VERTICAL CURRENCY
Five Years of Emerging Artists at the Rochester Art Center

September 25, 2010 – January 9, 2011

opening reception:
Saturday, September 25, 7 pm
• free admission
• open to the public
• music by DJ Black Lacquer
• cash bar by Sontes
• sponsored by Wee Highland Brewing

featuring work by:
Liz Miller, Tema Stauffer, Erik Ullanderson, Scott Stulen, Erika Olson, Viv Corringham, Anthony Marchetti, tectonic industries, Chris Deo, Janet Lobberecht, Jennifer Danos, David Bowen, Mary Reid Kelley, Nicholas Conbere, Eric William Carroll, Paula McCartney, Beth Jeffries Barnes, Ruben Nusz, Regan Golden and Joe Sinness

In the fall of 2004, the Rochester Art Center initiated an ongoing exhibition series devoted to emerging artists working in Minnesota – the 3rd Floor Emerging Artist Series. Founded on the principle of critical engagement with new practices in contemporary art, the Rochester Art Center has since presented 20 exhibitions, all reflecting the broad spectrum of concepts and working methodologies of young artists in the state. By fostering experimentation and utilizing the flexible conditions inherent in the Rochester Art Center’s Atrium Gallery, the exhibitions have provided unique opportunities for the artist, the institution and the viewer, allowing for innovative and expanded possibilities for the presentation, discussion, and understanding of contemporary art. The 3rd Floor Emerging Artist Series has been instrumental in introducing the work of young artists to Minnesota audiences, and has helped to foster the early careers of underrepresented and under recognized artists.

To mark the five-year anniversary of this series, the Rochester Art Center presents Vertical Currency: Five Years of Emerging Artists at the Rochester Art Center. Each of the 20 artists that have participated in the series to date are included in the exhibition, providing an opportunity to understand and view subtle shifts or evolutionary changes in the artists practice. All formal galleries and select public spaces will be utilized for this presentation, providing over 6000 square feet of space for the exhibition.

for more information:
507-282-8629
info@rochesterartcenter.org
www.rochesterartcenter.org

Featured Artists:

Cory Prahl, Weinstein Gallery
Beth Dow
Laura Stack
Tectonic Industries
Margaret Pezalla-Granlund

(AOV2) is an intensive, mentor-based fellowship program for 5 Minnesota-based, emerging artists or artist groups working experimentally at the intersection of art, technology, and digital culture with a focus on network-based practices that are interactive and/or participatory.

We are not exactly sure which format our final work will take- hence the fellowship proces- but we know that we are starting by blogging the Oprah Winfrey show. Tomorrow (Jan 8th) is the first show of the new season, where 3 wives of men leading secret double lives reveal all. We will be blogging over at Another One Year Project. Below follows our proposal, as written in December:

Oprah Winfrey is one of the singularly most important figures when looking at the convergence of celebrity status with our endless desire for self-betterment. TV listings of the Oprah Winfrey Show proclaim “The groundbreaking talk show host interviews celebrities, newsmakers and experts in the world of self-improvement, style and culture.” Her media empire includes her talk show, film company, book club, radio show, magazine, lifestyle website and online charitable network. Press releases inform us that in 2010, Oprah, as we all know her, will debut her own television network, Oprah’s Own Network (OWN), replacing the Discovery Health Channel. The network will be dedicated to “Best Life Programming”, showcasing talent dedicated to allowing us to lead our best life, broadcast to over 70 million viewers.

For the duration of 2010, tectonic industries are committed to watching every new episode of the Oprah Winfrey show and committing the spoken words to text. We will transcribe every episode and put the transcription on our website, www.anotheroneyearproject.com, in blog format. In this manner, we will become extremely knowledgeable of the important news, style and cultural issues of the day, as dictated by Oprah. We will be in an exceptionally strong position with regards to knowledge of means of self betterment. We will treat the Oprah program as a medication to be taken for an hour a day each weekday, with the outcome being tangible knowledge of processes of self-betterment, dramatically upgraded typing skills and improved small-talk capabilities.

By transcribing the show we are removing all drama and visuals for the audience, allowing the conversations to be akin to a stream of consciousness from the table of Oprah. For one person to be responsible for the opinions and fortunes of so many, outside of the political or religious realm, is a peculiarly contemporary phenomena. As viewers actively translating the experience of digesting so much daytime television, we will both be differentiated from, and the same as, the millions-strong audience. All of the received information is processed, but ultimately we will rarely change our behavior as a result of the passive activity of television watching. Like the rest of the audience, we may be full of good intentions but they will invariably dissipate sometime before going to bed full of resolve and waking up to reenact old habits.

The transcriptions will continue for the duration of 2010, activated whenever new episodes of the Oprah Winfrey Show are aired. We envisage that the final manifestation of the project would take place either at the culmination of the fellowship period at the Spark Festival in October, or possibly/ additionally in January 2011 if this was acceptable. We do not have an absolute concrete vision for the final manifestation of the project, but would like to stream the transcripts into a physical space. This could be achieved through video projections, or monitor displays, or audio recordings of the transcripts done through the computer’s text to voice feature (eg Voice Over for Mac) which play simultaneously and together create a cacophony of instruction, information and entertainment.

