calendario eventi  :: 

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28/9/2012

Two exhibitions

AMOA-Arthouse - The Jones Center, Austin

Nick Cave
Hiding in Plain Sight
First Floor Gallery and Film & Video Gallery

American artist Nick Cave (b. 1959) makes hybrid work that exalts high culture while reveling in low culture, and effortlessly invokes the artistic traditions of at least a dozen nations. He fashions assemblage sculptures, or “Soundsuits,” of found materials: hooked rugs, figurines, toys, twigs, hair dyed outlandish colors, and every variety of button, sequin and bead. African ceremonial costumes are an evident inspiration, along with those of Mardi Gras Indians, glittery Haitian flags, Southeast Asian embroidery, and the spectacle of queer drag culture. A former dancer with the celebrated Alvin Ailey Dance Company, Cave finishes every piece before trying it on to see how it moves and sounds. Videos of performers in the Soundsuits will accompany the focused selection of sculptures on view in the gallery.

Soundsuits make the figure larger than life while masking the wearer’s face. The vaguely humanoid costumed figures are ambiguous, striking notes that range from buoyant whimsy to eerie menace. Despite their visual exuberance, Cave made his first Soundsuit of twigs as a sort of armor for the black male in response to the Rodney King incident and the L.A. riots. Cave wants viewers to think deeply about the world we inhabit and to use their imagination and fantasies to find hope and empowerment. Of his role as an artist, performer, and teacher, Cave says, “The arts are our salvation—the only thing that allows us to heal and also helps us dream about what will make the world a better place. I have a responsibility to the world to do something with my abilities as an artist.”

Nick Cave lives and works in Chicago. He studied fiber art, earning a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute in 1982. He pursued graduate studies at North Texas State University, Denton, and holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He has taught for nearly twenty years at the School for the Art Institute of Chicago where he is the Chair of the Fashion Department.

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Andy Coolquitt
Attainable Excellence
Second Floor Gallery

Since 1988, Andy Coolquitt has been interested in the collection, study, and reuse of objects found in the vicinity of his home or studio to create works that facilitate conversation about the social dynamics and energies that define and shape temporary encounters and transient existences in the public sphere. Coolquitt scavenges the streets for remnants of human activity and transforms debris such as metal tubing, plastic lighters, empty bottles, drinking straws, and paper bags into sculptures and installations that are humble monuments to lives led in the streets. While his materials are drawn from the world outside and allude to conditions of homelessness, Coolquitt often employs them to create situations of interiority. He recomposes them into individual works or groupings that imply a sense of domesticity–be it through association as in this vitrine don’t work, 2012, or DWR picture, 2010, where various elements are combined into displays that could easily be thought of as decorative elements for a hallway or lobby or as fulfilling an actual function as in JSUT, 2007, and tableaux, 2009, where the pieces provide light, warmth, or other physical comfort.

For the artist’s first solo museum exhibition andy coolquitt: attainable excellence, Coolquitt will recombine 60 discrete sculptures and tableaux made between 2006 and 2011 into a site-specific installation which, in its singularity and temporariness, reflects on the condition of the gallery space as a codified place of encounter for people and works of art. The exhibition will also include pieces that occupy a hybrid position between autonomous artworks by Coolquitt and what the artist calls “somebodymades” and “in-betweens.” Somebodymades are assemblages of objects that are presented just as the artist found them in the streets, while in-betweens exist as object-materials that are incorporated into finished works. Presented alongside and interspersed with his own work, these elements serve to further complicate the relationship between the contexts of creation and reception, artist and audience, and blur the boundaries between art and life.

A fully-illustrated monograph will accompany andy coolquitt: attainable excellence, co-published by Blaffer Art Museum and University of Texas Press with contributions by Rachel Hooper, Dan Fox, Matthew Higgs, and Jan Tumlir. Support for the publication is in part provided by Lisa Cooley. The exhibition is organized by Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston. It is made possible in part by the Cecil Amelia Blaffer von Furstenberg Endowment for Exhibitions and Programs, Houston Endowment Inc. and Nayla Hadchiti.

Andy Coolquitt was born in 1964 in Mesquite, Texas. He has a BFA in art history from The University of Texas at Austin and currently lives and works in Austin, Texas and New York City.

Image: Nick Cave, Soundsuit, 2011, Dogwood twigs, wire, upholstery, basket, and mannequin, 86 x 36 x 28 inches, James Prinz Photography, Chicago. Courtesy of Nick Cave and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

AMOA-Arthouse
The Jones Center
700 Congress Avenue - Austin, TX 78701
Monday–Tuesday Closed
Wednesday 12–11pm
Thursday–Saturday 12–9pm
Sunday 12–5pm

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