Spring 2012 Exhibitions
FRAGMENTED: Astrid Bowlby, Sebastian Rug,
Christopher Skura, Ben Butler
February 5, 2012 - June 3, 2012
Yeon Jin Kim: Spaceship Grocery Store
April 1, 2012 - June 3, 2012
Kirsten Hassenfeld: Cabin Fever
April 1, 2012-June 3, 2012
Yeon Jin Kim: Spaceship Grocery Store
Yeon Jin Kim, video still from Spaceship Grocery Store, 2011. Courtesy of the artist.
With an intricately fabricated paper diorama and a video camera, Korean born artist Yeon Jin Kim takes the viewer on an animated voyage through her dreams. To create her videos, Kim merges the traditional techniques of drawing and sculpture with the contemporary technologies of film, animation and video. Kim's hand-drawn scroll drawings, often measuring up to 300 feet long, are heavily detailed worlds, with backgrounds drawn in graphite setting the scene for elaborate paper sculptural models. Using simple string, she animates the models as if they were marionettes, moving them through the crafted environment. While the models are animated, she films the movements in a single take. The incredible complexity of the drawn work yields an almost childlike animation in the final form.
Kim's work illustrates her dreamed visions. In her work, a character can walk through a European capital, an American suburb and a leafy jungle within moments. She states, "Often catalyzed by dreams, the drawings and models depict animals, humans, architecture and landscapes in mildly hallucinogenic, charged atmospheres which derive from the intensely rendered imagery created through thousands of hours of drawing."
Citing the influences of Hitchcock, Kafka and Carrol, as well as Charles Darwin, Kim infuses aliens and animals with human desires and experiences, setting them in environments that are at once familiar and completely foreign. In "Spaceship Grocery Store", an alien goes about his daily business, witnessing events that we, the viewers, recognize from our own world: cruelty, militarism and repression. It's as if to say no matter how far you run, you can't escape your problems.
As a nod to both Carrol and Darwin, "Spaceship Grocery Store" opens with a giant venus fly trap. Kim has infused the plant with human characteristics, while, at the same time, pointing out the extraordinary inventiveness that can be found in nature. Kim's affection for Darwin is evident through much of her work and not only in Kim's subject matter. Her 2012 work "Zoonomia" borrows its title from Erasmus Darwin's (Charles' grandfather) two-volume book of the same name.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Yeon Jin Kim was born in Seoul in 1978. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Seoul National University and her Masters in Fine Arts in Combined Media from Hunter College, New York in 2008. She has participated in numerous group shows and was part of the Artist-in-Residence Program at the Henry Street Settlement in New York City from 2010-2011. Among other awards and residencies, Kim was awarded a Residency Fellowship at Yaddo in 2009 and nominated for a Rema Hort Mann Foundation grant in 2008.
Kirsten Hassenfeld: Cabin Fever
Kirsten Hassenfeld, Star Upon Star, 2011. Courtesy Peter Mendenhall Gallery, Los Angeles
Kirsten Hassenfeld makes extraordinary sculpture and collage with ordinary materials. She carefully saves odds and ends from her daily life, such as bottle caps, thread spools, envelopes and wrapping paper and incorporates them into complex works of art that defy expectations. In her hands, these items become multi-faceted chandeliers, highly detailed architectural forms, and abstract three-dimensional sculptures that illuminate dark rooms, often inviting the viewer to enter a private space, and, at the same, recall the vernacular handicrafts of the original American settlers.
Over the years, the main ingredient in Hassenfeld's work has evolved from primarily paper to recycled every day materials, a reflection of her concern about waste and conservation in today's society. With reference to traditional household chores that kept generations of Americans solvent, she quilts, sews, weaves, canes and patches these cast-off materials into spectacular assemblages. The result is an intricately constructed wall piece that is reminiscent of handwoven objects found in early colonial households.
Given the 19th century architecture of the Hunterdon Art Museum, it is particularly apt for Hassenfeld to make her solo museum debut within its walls. While preparing for her exhibition, Hassenfeld reflected on the households that were established in this country as the pioneers headed west. In her mind, this expansion marked "the beginning of the end" for the untouched land, and she concentrates on the era when this land was first populated by non-indigenous groups. The title of the exhibition, Cabin Fever, refers to both the feverish pace of work for these early settlers, as well as to actual fever, hardship and isolation of these early years.
