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Ann Weber, Topsy, Turvey and Miss Priss, 2009, found cardboard, staples,
polyurethane, size variable, Courtesy of the Artist and Donna Seager
Gallery, San Raphael
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NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Afterlife Resurrects Contemporary
Castaways
Group Exhibition at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art Presents
Discarded Materials Transformed Into Works of Art.
October 2009, SAN JOSE, CA - On the
heels of its recent show, NextNew:Green that
featured the works of
emerging Bay Area artists exploring issues related to conservation,
the
environment and global warming; the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art
(ICA)
presents Afterlife, a group
exhibition of works created to breathe new life into
re-purposed materials and
objects. Guest curated by Kathryn Funk, Afterlife will be
on view in the ICA's
Main Gallery and Cardinale Project Room from November 7, 2009
through January
23, 2010. The show includes sculpture, video, and multi-media
work
from artists Claudia Borgna, Mark Fox-Morgan, Elisabeth Higgins O'Connor,
Lisa Kokin,
Charlotte Kruk, Robert Larson, Scott Oliver, Beverly Rayner, and
Ann Weber. A public
reception will be held at the ICA on
Friday, November 6,2009 from 6pm to 8pm. An Artist
Talk moderated
by Kathryn Funk will take place at the ICA on Thursday, November 12th
from 7pm to 9pm.
The artists represented
in Afterlife take advantage of
cast-offs
from our contemporary lives. With a conscious
eye to the materiality of the
chosen discards, items from
street, junkyards and second-hand stores are
transformed
into fresh, inspired creations that give rise to thoughtful
consideration and
interpretation. "Even before the green
recycling revolution took hold, artists were
reusing and re-purposing found
materials," says Afterlife curator Kathryn
Funk. "When
an object has been discharged
from its original purpose it still carries some association
with its past. When
that association is altered it takes on new meaning," explains Funk.
Exploring new meanings and new lives of
discarded and re-used materials is the central
focus of the artists' works on
view in Afterlife.
London-based artist Claudia Borgna has been collecting
and using plastic bags as an
inspired muse in her art for several years,
carefully gathering and using them after each
installation or performance in a
different configuration. Borgna's work will be on view in
Afterlife and Night Moves - after dark video art programming presented in the
ICA's front
windows.
Mark Fox-Morgan uses paper
- a tree by-product- cast as beams for his massive
house-like structure. The
beguiling skeleton appears remarkably strong despite its
extremely fragile
nature, thus calling into question the nature and exploitation of its
source. Elisabeth
Higgins O'Connor and Lisa Kokin find inspiration in materials scavenged
from
flea markets and thrift stores. Higgins O'Connor uses discarded fabrics of all
sorts
and stitches together life-sized anthropomorphic stuffed animal
creatures. Kokin uses
books and the book format; dissecting,
reassembling and pulping them to express new
ideas and her own personal,
political and cultural views. Charlotte Kruk salvages and
sews product
wrappers side by side to create new textiles in the form of wearable art.
Robert
Larson gathers and dissects tossed cigarette packages and match books to make
visually stunning constructed paintings of rich color patterns, hues and
textures, with
the dissected paper material.
 Conceptual artist Scott Oliver alters everyday objects,
carefully crafting them into a
unique state that undermines their original function
but never erases the original object's identity.
Beverly
Rayner manipulates all kinds of discarded
items and constructs new roles for
them in her art
as she explores the subject of surveillance. Ann
Weber transforms cardboard boxes pulled from
dumpsters into elegant, playful
biomorphic forms.
Also opening on November 7th in the ICA's
Focus Gallery and running through
February 20, 2010 is Manifold, a solo exhibition of
two installations of works by San
Francisco-based
postminimalist artist Theodora Varnay Jones.
The installations are comprised of drawings, constructed
works, sculptures, and
re-conceptualized ready-made pieces that represent the
artist's exploration and
interpretation of form, space and repetition. A Talking
Art conversation with Varnay
Jones will be held on Thursday, January 14th
from 7pm to 9pm at the ICA.
Image Captions:
Lisa
Kokin, The Book of Martyrs, 2008,
pulped book, 7x16x16 inches, Courtesy of the Artist
Beverly
Rayner, Memory Encapsulation Network #3, 2007,
photographs, rubber bulbs, rubberized rope,lenses, latex tubing and metal, 86.5 x 24.5 x 11.5 inches, Courtesy of the
Artist and Braunstein/Quay Gallery, SF
Theodora
Varnay Jones, Transparency #32, 2007, paper,
graphite, pigments, acrylic polymer, wood structure 32
X 43 X 2 ¾ inches, Courtesy of the Artist and Don Soker Contemporary Art, SF
***
Afterlife
is supported in part by a generous grant from Applied Materials. Manifold
is supported in part by a grant from the James Irvine Foundation. The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art
gratefully acknowledges support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation,
the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Silicon Valley Community
Foundation, Adobe Systems Incorporated, and members of the ICA. The ICA is
supported in part by a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San Jose and by
a grant from Arts Council Silicon Valley, in partnership with the County of
Santa Clara and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The San Jose Institute
of Contemporary Art (ICA) is an energetic art space located in downtown San
Jose dedicated to making contemporary art accessible and exciting to audiences
of all ages and backgrounds. Exhibitions are presented in three galleries that
display the most current, relevant and often challenging art from the region,
the nation and the world. The ICA is activated by opening receptions, South
First Friday gallery walks, after-dark programming in the front windows, panel
discussions, printmaking workshops, brown bag lunches and impromptu
conversations in the galleries. The ICA
is a member-supported, non-profit organization. Admission to the gallery is free.
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