victims, depicting an inescapable societal hierarchy.”

Born in South Korea, Min Kim Park has been exploring the issues revolving around gender, ethnicity and identity using performance, video, photography, sound and video installation. Her work draws much from her experience as a journalist in Korea News Daily and Korean American Broadcasting Company in Chicago. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Her new series, Zummarella, was screened at White Box in New York in 2010. She is also a recipient of artist in residency in Bemis Center for Contemporary art and Rosenquist residency at North Dakota State University in 2009. She received her M.F.A. degree in Photography from University of New Mexico in 2007, and she has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Northwestern University and St. John’s University. She is currently the Photography coordinator at Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana.

Claire, from the Zummarella series, 2008, inkjet print, 42 x 38 inches

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Dulce Pinzón

Cullen Washington Jr.

Mexico City, Mexico

Boston, Massachusetts

“I am working on a series of satirical documentary style photographs featuring ordinary men and women in their work environment in New York; they are immigrants donning superhero garb. This is with the objective of raising questions of our definition of heroism after 9/11 and our ignorance to the workforce that fuels our ever-consuming economy. Text is incorporated with each image with the name of the worker, country of origin and how much money they send to their communities, highlighting the human nature of the individuals in the photographs.”

Dulce Pinzón was born in Mexico City in 1974. She studied Mass Media Communications at the Universidad de Las Americas in Puebla, Mexico, Indiana University in Pennsylvania and The International Center of Photography in New York. As a young Mexican artist living in the United States, her work was inspired by feelings of nostalgia, questions of identity, and political and cultural frustrations. Her work has been exhibited internationally including in Spain, Mexico, Chicago, Washington D.C., New Jersey and New York, and published on the cover of Howard Zinn’s book A People’s History of the United States. She has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards and grants, including from the Ford Foundation in 2008. She lives between Mexico and Brooklyn, New York.

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Noe Reyes from the State of Puebla works as a delivery boy in Brooklyn, New York.

He sends 500 dollars a week, c-print, 2005 - 2010, 20 x 24 inches

“In this body of work, entitled Hero’s Story, the backdrop of the narrative is Blackness, an unstable and constantly shifting universe, a setting for trial, play, struggle and metamorphosis. Within this metaphorical space, the heroic archetypes of my Louisiana childhood, American Pop culture icons, comics heroes, Christian and African deities are invoked in new guises to engage with the day-to-day struggles of this past-present-future continuum we call reality. The mix of media registers like a chorus witnessing the emergence of the new heroes of a new mythology rising from the ashes of urban debris, grit, personal memory and universal dreams to give voice to the ever-changing (r)evolution of human existence.”

Cullen Washington, Jr. was born in 1972 in Alexandria, Louisiana. He was awarded the Joan Mitchell National Grant for Painting and Drawing, an exhibition at the Museum of the National Center of African American Artists and acceptance to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He has taught at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. He is dedicated to helping disadvantaged youth.

The Man of Steel, 2009, acrylic, paper and cardboard on canvas, 72 x 100 inches

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Jolene Yazzie Santa Fe, New Mexico

“My works express the reverence and frustration I feel about the ‘traditional’ and cultural way of Indigenous life. It expresses the infinite variety of my surroundings, inviting me to remember the true roots of my existence. My philosophy with my artwork is therapeutic. I have been guided by the old traditions of the three tribes of which I am proud to be a part. My piece in this exhibition was inspired by my mother, sister and my two-spirit nature.

My artistic creation comes from a balanced and unbalanced state of being within, in which I know I have my rightful place in the universe.”

Jolene Nenibah Yazzie is a graphic designer at the Santa Fe Reporter.

Originally from Lupton, Arizona, she received her B.F.A. degree in Visual Communications from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her illustrations have been exhibited in Washington, D.C., Santa Fe, and San Francisco.

She created and designed work for Future Voices of New Mexico National Geographic, a statewide youth film and photography project. Her most current work is in the exhibition Comic Art Indigene, on tour and now at the Palm Springs Museum in California. Internally driven and emotionally charged, Yazzie’s work has been described as ‘empowering Native Woman and their role in society.’ The characters in her paintings represent a diverse collection of women warriors inspired by her family and culture.

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Bik’eh Hozho (detail), 2011, interior paint on wall, size variable

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane...

Short films curated by Bryan Konefsky

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane... is a looped program of short films in the gallery, presented in partnership with Basement Films. The group of oddball and experimental cinema explores the politics of heroes, anti-heroes and antihero heroes.

Bif vs. Bam by Ben Popp, 2009 Suffragette Slasher by Julie Perini, 2009 The Night Could Last Forever by Dean Snider, 1985 Teslamania by Joel Schlemowitz, 2010 Creamistress 6: The Centered Polenta by Carolyn Sorter, 2003 Alone by Gerard Freixes Ribera, 2008 Sandwich The Musical by Eric Arsnow, 2008 America’s Biggest Dick by Bryan Boyce, 2005 Bryan Konefsky is a cultural worker dedicated to the advancement of independent, experimental media arts through his work as a moving image artist, teacher and film festival director. He is the artistic director of the Experiments in Cinema festival, the president of Basement Films and a professor in the Department of Cinematic Arts at The University of New Mexico. He lectures at colleges and universities internationally, and his own essay films have been screened at museums and festivals throughout North America and Europe.