Kirsten Hassenfeld is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, where she received her Bachelor's Degree in Fine Art. She attended the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting and Scultpure in 1997 and received her Master's Degree in Fine Arts from the University of Arizona, Tuscon.
She has had several solo shows, most recently at Peter Mendenhall Gallery in Los Angeles, Brown University, Smack Mellon Gallery, Brooklyn and Bellwether Gallery, New York City. She has been included in group shows a The Hudson River Museum, NY; The Brooklyn Museum, NY; and, The Jewish Museum, NY, among others. This is her first solo Museum show. The show is organized by Hunterdon Art Museum Director of Exhibitions Jonathan Greene.
RELATED EDUCATION AND PUBLIC PROGRAMS
There will be a talk with the artist on Sunday, April 1 from 1pm-1:30pm.
Kirsten Hassenfeld will lead a class for kids ages 5 - 14. Kids can join the artist to learn how to make beautiful geometric structures from paper. After a brief tour of the art in Hassenfeld's solo show, children will create their own sculptures inspired by the artist's innovative use of mixed media and recycled paper. Students will use simple materials and techiniques to create three-dimensional, gem-shaped sculptures that can be attached together to create complex shapes resulting in an object that resembles stained glass! All materials will be provided. The class takes place on the last day of the exhibition, Sunday June 3 from 1:30pm - 3:30pm. Tuition is $27.
FRAGMENTED: Astrid Bowlby, Sebastian Rug, Christopher Skura, Ben Butler
Astrid Bowlby, 12.16.07 (chrysanthemums floating), 2007. Ink on paper. Courtesy of Gallery Joe, Philadelphia
Ben Butler, Invention #50 (detail), 2010, ink on paper. Courtesy of the artist and Coleman Burke Gallery
Fragmented explores how all four of the artists presented create art work that is the result of extremely labor intensive processes. The end result of the effort is art that is solid, yet fragile; if one piece or thread was moved or removed, the entire structure would collapse.
Each piece in the show is constructed of repeating parts. In some works, such as Sebastian Rug's drawings, it is a repetition of the same or similar marks. In others, such as those by Christopher Skura, the repeating parts are the layers of drawing, rather than the marks themselves. They are all assembled piece by piece, whether drawn on paper or constructed from wood.
Astrid Bowlby grows her drawings through a slow and meticulous process. She is focused on building a surface and often it is this surface that offers to her a pattern; a pattern that she continues, until the passage of time and the darkness of the work tells her to stop. Astrid Bowlby finds her influences for drawing in disparate sources: geological patterns of growth, embroidery, knitting and weaving. Bowlby lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.
Ben Butler creates organic drawings and sculpture by allowing his process to develop incrementally. The drawings are woven together with a fluidity that allows the amorphous shape to grow into something spectacular, but not necessarily identifiable. Butler's sculptures encompass the same process, but involve the actual work of building as he uses the smaller elements to substantiate and invigorate the final work of art. Butler lets his work reveal itself to the viewer in time, just as he lets his form reveal itself through his process. Ben Butler lives and works in Memphis, TN.
Sebastian Rug delicately constructs intertwined frameworks that appear to float on the surface. A complex combination of texture and proportion, Rug's drawings invite the viewer in to closely examine the execution of his marks. This magnified view shows just how interlaced the complete work is and from this, the potential fragmentation can be seen readily. Although tightly bound, the slightest cut or break would seem to unravel the complicated drawing into one line, the line where Rug likely began this journey. Sebastian Rug lives and works in Leipzig, Germany.
Christopher Skura creates systems. Systems thrive or fail based on the connectedness of its parts and Skura's work is no different. Although improvised and free at their inception, his drawings evolve into technological and biological architecture through his ability to make contrasting elements work together seamlessly. Christopher Skura takes the viewer on a behind-the-scenes voyage through a complex imaginative system of shape, theory and color. He lives and works in New York, NY.
Fragmented is an embodiment of repetition, detail and interconnectivity. These four artists share the unique obsession with creating a picture by developing an ongoing correlation between its smaller sections. Upon close inspection of the work in Fragmented, the viewer can quickly see how it would be impossible to remove just a section of the image without completely dismantling the entire work. This is where the dynamic lies: these images are strong because of their connections, but one disruption in any of these artist's processes would leave the overall work fragmented.
