Saturday May 10, 2003 - Navy Pier
For Artboat 2002, Polvo Art Studio is proud to present Genera/Zione: Lucky 7, a collaborative installation between seven Chicago-based artists: Miguel Cortez, Jesus Macarena-Avila, Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa, Dolan Geiman, Edra Soto, Amy Mall, and Cariana Carianne. Simultaneously capturing the collective, multicultural artist identity fundamental to Polvo while tapping the conceptual chords and aesthetic distinctions inherent to their individual work, Genera/Zione: Lucky 7 is aggregate power and agency with individual potency. Genera...the plural species, broad over-arching category and many classes. Zione...summoning "of creating" and "condition of". Together the roots form the Italian word generazione "generation"...an ode to this era's budding Chicago artists, spaces, curatorial collectives and post-Uncomfortable Space inquiries. The installation is a zooming lens, moving out to reflect the genera that propel our generazione, narrowing in to reflect the hybrid species it contains.
Each of the seven artists was provided ten cardboard boxes. The exterior color and shape of these boxes remain perfectly uniform, while the interior provides a void for each artist's individual creations. Assembled and uniform, the boxes reflect Polvo's collective holistic body, possessing the compositional weight of homes with sturdy walls, crustaceans with impenetrable shells. The individual box contents then impart the diversity and breadth of Polvo's sub-parts.
The initial free-standing installation is designed for spatial morphing, user-friendly exploration and unpredicted transformation. Converting potential energy into kinetic agency, ArtBoat attendees are coerced to convert the otherwise static, monolithic sculptural whole into nomadic, malleable parts. Through written instruction, verbal beckoning and/or subliminal persuasion, the viewer will become an active explorer and integral participant in the ultimate fruition of the installation. Rearranging the boxes, switching around contents, forming smaller supplementary pyramids or even sprinkling the boxes throughout the boat, Artboat participants explore the stratum of Polvo and become integrated within its layers. Any boundaries or membranes separating gallery-patron, artist-viewer, us-them immediately break-down. Artboat members can even take home boxes as personal treasures or bestow the boxes as gifts on other artists/galleries. The porous, bilateral exchange inherent to Polvo is illuminated. Our conviction to remain outside highly commercialized artwork is perpetuated. Actively involved in the processes of deconstruction, reconstruction and transmutation, each viewer becomes acutely aware of his/her own absorption into Polvo and the sum collective power of all Artboat participants.
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1840 S. Racine Chicago, IL 60608
773.677.1914 (cell) * 312.492.7965 (home)
http://www.mcortez.com * lapsus5@yahoo.com
"Liberate"
acrylic, color copies and plastic soldiers
"Liberate" is a response to the propaganda we are bombarded with as an excuse to kill and colonize another nation, the lies we are told and the civil liberties we have lost. This century definitely has begun on a path that may require a revolution later on.
My boxes are a play on words and beg the obvious question, "Liberate who?" Should we liberate this Iraqi child in the distorted photograph? Should we free the toy solider that seems trapped inside the box? Must we liberate your mind from the propaganda?
from http://truthout.org/
Amid a series of suicide bombings, soldiers at a checkpoint near the entrance to one of Saddam's palaces had been ordered to take out any vehicle that ignored instructions to stop and a volley of warning shots. An Iraqi soldier had barreled through, dressed as a civilian in a car full of we
apons, and he'd been cut down by these soldiers hunkered down in ambush position. Then came another car, whose driver also ignored warning shots, and the soldiers opened fire with deadly purpose. A father and his daughter were killed. The mother, who emerged from the burning car unhurt, spent the next four hours in the faces of the men who had just wiped out her family."I had to look that woman right in the eyes," he said, "and I felt so horrible for her. I've got a little girl."-Spc. 1st Class Bill Scates of Oklahoma City
Artist Bio:
Miguel Cortez, originally from Mexico, has studied filmmaking at Columbia College and painting at the School of the Art Institute. Aside from exhibiting throughout Chicago, Mexico, and Spain, he is part of several collectives; "Polvo", founder of this art collective, and "Hasta Cuando?", a collective of political writers. All groups publish their own magazines.
J E S U S M A C A R E N A - A V I L A
773.338.5482 jesusmacarena@netzero.net
P. O. Box 1529 Chicago, Illinois 60690 - 1529
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mixed media
I have been exploring synthetic materials which have produced an ongoing series based largely in plastic materials such as bubble wrapping and vinyl. For these cajitas (or little boxes) I am engaging the material's texture and color. Each box has holes for the viewer's fingers to crawl and feel inside the box before opening. The idea with "Finger Slippers" is for the viewer to feel the inner space of the box and then compare these sensations of touch with their sense of sight.
Artist Bio:
Jesus Macarena-Avila is a Chicago based artist and studied at the School of the Art institute of Chicago and Vermont college of Norwich University. He is a 2003 recipient of grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Chicago.
E D R A S O T O
edrasoto@hotmail.com
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Surgical Facial Mask
Hollywood Soldier Flag
I propose portraits as a vehicle for reflection; the assumptions or the comforts society can display on the unknown, or the common outlets of affection or obsession.
These are a series of portraits taken from video stills of Hollywood War movies. Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, Platoon, Thin Red Line among others, that reveal a type cast that predominates: famous or celebrated Hollywood actors with looks consider by most to be above average.