The goal of our project, is to create two distinct streams of information, one of which is published in real time as we transcribe the episode of the chat show, throughout the year, and one of which is cumulative, displaying the collected knowledge of the year as a multitude of layers of information. The online element is reasonably straightforward, requiring that we publish a blog post per weekday, transcribing what was heard on the show. This information will also be distributed via such channels as Facebook and Twitter, for maximum exposure to the inane. This information feed will begin with the first episode of Oprah aired on or after New Year’s Day. The cumulative information will require more assistance and input from others. It is anticipated that we will seek advice on some technological aspects or potential solutions, and need assistance in acquiring equipment for the final exhibition and with creating a marketing plan.

The public outcome of this project will be an experience which is far removed from the original source material, but recognizable as the combined weight of many many episodes of a daytime talk show. The stream of words will include references to media events, celebrities and wellness tips which form a time capsule of sorts of the collective preoccupations of the year 2010, as reflected through the media empire of Oprah Winfrey. In this way, we want to communicate the necessity of re-examining that which we take for granted, by giving viewers the opportunity to examine our aspirations from the mundane to the fantastical. As a society we want to make delicious, healthy meals in minutes, to throw fabulous dinner parties, to seem effortlessly stylish and impeccably organized. We want to be smarter, richer, more successful, to cure cancer and solve the problems of the world. And at the heart of all this, we want to be appreciated for who we are, recognized for our individuality within the mass, and perhaps most importantly, we want to be loved.

SELLOUT art

#456 Northrup King Building

1500 Jackson St. NE

Minneapolis, MN, 55413

SELLOUT continues its ongoing series of three-person exhibitions with TECTONIC / TAPOLA / LAHR. This exhibition features recent work by St. Paul artists Bruce Tapola and Tectonic Industries as well as South Bend, IN artist Jason Lahr. The work explores constructions of personal identity through the filter of pop culture, found images, television, forgotten and fictional histories and language. The combined production of the trio is a bit like thumbing through a pile of discarded art magazines, album covers and Boy Scout manuals dripping in white paint and neon.

BRUCE TAPOLA’s paintings and sculptures explore the meaning and experience of images after their original context and history are removed. His artistic process often begins with the selection of photographic source material, some aspect of which is compelling to the artist. Because photographic images are used to communicate a vast range of content, Tapola’s selected images, while in their original context, can be anything from the banal to the sensual, the familiar to the strange, and the important to the trivial, and the tragic to the humorous. Through his work the image is obscured and isolated from its source, thereby transforming it, while retaining a familiarly open to numerous interpretations.

TECTONIC INDUSTRIES is a collaborative art partnership of the Danish artist Lars Boye Jerlach and the British artist Helen Stringfellow. Tectonic Industries’ work examines the artifice inherent within the creation of the modern myths and belief systems of popular culture. Ultimately these created worlds become a pervasive form of reality, universally meaningful within the mainstream collective memory. At the heart of the investigation lies a fascination with visual, literal, televisual and cinematic pop culture that centers on appearances and narrative. Borrowed language is distorted, manipulated and morphed to heighten the artificial. Referencing immediately identifiable cultural signifiers in conjunction with our seemingly endless quest for self-improvement, tectonic industries create mixed-media installations that scrutinize our all-encompassing desire for instant gratification and immediate satisfaction.

JASON LAHR’s paintings, drawings, and installations integrate darkly comic texts with appropriated images, in ever shifting narratives of identity as constructed by popular culture. Taking their cues from contemporary/postmodern fiction, film theory, and semiotics, the paintings position the viewer at the core of the construction of narrative, weaving an intertextual thread of references and allusions. Simultaneously, the work explores the construction and articulation of masculine identity by/through mass culture as manifested in Generation X and filtered through feminism and identity politics/criticism.

SELLOUT is an artist-run initiative devoted to the exhibition of work by emerging and mid-career artists, as well as independent curators. We focus on small-scaled idea-based works, multiples, and ephemeral projects. The intimate space features a mix of curated group and solo exhibitions as well as innovative community events. The humble scale of the gallery (250 square feet) provides artists with the opportunity to experiment with fresh ideas, pursue new directions, and exhibit alternative, atypical media.

SELLOUT exhibits artists with a distinct vision and commitment to their artistic practice. However, we acknowledge that art exists not in a vacuum, but in a capitalist cultural framework. In addition to regular exhibitions, artists are encouraged to create small, affordable works that are available for purchase in the flat file. Collectors may browse through pieces not only by the current exhibiting artists, but also by the regular roster of artists. Our desire is to support new art collectors and interesting artwork while allowing unique access and interaction between the collector, curator, and artist.

This year tectonic industries donated two works, if you want a chance to try and find one, head over to the Soap Factory, Minneapolis, this weekend.

Fake it, for Real is a media workshop for teens to be led by tectonic industries in June and July 2009 at the Walker Art Center. For further information, and to sign up to participate, click here.