Press Release: Artpace San Antonio Announces The Opening Of
New Works: 06.1
03.07.06
Media Contact: Libby D. Tilley
t 210 212 4900 x122
f 210 212 4990
ltilley@artpace.org
www.artpace.org
SAN ANTONIO, TX – Artpace San Antonio is pleased to announce New Works: 06.1, on view March 8 through May 7, 2006. The exhibition presents new projects by resident artists Edgar Arceneaux (Los Angeles, CA); Augusto Di Stefano (San Antonio, TX); and Ranjani Shettar (Bangalore, India). Selected by Douglas Fogle, Curator of Contemporary Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburg, PA, each artist alternately explores the foundations of humanity in our boundaries, our collision with nature, and our tragic sense of humor.
About The Artists
Edgar Arceneaux’s Alchemy of Comedy…Stupid combines film, performance, photos, and print to extract connections between the medieval science of alchemy and contemporary comedy. The project centers on a multi-channel film featuring comedian David Alan Grier experimenting with the same routine in three locations. Like a scientist might consider the four basic elements of air, water, fire, and earth, the production mixes proportions of colors, music, audience, and wordplay. Objects in the gallery expand on the idea of tragedy as an inherent part of both comedy and alchemy, which was applied to prolong life and cure disease. Arceneaux’s Artpace project will travel to Gallery 400 at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Special thanks to them and The Joyce Foundation, which provided additional funds.
Augusto Di Stefano’s paintings, drawings, and, for the first time, print, explore processed and gestural marks that slip between geometric abstraction and strangely lone structures. In Di Stefano’s paintings, the solitude of flawlessly coated backgrounds is strategically broken. Untitled features a deep grey field marred by thick, black, finger-like gestures heavy with the emotional residue of the artist’s hand. Movement is contained in a form reaching toward one edge, alluding to space beyond the painting. Di Stefano’s drawings pulse with the juxtaposition of inside and outside, moving further from the gestural to rigid, produced forms. The semicircular arrangement of the pieces encourages connection and distinction.
In Ranjani Shettar’s two projects, biological research leads to her considered treatment of the materials. Both the three-dimensional sculptural installation and framed print reference South Texas by incorporating woods. For the installation Shettar carved, sanded, and polished sections of mesquite into rounded sculptural nodes. Mounted on the wall, the wooden forms congregate into a larger shape, conveying the irregular balance of nature. Nearby, ropes of watery green algae hang from the ceiling and appear ready to host the wooden fungi. The algae, cast by hand from silicone rubber, is an additive process which complements the reductive act of carving, just as each element in the installation networks with the other to exist and be complete. The project is a subtle meditation on relational negotiations, particularly mutual symbiosis. Ranjani Shettar’s works suggest the mutual benefits and beauty of sharing and cooperation over competition and combat.
About The Curator
Prior to joining the Carnegie Museum of Art in 2005, Douglas Fogle served for ten years as curator at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. While at the Walker, Fogle initiated an emerging artist series and a number of group exhibitions such as Stills: Emerging Photography in the 1990s (1997). His most recent exhibitions include Painting at the Edge of the World (2001), solo exhibitions with Catherine Opie and Julie Mehretu, and a historical survey of the conceptual uses of photography entitled The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography 1960-1982, which opened at the Walker Art Center in October 2003 and will travel to the UCLA Hammer in Los Angeles before continuing on to Europe. He regularly contributes to journals such as Artforum, Frieze, Flash Art, and Parkett.
New Works: 06.1 is supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy, with additional funding from the Texas Commission on the Arts and Rosina Lee Yue and Bert A. Lies, Jr., MD
Related Events
New Works: 06.1 Opening Reception and Artists’ Dialogue
Wednesday, March 8, 6:00-8:30 PM
Celebrate the completion of new works by Edgar Arceneaux, Augusto Di Stefano, and Ranjani Shettar. Exhibition opens to the public at 6pm with Fogle joining the artists in conversation about their Artpace projects from 6:30-7:30pm. Reception will follow.
Brown Bag Lunch
Wednesday, April 19, 12:00-1:00 PM
Join curator Kate Green for a tour of New Works: 06.1 followed by a brown bag lunch (provided by Sip) and group discussion. Call Artpace for menu and reservations by Tuesday, April 18 (210 212 4900).
About Artpace
Artpace San Antonio serves as a laboratory for the creation and advancement of international contemporary art. Artpace believes that art is a dynamic social force that inspires individuals and defines cultures. Our residencies, exhibitions, and education programs nurture the creative expression of emerging and established artists, while actively engaging youth and adult audiences.
Artpace is located downtown at 445 North Main Avenue, between Savings and Martin streets, San Antonio, Texas. Free parking is available on the corner of Savings and N. Flores streets. Artpace is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday, 12-5 PM, Thursday, 12-8 PM, and by appointment. Admission is free.
Artpace San Antonio is supported by Kronkosky Charitable Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Neiman Marcus, Texas Commission on the Arts, a grant from the Ruth Lang Charitable Fund of the San Antonio Area Foundation, the William and Salomé Scanlan Foundation, Edouard Foundation, The Nordan Trust, Matthews Family Foundation, Target, The Brown Foundation, Inc., the Amy Shelton McNutt Charitable Trust, the Make Your Mark Circle, and the Friends of Artpace.
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