I question through these portraits how realistic our vision of war is and how war is presented to us by the media.
Is this an assumption of what we want to see? Are these visions of wars filtered for us to see? Is it really by Hollywood? Who dictates these choices?
Artist Bio:
Edra Soto was born in Puerto Rico in 1971. She spent most of her life there with the exception of a year fellowship in Paris where she studied painting with Alfonso Arana in 1995. In 1997 she moved to Chicago to attend the Art Institute of Chicago where she received her Masters degree in 2000. Edra is currently teaching art at a Chicago public high school and continues to make and show her own art.
C A R I A N A C A R I A N N E
cariana_2@hotmail.com * carianne_2@hotmail.com
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'25 Is Our Lucky Number'
string, cardboard, tape, paper, cloth, video stills
Exhibiting across 13 different countries, Cariana Carianne become ubiquitous in 25 miniature gallery spaces. Each of these galleries is a participant in Art Chicago 2003, and through the artist's manipulation, become unknowing participants in Art Boat 2003. Cariana Carianne parodies the mantra of "acting locally, while thinking globally", while subverting the "commodity" of art spaces through a modular exhibition style.
Artist Bio:
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Cariana Carianne is a multidisciplinary collaborative artist working towards the reinvention of the individual into a collaborative team. Embodying their true selves as both Cariana and Carianne, they equally conceive, participate in, and realize all projects while enacting their merged being. After Cariana received her MFA degree from University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill in 2001, they moved to Chicago to enable Carianne to complete her MFA degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003. Their installations, objects and videos have been exhibited internationally with their video, 'What Is It That We Want- The Fugue', screening in Chicago, San Francisco, Croatia, and Hungry. Currently, they are completing a two-year performance series titled 'Performing Our Self' where both collaborators perform simultaneously by taking on separate roles such as breathing and speaking. Currently, they are living and working in Chicago.
D O L A N G E I M A N
http://www.hockshop.org
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The fisherman sets his net to collect the day's cast-aways from the sea. Scattering his accumulations across the deck, he scans his evening medley. Pulling and plucking, shifting and sorting, he begins to build again. Interpreting and then reinterpreting, finding and refinding, he builds anew from the found objects. Melding the discarded scraps with objects of obvious merit and weight, a new solid mass is born. With the hands of both butcher and preacher, solid forms are broken like bones and reset into animated sculpture. The mockery of a devoured fish just reeled from the foam is only inspiration for its next metamorphosis. He lives in world where each piece of rubble is the bedrock of larger forms and every hiss in the night can be reworked into a greater wholistic melodies.
Artist Bio:
Dolan Geiman earned his BFA from James Madison University in May of 2001, with a concentration in printmaking. After graduating, he spent time working in both North Carolina and Virginia as an art teacher and interpretive naturalist for the Forest Services. With a propensity to spin yarns about his childhood in the country and with his time spent rambling through the foothills of George Washington National Forest, he has created the necessary bag from which to pull inspiration for his artwork. Dolan's artwork has spanned the east coast--from Manchester, Vermont to Charlottesville, Virginia and southward into the swamps and Spanish moss of Mississippi. Crashing the Chicago art arena in October 2002, he quickly initiated an alternative art space in the heart of the Belmont-Clark neighborhood, deemed Gallery 13, to exhibit his work as well as the art of fellow emerging Chicago artists. Moving to the Pilsen community in April 2003 and adopting a new moniker, HockShop Gallery, he continues to develop and expand these art space visions. Weaving together the roles of artist, curator, organizer and instigator, Dolan Geiman continues his quest to bring affordable/portable artwork into the Chicago art scene and to propel his artwork into personally unchartered territories. His future shows include group shows at Butchershop (Chicago), 2-Fly Designs Studio (Charlottesville) and participation in art/craft shows in Des Plaines, Geneva, Minneapolis (Uptown Art Fair) and Virginia.
A M Y M A L L
premelamall@yahoo.com
mobile: (773) 329-7724
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seeds,cloth,twine,red thread,paper,words...
With both humor and serious urgency, these boxes seek to imply action, encourage connectitivity. and address an issue that connects all of us: the integrity of our food
sources. Our current global situation makes clear the need to consider our connections to the smallest and seemingly insignificant things. Rethinking what and how we do things is vital, "provisions" are small spaces to ask questions quietly, and provide delight in simple,
gentle metaphors: thread, seeds, etc.
"I believe that a revolution can begin from this one strand of straw. Seen at a glass this rice straw may appear light and insignificant. Hardly anyone would believe that it could start a revolution,but I have come to realize the weight and power of this straw. For me, this revolution is very real." Masanobu Fukuoka,The One Straw Revolution
Artist Bio:
Amy Mall is an artist, currently living in Chicago. She believes in the full integration of living, learning, doing, and art. She divides her time between Chicago and the Indian Himalayas. In the summer months she will be living on a farm in Caledonia Illinois.
ELVIA RODRIGUEZ-OCHOA
_espace@excite.com
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The idea i was working with is the way too many people try to take the
easy out and buy enlightenment/happiness/good luck instead of taking
the time to understand themselves authenticly and seek out what they
really need on an emotional/spiritual level which takes real work to do.