Cafe Press, when viewed as a tool for artistic production is an interesting departure point for the exploration of object creation ‘after the internet’. Both the site and it’s user community celebrate the ease and immediacy of invisibly manufactured, ready-to-make items. Their contributions make for a staggering array of proposed t-shirts, teddybears and campaign signs all made in narrowly prescribed forms. As Nicolas Bourriaud writes in his exploration of relational aesthetics, “the advances of technology and ‘Reason’… blindly replace human labour by machines, and set up more and more sophisticated subjugation techniques…So the modern emancipation plan has been substituted by countless forms of melancholy.” This installation at Sego Art space aims to address forms of melancholy found on cafepress and allow the invited artists an opportunity to designate works for manufacture and purchase on the site and in the space.

Curated by C. Coy with a live lecture by artist and curator Marisa Olson on Thursday, April 2nd at 7pm

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Kari Altmann, Jeffrey Baij, Charles Broskoski, Ryan Browning, Chris Collins, Petra Cortright, Constant Dullaart, Patrick Dyer, Thomas Galloway, Quinn Gorbott, Bardhi Haliti, Charles Harlan, Chris Harris (lung), Joel Holmberg, Justin Kemp, Dennis Knopf, Andrew Kozlowski, Thomas Mailaeander, Eilis McDonald, Jon Rafman, Billy Rennekamp, Zach Shipko, Hayley Silverman, James Whipple, Jessica Williams, Bennett Williamson, Robert Wodzinski, Damon Zucconi and others

Forms of Melancholy ::: Marisa Olson from Sego Art Center on Vimeo.

On February 6th, 2009, the Sego Art Center will open Twenty-four/Seven, an exhibit of new work by local artist Roland Thompson.  In the Annex, Sego presents Big Wreck, a work by California artist Carleton Christy.  An opening reception will be held for the artists from 6 – 9pm that evening in association with the monthly Provo Gallery Stroll.

Like the 1960s art icon Frank Stella, whom he cites as an important influence, Utah artist Roland Thompson straddles the hazy divide between the prescript of High Modernism and that of Minimalism.  In his characteristic work, Thompson invents systematic rules – based on patterns of color, line and shape – by which he paints large, geometric, aluminum cutouts.  Thompson’s inclination toward Modernism is apparent in his striving to keep his paint as flat as possible to the surface of his work, yet his relish for the slight deviation from uniformity speaks strongly to the influence of Minimalism.

Thompson’s new body of abstract, gestural drawings, on display this month in the exhibition Twenty-four/Seven at the Sego Art Center, is itself a deviation, an attempt to “unspring” his formerly concentric, precise patterns of color.  Though Thompson admits these works have taken on an allegory for him, representing the orbital momentum of adult life around the many centers of gravity that must be attended to – home, family, work – these vibrant works are primarily formal.  To borrow the words of Stella, “What you see is what you see.”

JANUARY 09 - The work presented in this first annual Sego Studios Exhibit provides an insight into the practices of artists in Provo, UT- specifically those who have created work within the studio spaces at the Sego Art Center.  Each of the artists make work that is unique in concept, and that differs in subject matter and execution. While artist Julia Jones, in a manner similar to Elizabeth Peyton, paints portraits of close friends and family- Chris Allman constructs Utopian representations of an alternate world inhabited by humans, animals, humanoids, and anthropomorphs. Each of these creatures seem to be interacting in a grand narrative, playing an integral part in the outcome of particular events- situations that we as viewers cannot fully understand. Roland Thompson and Morgan Wakefield paint with painstaking process- their efforts resulting in graphic abstract works of immediate consequence- an artistic product of great interest and relevance to the current global artistic community. Other artists included in the show investigate aspects of visual culture, spirituality, and outsider-ism.
This particular group of artists represent an entire community of creation and collaboration which has been built around the Sego Art Center within it’s nine months of existence. The collaborations have most interestigly become wildly cross-disciplinary, resulting in group projects and interactions between visual artists, musicians, videographers, filmmakers, dancers, poets, writers, scholars, and others- and this is exaclty the type of environment that the Sego Art Center wishes to foster and perpetuate.

ANNEX:  These are some of my favorite (wild) things - A Group Project from Mrs. Bishop’s Third Grade Class at Edgemont Elementary School
Thirty-one students from Mrs. Bishop’s third grade class at Edgemont Elementary School traveled to the Bean Life Science Museum at Brigham Young University. Each child captured their favorite “wild thing” with a polaroid camera. Students then completed additional research and writing about their subjects, a practice that is reminiscient of the working manner of the contemporary artist Walton Ford. Ford will often conduct many hours of research, in order that he may better understand the wildlife he depicts in his paintings. This research empowers Ford to create works that have visual affinity to traditional Audubon paintings, but reach beyond mere anatomical study to acheive interesting narrative, conceptual significance, and humor. Thus, through the process of this show, this young group of artists are learning what it really means to be an artist today: not just creator of aesthetically pleasing objects, but also scientist, poet, or musician- to learn and engage in the world in important ways while encouraging engagement by all.

DECEMBER 08 - In the Aristotelian tradition, art functions as an imitator, showing us what is, what ought to be and what might be.  Though typically imitation in art is couched in the notion of representation, it is the imaginative process of imitation that is communicated tacitly, even

instinctively, through the work in Gian Pierotti’s new show at the Sego Art Center.  Evolved from their earliest stages as formal variations on a Minimal theme, Pierotti’s latest porcelain sculptures encase small polygonal shapes in architectural exoskeletons that may be disassembled and reassembled.  The results are a playful advancement of an archaic process.  The unique forms are deliberately accidental, artificially organic and defy any one direct referent.