Still from Creamistress 6: The Centered Polenta by Carolyn Sorter, 2003, run time 7 min

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516 ARTS is an independent, nonprofit arts and education organization, with a museum-style gallery in Downtown Albuquerque. We offer programs that inspire curiosity, dialogue, risk-taking and creative experimentation, showcasing a mix of established, emerging, local, national and international artists from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Our mission is to forge connections between art and audiences, and our vision is to be an active partner in developing the cultural landscape of Albuquerque and New Mexico. Our values are inquiry, diversity, collaboration and accessibility.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

ADVISORY BOARD

Arturo Sandoval, Chair Suzanne Sbarge, President/Founder David Vogel, Vice President Kathryn Kaminsky, Secretary Joni Thompson, Treasurer Juan Abeyta Perry Bendicksen Dr. Marta Weber, Fundraising Chair Clint Wells

Frieda Arth Hakim Bellamy Michael Berman Sherri Brueggemann Christopher Burmeister David Campbell Andrew Connors Debi Dodge Miguel Gandert Lisa Gill Idris Goodwin Tom Guralnick Stephanie Hainsfurther Norty Kalishman Jane Kennedy Arif Khan John Lewinger, Founding Chair Wendy Lewis Danny Lopez Christopher Mead Elsa Menéndez Melody Mock Henry Rael Mary Anne Redding Rick Rennie Augustine Romero Nancy Salem Rob Strell

STAFF & CONSULTANTS Suzanne Sbarge, Executive Director Rhiannon Mercer, Assistant Director Teresa Buscemi, Program Coordinator Claude Smith, Education Coordinator Lisa Gill, Literary Arts Coordinator Jane Kennedy, Development Associate Janice Fowler, Bookkeeper Kathy Garrett, Accountant Melody Mock, Website Designer Chrissie Orr & Michelle Otero, El Otro Lado Public Art Project Agnes Chavez, ISEA2012 Education Program Director Nicholas Chiarella ISEA2012 Education Program Coordinator

GRANT FUNDERS

City of Albuquerque

McCune Charitable Foundation The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts The FUNd at Albuquerque Community Foundation The City of Albuquerque New Mexico Arts, a Division of the Office of Cultural Affairs, with the National Endowment for the Arts New Mexico Tourism Department AmeriCorps Cultural Technology Program

Richard J. Berry, Mayor Rob Perry, Chief Administrative Officer Betty Rivera, Director, Cultural Services

CORPORATE SPONSORS Intel Corporation Hotel Andaluz Goodman Realty Group New Mexico Bank & Trust New Mexico Business Weekly Technology Ventures Corporation DONOR & PATRON CONTRIBUTORS Anonymous Frieda Arth Norty & Summers Kalishman Richard Levy Gallery John & Jamie Lewinger New Mexico Orthopaedics Rick Rennie & Sandy Hill Arturo Sandoval, in memory of Anna Kavanaugh Sandoval Jim Scott & Sara Douglas Dr. Mark Unverzagt & Laura Fashing David Vogel & Marietta Patricia Leis Dr. Marta Weber

Clint Wells CURATORIAL TEAM Rhiannon Mercer, Exhibition Manager Neilie Johnson, Guest Curator Teresa Buscemi Claude Smith Suzanne Sbarge VOLUNTEERS Silvia Carletti, Annalisa DiNola-Sbarge, Patricia Fairchild, Kossi Kpetigo, Eric Parker, Emma Sbarge, Carrie Thompson, Benjamin Tobias, Kelsi Sharp, Almaz Wilson

City Council Don Harris, President, District 9 Rey Garduño, Vice-President, District 6 Ken Sanchez, District 1 Debbie O’Malley, District 2 Isaac Benton, District 3 Brad Winter, District 4 Dan Lewis, District 5 Michael D. Cook, District 7 Trudy Jones, District 8 SPECIAL THANKS ABQ Convention & Visitors Bureau Artist Pension Trust (APT Los Angeles) Basement Films Bella Roma B&B Box Gallery Lauren Carter City Councilor Isaac Benton Desert Dog Technology, Inc. Don Mickey Designs Downtown Action Team Rebecca Gremard The Guild Cinema Historic District Improvement Company Hotel Blue KUNM Radio 89.9 FM Local Poets Guild David Moulton James Pollet Starline Printing Stubblefield Screenprint Company Untitled Fine Arts Services Megan Wilson CATERING SPONSORS The Artichoke Café bRgR Cuisine del Corazón, Chef Billy Brown Elia’s Kitchen Charles Krug Winery Goldrush Cupcakes Jazzbah