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Slocumb Galleries East Tennessee State University February 21-March 24,1989 Reception: February 21,7-9 p.nl. Meet Dan Talley Director/Curator Nexus Contempormy Arts Center Atlanta, Georgia
Design Gallery Card-Barry Kelley
Catalog-Walter Shell. Anita Shellon. LX'cky ClliJdress.
Rebecca Bamum Slocumb Galleries Logo-Ti m [}dvis
Typesetting Rebecca Barnum Waller Shell
Layout/Mechanical Beckv Childress Walter Shell
East Tennessee State University is fully in accord with the belief that
educatIonal and employment opportunities should be available to all
eligible persons without regard to age, sex, color, race, religion, national
origin or handicap. SBR 130路037路88 2M Pnnled by Easl Tennessee Slale Un;vers;!y Press
ETSU Department or Art is an accred ited JIle/lllx'!" 0111 /( '
National Association of Schools of Ar( and Ucsi,L(ll.
Gallery Director M. Wayne Dyer Associate Professor
Olairman Department of Art Jack Schrader Professor
Positive/Negative V was truly a national exhibit. The Slocumb Galleries mailed over 5.000 prospectuses and received requests for information from alJ 50 states. Releases were sent to numerous regional and national publications "vith announcements and articles in most. including Art Week and The New England Art Journal. Paid announcements appeared in national publications such as Art in America. The nnal juroring was made on 682 works representing 50 states. The works accepted number 58 from 33 artists reSiding in 20 states. More than nve years ago the Positive/ Negative National Exhibits of Slocumb Galleries were founded with hopes that the exhibit wouJd bring together artists from various regions across America and support artists' efforts in their work. Since the beginning. the Positive/ Negative National Exhibit has brought diverse works together from across the nation and each year has grown in the amount of participation. This year we are proud to present Posi tive/ Negative V which truly represents a cross section of American regional art. We have been fortunate to have had prominent jurors for the Positive/Negative exhibits such as Jack Cowart. Curator of 20th Century Art from National Gallery of Art (Washington. D.C.). Lisa Dennison. Assistant Curator of the Guggenheim Museum (New York, NY) Lisa Phillips. AssOCiate Curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York. NY) and Charlotta Kotik. Curator of Contemporary Art. The Brooklyn Museum. (Brooklyn, NY). This year we are pleased to have had Dan Talley, Director/ Curator of Nexus Contemporary Art Center Atlanta. Georgia. Talley holds an MFA from University of Hartford. Hartford. Connecticut. Under Talley's direction the Nexus Contemporary Art Center is dedicated to the
presentation of new ex-perimental art. Talley has also served as editor and co-founder of Art Papers and associate editors of Contemporary Art/Southeast. It has been a pleasure to be aSSOCiated with an exhibit of this quality. Through this exhibit we have provided support for the artist partiCipants through various awards and purchase prizes. I hope you enjoy the exhibit. M. Wayne Dyer. Director Slocumb Galleries
Positive/ Negative V Selecting a few dozen pieces of art from almost 700 is never an easy task. The job is made more fonnidable when the works are not somehow restncted in terms of theme, media. or other such limiting factors. The work submitted to this show presented an overwhelming range of aesthetic and philosophical directions--from the concerns of a landscape watercolorist portraying mountains in the early morning sunlight to the somewhat acidic visual statements of the contemporary computer artists dealing with safe sex in the late-eighties. Assembling an exhibition from such diversity can take any number of directions. Ajuror can attempt to democratize the show by picking a few exemplary pieces that seem to represent a number of other works (one abstract painting that is best' or the 'most typical' of all; one lithograph that stands for all lithographs; one landscape photograph that successfully incoq::>orates elements that we have come to expect from that genre; one highly glazed bowl simply because the show needs to