Song of the west New Mexico art show
Anthony Hassett: “Walking Papers”
Tony abeyta Cynthia COOK Erin Currier Anthony Hassett Arthur López RosetA Santiago Matt Thomas CHRISTEN Vogel JIM Vogel
KOHI-KUlturraum, Karlsruhe 09.05 bis 03.06.2015
Ausstellungskatalog Song of the West // 9. Mai bis 3. Juni 2015 KOHI-Kulturraum, Karlsruhe Erschienen in 200 Exemplaren, davon 20 als Vorzugsausgabe mit einem Originalwerk und 10 K端nstlerexemplare Kuratoren: Erin Currier, Anthony Hassett, Andreas Lapos Gestaltung: Kirsten Bohlig, kiraura.de KOHI-Kulturraum e.V., Werderstr. 47, 76137 Karlsruhe www.kohi.de Karlsruhe 2015
Song of the west New Mexico art show
New Mexico bezeichnet sich als „Land der Verzauberung“, die Hauptstadt Santa Fe ist eine der Kunstmetropolen der USA. Nüchtern betrachtet ist New Mexico der fünftgrößte US-Bundesstaat. Er ist zwar dünn besiedelt, die Bevölkerung wächst aber rasant – nicht zuletzt aufgrund der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung. Das bringt Probleme mit sich. Denn ökologisch ist das sehr trockene, hoch gelegene Land sehr empfindlich. Müll verrottet zum Beispiel unter den wüstenähnlichen Bedingungen so gut wie gar nicht. Historisch ist New Mexico geprägt von einer reichen, immer noch präsenten indianischen und hispanischen Geschichte. Wobei fast zehn Prozent der Einwohner deutscher Abstammung sind. Diese und andere Aspekte greifen die Arbeiten der Künstler auf, die in der Ausstellung „Song of the West“ im KOHI gezeigt werden: Der Navajo Tony Abeyta und Roseta Santiago setzen sich in ihrer Malerei mit der indianischen Kultur auseinander. Cynthia Cook (Metallobjekte) und Matt Thomas (Collagen) recyclen vorgefundene Materialien auf bisher nicht gesehene Art und Weise. Erin Currier, Anthony Hassett und Jim und Christen Vogel stellen den suchenden und arbeitenden, den um seine Existenz auch mit Waffen kämpfenden Menschen in den Mittelpunkt ihrer Zeichnungen, Bilder und Collagen. Der Bildhauer Arthur López hat das hispanische Genre der Heiligen-Schnitzerei zu einer politischen Ausdrucksform ausgeweitet. Allerdings machen amerikanische Künstler zunehmend die Erfahrung, dass sie immer schwerer Ausstellungsmöglichkeiten für politische Arbeiten finden – vor allem wenn sie einen aktuellen Bezug haben. Die Galeristen sehen sich mit derart heftigen Reaktionen ihrer Besucher konfrontiert, dass sie nicht zu Unrecht nachhaltige Umsatzeinbußen befürchten. Eine öffentliche, im Spektrum breit gefächerte Ausstellungsszene, wie sie in Deutschland Kunst- und Kulturvereine bilden, gibt es in den USA nicht. Die Folge: Etliche Arbeiten, die im KOHI zu sehen sind, werden das erste Mal öffentlich gezeigt oder wurden eigens für die Reise nach Europa konzipiert. Andreas Lapos, Kunst im KOHI
Part portraiture, part collage constructed of disinherited consumer “waste” collected in nearly fifty countries, part sociopolitical archive, but wholly humanist, Currier’s work has been featured in numerous solo shows, including a major exhibition at the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Embassy in Washington, DC. Her work is exhibited and collected internationally. “My art-making concerns and process are three fold: first, as a traveling ontographer documenting through drawing the environments that I encounter abroad; secondly, I collect discarded ephemera from the streets of the world; finally, I incorporate the above findings into portraits that celebrate figures who resist or defy authority; as well as people who exist outside of their societies’ conventions. My work is comprised of discarded trash I find on my travels as well as acrylic paint and glaze. The discarded waste is re-transfigured into, hopefully, something of beauty; in the same way that discarded human beings, who are the subject of many of my portraits are, themselves, re-contextualized through the privileged position of portraiture, historically relegated to oil barons and kings. My use of trash is thus a poetic incantation – a call for a counter power rooted in the imagination.” – Erin Currier 2014 → Miss Navajo Nation is a pageant that has been held annually on the Navajo Nation, USA, since 1952. The first Miss Navajo was Dr. Beulah Melvin Allen, in 1952. Pageant contestants must be between 18-25, be a high school graduate, and be able to speak the Navajo language. They compete in such activities as answering questions about traditional and modern Navajo customs both in Navajo and English, sheep butchering, and performing a contemporary Navajo cultural talent. The current Miss Navajo Nation is McKeon Dempsey of Oak Springs, Arizona. The great pride and joy of the Navajo was an ancient peach orchard nestled deep within Canyon de Chelly – nurtured, cultivated, and enjoyed over many centuries until Kit Carson and his men maliciously destroyed it. The peaches I’ve placed in Miss Navajo Nation’s arms are a symbol of the strength and perseverance of the Navajo people against all adversity, and the hope that their culture, traditions, and philosophy, will ascend. 4