Yet the work is both immediately familiar and immensely satisfying.  Fitting together the pieces of one of Pierotti’s works is as gratifying as locking together two Legos or snapping Construx into place.  The toys of childhood are the tools of imaginative imitation, teaching us how to act as adults.  Pierotti’s works, fantastic constructed entities that call upon us as viewers to animate them, remind us to embrace childlike wonder in the gallery.  In the aftermath of Postmodernism, the trend in art has been toward what ought to be – both formally and contextually.  The reward of Pierotti’s work at Sego Art Center this month is that it offers up what art might be.  And what art might be is fun.

Megan Whittaker completed undergraduate work in English at Brigham Young University and later recieved her MA in Art History from the same institution. Her master’s thesis was titled Takashi Murakami: Role-Playing the Artist.  She currently lives in Spanish Fork, Utah with her husband Colin Tuis Nesbit.

CHICKEN, A PROVO STORY - a group installation between Brigham Young University students and Faculty of the Department of Visual Arts

The average American eats 81 lbs. of chicken annually.

If each chicken averages 5 lbs. then we each eat approximately 16.2 chickens annually.

All those numbers add up to .04 chickens eaten daily per person.

Provo has a population of approximately 120,000 people.

At .04 chickens per person daily, approximately 5,326 chickens are eaten daily in Provo.

The group completed 5,326 small paintings that were sold for $1 each. The majority of the proceeds went to the Food and Care Coalition of Provo. Approximately 1,000 paintings were sold throughout the duration of the exhibit.

In conjunction with the Collective and Autumnau, On Thursday September 25, Sego will present its monthly Evening with the Artist lecture and discussion series. The event is free and open to the public. The show will remain open to the public through September 27th and is viewable from 12-8pm Tuesday through Saturday, Mondays by appointment. Special appointments can be made by calling Jason Metcalf at 801.599.0680.

Over the last decade, Adam Bateman has built meticulously layered sculptural forms from language. Composed of hundreds of used books often gathered from libraries, Bateman’s sculptures at first appear Minimalist, and it is easy to formally compare them to the works of Donald Judd or Tony Crag. But upon closer examination these towering stacks are full of complex conceptual meaning. The carefully composed books are oblique triggers for a knotted relationship between object and word-laced thought. Bateman’s latest creation is a stolid wall nearly blocking the entrance to the gallery, boldly confronting the viewer. The titled spines are stacked inward and remain unseen to the viewer, the idea of the words contained on a page more important than the book itself. While the sculptures feel solid and have a heavy presence, the work is more experiential than visual. The relationship between content and object is personified in the yielding layers of books, an unexpected flow in a rigorous rectangle.

Weaved with compulsive gesture, Pam Bowman’s latest sculpture is an amalgam of personal experience and communal navigation. Important to understanding Bowman’s work is an appreciation of ritual, experience, and process. The sculpture in Collective is the result of thousands of sinuous fibers looped together over and over in a continuous braid. The fibers are caulking cotton, a material used to bind and seal wooden planks together in ship-building. The artist used over thirty-five miles of the twined cotton in the work as a material reference to domesticity. An integral part of interpreting the work is a comprehension of the compulsive nature of process: a repetitive method symbolic of memory, ceremony, and ritual. For Bowman, the intertwined strings represent the intersections of people, the combined whole ultimately stronger than the individual. But the work has more to offer than the seemingly simple analogy, as the ropes do not idly line up but violently pull, cover, tug, and jockey for position in a complex shared journey.

The play between Bowman’s tension-knotted twists and Bateman’s architectural stacks belies a deeper meaning that relies on the experiences of the viewer and his or her thinking processes. Adam Bateman studied literature and language at BYU and received his MFA in sculpture from New York’s Pratt Institute. He has shown extensively in NYC, Rekyavik, and UT. Former Director of the Central Utah Art Center, he is the Director of the Birch Creek Service Ranch and continues to work in his studio in Sanpete County. Pam Bowman received a degree in interior design and later an MFA from BYU. She travels extensively and lives with her family in Provo.

Jeff Lambson is curator of contemporary art at the BYU Museum of Art. Prior to coming to Utah he worked at the Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC for six years. Jeff is married to Ann Lambson, former director of youth education at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, and lives in Provo with their precocious daughter.

I am sure many of you have already heard of what will be going on at Sego in March: a special project that local artist Chris Purdie has been cooking up for about a year now. Chris has created a website Chrispurdie.com where you can track his progress and see hints of what might be on March 6.  I will try to get him to post on this blog as well.  If the project at all seems narcissistic, solipsitic, and entirely self centered- your’e on the right track.  Chris is the last person I would describe with these personality traits- and thus the project suddenly becomes a critique of the contemporary artist herself- mimicing a number of obvious art world personas that need not be named.

I am most excited for this project as it is one of the few true performance art events that has recently been had in the state of Utah (Dance Theatre Coalition and its Proving Ground performance art series has helped performance significantly in the beehive state). Chris is publishing a full color catalogue with essays by performance rock scholar Wade Hollingshaus, and others yet to be announced. The project recieved major funding from the Laycock Center for Creative Collaboration at BYU, a foundation that this author has benefited from with past project funding also.

This performative collaboration has indeed become an excercise in relational aesthetics: the artist and the project collaborators have all experienced something greater than individual artistic achievement- and the goal is to include viewers as participants in this dialogue.  So start getting excited for this project if you haven’t already.  And make sure you are there on March 6th.  I promise you’ll have a good time.