acknowledge functionality: etc.) While an exhibition orgaruzed along these lines offers something lor everyone. it often avoids some of the more difficult (and interesting) issues in the contemporary aesthetic arena. The approach I have chosen involves identifYing some underlying concerns shared by many artists and building an exhibition around this collective framework.. Although an easy unifYing label is elUSive and a single conunon thread cannot be quickly extracted. many of the pieces chosen for this year's show display post-modernist tendenCies that include appropriation. inSistence on blending several ways of working into a single piece. incoq::>oration of the verbal into the visual. and ironic allusions to fonn both historically and geographically removed from the artist's life. These inclinations make much of the work in this show feel slightly out of kilter--aimost as if it is reaching for some as yet unidentified objective or conclusion. Through this inconclusiveness the artists are saying a lot about our contemporary SOCiety. Much of the work not chosen for Positive/Negative V could have been assembled into a very respectable exhibition--but one that would have possesed less contemporary conviction. Many highly competent pieces were omitted from this exhibition because of their 'traditional' leanings: familiar landscapes. customary portraits in conventional mediums. wanted still life work, etc. Hopefully. the pieces I selected for this years exhibition tend to 'push the envelope' a bit and explore some of the other directions and possibilities open to artists working today. Dan R Talley
Director/Curator Nexus Contemporary Arts Center Atlanta. Georgia December 26. 1989
Second Place Mick Brady. Andent News
First Place Silvia Taccani, 123-1988
Third Place Thomas Esser. Safe Sex
Honorable Mention Kenn Speiser. Specimen
Honorable Mention Thomas McGovern. Memoria
HonomBle Mention Linda Annstrong. Untitled (Exerpt number 15)
Honorable Mention Ertan R Myers. Jakarta Disparity
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Linda Armstrong
Beth A Fonistail
1110mas McGovern
1<l'1I
Blinders I
UFO #2
Untitled
Bloomfield Hills, MI
Memoria Entangled
Sombras do Hablo, Dos Sombras do Hablo, Tres Sombras do Hablo, Quatro Wichita Falls, TX StaceAspey
Fire and Ice Fire and Ice Long Beach, CA
TOIl\' SII i P
The Last Remnant
Blaine. WA
Destruction of the Old Order Jakarta Disparity Tuscon. AZ
WrigJes Transition Untitled
John Hart
Wavemagnet Synaptic Knobs
MT
Speiser
Rocco Nigro
1<1' 11I\
Untitled Untitled
Specimen Sample
Richard K Hillis X-wife Print Poelia. AZ
Albany, NY
I'nJ\;<!l'III 'C, HI
Patricia Jean Olynyk The Uvely Discussion
(' ril SIl'cd
The Fussion of Unlikes
Brooklyn. NY
Untitled" 03
OakIand,CA
Burlington,
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Deborah M , Boardman
Touch the Fruit I Icon I Icon IV
Childhood Memories Blur and Become Collectables
Chicago, lL
Seol tsviUe, NY
Robert Keough
Mick Brady
Charles I...:'1ssiter
Seven Feet From Easy Street Ancient News Adam's Dream
San Fransisco, CA
Mouse
Unstable Relationship 'n la r Falls, [1\ Jo llll S l1lrgl'O rl
Timothy Oxley Finite Witness: Candle
Ethels Day Out Its All Hap'in So Fast
Motion of Sin
l\.1l1lX\;lk, TN
Laguna Beach, CA Sil\'i;1 Tan'ani
Keith Owens
Burial Sarcophagus Lubbock, TX
#123-1988 #1l9-1988 #99-1987 ', .\\' [b\'c il.
CT
Mary Ann Papanek -MiUer SiOll," Lawton
Silent Singer
Retablo Por Ana
Houston, i'x
Kit Art Gamer, IA
Adrienne Salinger
New Yorl" NY f'un1s Marlin Thomas Esser Safe Sex Mobile. AL
Ilillin,~s,
Jonesborough. TN
Ying Hui Chu
Margre t Drelkauscn
VA
Brian R Myers
Face of God, 0
Desert Oaks
Il arri "") III)l1r,~,
Vmdication
Micheal Berkowitz
Castleton, NY
S.. m ag aj
Bellefonte. PA Rob Gischer
Richard M , Ash. III
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ExeIpts Atlanta.GA
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DwightLoew p.m.1.9.8.7. Sherwood Forest. MD
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Talkur
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Kissing
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Syracuse, NY
On the Way to tile Gallows Comparator Fronds Anyone can be a Martyr Oa klalld, CI\