“Miss Navajo Nation: McKeon Dempsey” // Collage und Acryl auf Holz // 61 x 46 cm /// www.erincurrierfineart.com
Erin Currier
Santa Fe
Anthony Hassett
Santa Fe
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“Walking Papers” // 9 x 14 cm /// anthonyhassett.com
Anthony Hassett is a writer and illustrator living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Originally from Los Angeles, Mr. Hassett found himself settling in New Mexico in 1978, after the sailor who picked him up hitchhiking suffered a psychotic break and disappeared into the high desert near Taos Mountain, never to return. Mr. Hassett was able to sell the sailor’s automobile and reinvent himself as an accomplished voice actor in commercials and Public Service Announcements for the Council on Rural Venereal Diseases in the hinterlands of the Rocky Mountain Range. Needless to say, Mr. Hassett’s interests are limited to the radical and routine impurities of human experience, which he documents in what one critic once referred to as “his little books.”
Cynthia COOK
Albuquerque
Cynthia Cook, born 1964, creates art using postconsumer “trash” materials and ephemera (manmade and natural). Her intricately worked can metal enshrines surreal collages. The result invokes a sensation that “the future is old” (source: Rutger Hauer, when asked to describe his experience in the 1984 film Blade Runner). Cook particularly reveres the famous Berlin-based artist Hannah Hoch, and fervently hopes to experience that her collages live in Berlin someday. Cynthia Cook is not just a mixed media artist, she’s also an anthropologist, scientist, magician. She combines historic man-made and old natural artifacts for a peek into the future: a world in which natural resources are exploited and in which people live from the garbage of their past, dreaming of new worlds somewhere in outer space. Their past is our present. And Cynthia Cook herself is art, both graceful and gracious, with the body and posture of a ballerina, she would be easy to picture in a salon event of the 1920’s.
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“I try to capture with intentional ethical sensitivity and undaunted heart-felt commentary modern religious, secular and political issues with humor and a breath of fresh air.” Born and raised in Santa Fe, López is proud to be working in the long tradition of New Mexico santero artists. “My work comes out of my faith. I am a firm believer that you can still use traditional methods to create contemporary work”, he says: “Though the majority of my work is of Saints you do not have to be of any particular religion to appreciate them as art.” Equally important to López is his need to transcend the bounds of the traditional santero, and use his art as a medium for expressing the full range of his culture and the world around him. López observes and analyzes the history and the political and social development of the USA very well – he is a political man and this is reflected in his artistic work.
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“Obama and Goliath” // 44,5 x 24 x 24 cm /// www.artlopezart.com
Arthur López
Taos
Matt Thomas
Taos
Matt’s work explores pattern making through the manipulation of various reclaimed materials. Utilizing the tools of the architect to ‘build’ each piece, his exploration in working with the ‘line’ ultimately resides on the edge of chaos and order. Matt currently lives and works in Taos, New Mexico and is represented by DAFA – David Anthony Fine Art.
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“SG056” // 30,5 x 30,5 cm /// www.jmatthewthomas.com
Matt is an architect and artist based in Taos, New Mexico and occupies his time making things – from building projects and construction drawings, to artworks, to baking cookies. Thomas received his bachelors in Architecture from Kansas State University and his Masters at Columbia University in New York City. Fascinated by architecture, food and culture he has travelled to over 35 countries, and has picked up design inspiration all along the way. Thomas made Taos his home in 2003 where he conducted his architecture internship under a number of local architects, and received his license to practice in 2009. Studio Taos was born several years later to house his adventures in various creative pursuits.
Jim & ChRisten Vogel
Dixon
Jim and Christen Vogel have been making art together for over thirty years, Jim as a painter and Christen as a salvage artist/tinsmith. For many pictures Christen builds the often extravagant frame, which emphasize the visual motif. They are inspired by the historically hardscrabble people of New Mexico and the rusty detritus they’ve left behind. The Vogels live in a small mountain village along with their three greatest collaborations, their children. Vogel hails from a family of storytellers, so each of his works tells its own tale of the land, the culture, and the common man’s struggle. Vogel’s storytelling continues including paintings which depict New Mexican folklore and myths that have crossed cultures and been told for generations.
→ The image titled “Ludlow” shown at KOHI stands as a reminder of a massacre against striking miners started in 1914 by the National Guard in Ludlow/Colorado. Most of the miners were immigrants from Greece and Italy. 25 people died in one day in Ludlow including 2 women and 10 children living in a tent city that was set on fire by the National Guard. One boy as well as three strike leaders who wanted to negotiate with the National Guard were deliberately shot. Strikes against the working conditions in the Rockefeller empire lasted for months. After the Ludlow-Massacre the strikes grew into an open revolt. Parts of the National Guard mutinied. A total of 66 people died. In the end the unions were defeated, but labor legislation improved as a result. 14
“Miner/Soldier, Ludlow”, Colorado 1914 // 58,5 x 43 cm (mit), 46 x 30,5 cm (ohne Rahmen) /// www.facebook.com/JimVogelStudio
“I’m trying to put images to these stories I’ve heard over and over from my mother and father.”
Tony Abeyta
Santa Fe
Lorem ipsum // sic amet Lorem ipsum // sic amet /// tonyabeyta.com
Tony Abeyta is a Navajo contemporary artist working in mixed media paintings. He is a graduate from New York University with an honorary doctorate from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. He was the 2012 recipient of the New Mexico Governor’s Excellence in the Arts award, and recognized as a Native treasure by the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture. Tony currently works in both Santa Fe, NM and Berkeley, CA. Abeyta’s primary focus has been on painting the emotional experience one finds in the New Mexico landscape.
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“Undulating Octopi”, 2014, 193 x 91,5 cm // Foto: Shayla Blatchford /// tonyabeyta.com /// www.facebook.com/tonyabeytapainter
“There exists a rhythm in the land where I was born. I spend a lot of time deciphering the light, the cascades of mesas into canyons, the marriage between earth and sky and the light as it constantly changes at whim, the intensity of rock formations, and the sage and chamisa that accent this poetic experience, unlike any where else I have seen. I am beckoned to remember it and then to paint it.�
RosetA Santiago
Santa Fe
Roseta Santiago’s work is recognized and collected internationally. She has successfully exhibited at the The Eiteljorg Museum of Western and Indian Art in Indianapolis, The Booth Museum in Georgia, The Desert Caballeros Museum in Arizona, and most recently at the prestigious Autry Museum “Masters of the American West” show in Los Angeles, CA. She paints every day. → “Moose Caller” is inspired by Roseta Santiagos interest in a predator instinct where the mating call is used/simulated by a human to lure the animal to slaughter. In this case the human is a Native American from the early 1900’s. The method and instinct existed in all ancient peoples to survive. The idea in modern “marketing”, advertising and calling on that same instinct for “luring” or “enticing” fascinates her.
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In “Guardian” the still life objects are all hand made objects of the Native American Southwest. The Navajo textile, the Hopi katsina (old style spelling) doll (used to educate children and a symbol of a katsina “spirit”) and the black Santa Clara Pueblo pot are objects from Roseta Santiagos collection. The kachinas are made mainly by the Hopi people and are their guardians of the spirit. They are carved from the roots of a cottonwood tree.
“Moose Caller” // signierter Druck // 86 x 76 cm /// www.rosetasantiago.com
“I am fascinated by beauty, illusion and the unknown… the people and their artifacts… that is what inspires me.”
Roseta Santiago: “Guardian”
Song of the west New Mexico art show KOHI-KUlturraum, Karlsruhe 09.05 bis 03.06.2015