| For more information about this article or gallery, please call the gallery phone number listed in the last line of the article, "For more info..." |
February Issue
2008
McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, NC, Features Two New Exhibits
McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, NC, will present two new exhibits including: Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence and 2008 Winter Artists-in-Residence Exhibition, both on view from Feb. 8 - Apr. 26, 2008.
Over two hundred years ago, in the heady atmosphere of post-revolutionary Paris, a form of popular entertainment concerned with the theme of death, fantasy and magic captured the public's imagination on a massive scale. The Phantasmagoria, as it was known, combined optical techniques with various stage effects to captivate an impressionable public with illusory images that referred to the otherworldly.
The contemporary artists featured in Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence play with perception and phenomenological experience, often seducing viewers with their interactive and haunting images before the disturbing implications of those images are understood. The artists often use ephemeral and immaterial mediums such as shadows, fog, mist, and breath to captivate the viewer.
Created especially for this exhibition by Mexican artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Sustained Coincidence is an interactive piece that invites viewers to move through the installation, thereby playing an active role in the construction of an image. The complex installation consists of incandescent bulbs that hang from the ceiling and a computerized surveillance system that registers the viewer's location and controls the lights automatically. When there is only one person in the room, the bulbs light up in accordance with his or her displacement, so that the shadow is always projected in the center of the opposing wall. But when one enters the work in the presence of others, a different kind of relation with our dark "double" occurs: the shadow becomes a collective experience, as the device concentrates all absences (of light) in a central, composite form made from the superimposition of all the different shadows. Thus, Sustained Coincidence subsumes individual features into a single black void, where the trace of one's own body is consumed by total darkness.
Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence is a traveling exhibition co-organized by iCI (independent Curators International), New York and the Museo de Arte del Banco de la Repblica, Bogot, Colombia, and circulated by iCI. The guest curator for the exhibition is Jos Roca. The exhibition, tour and catalogue are made possible, in part, by the iCI Exhibition Partners and the iCI independents.
McColl Center for Visual Art welcomes the 2008 Winter Artists-in-Residence. Joining the Center this term are six artists, two of whom are international artists from New Zealand and Taiwan. During their residence, each artist will participate in community outreaches collaborating with organizations such as the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS), Design Within Reach and The Art Institute of Charlotte.
The artists will also exhibit their work in the 2008 Winter Artists-in-Residence Exhibition at the Center highlighting a variety of media and techniques including sculpture, video, installation, painting and photography.
From Auckland, New Zealand, Sara Hughes examines the relationship between painting and the location and architecture in which it is placed. She investigates how paintings operate within a physical space, and how the placement of a painting affects their viewer. She is the recipient of the Frances Hodgkin's Fellowship at Otago University in Dunedin, New Zealand. Hughes received both her BA and MFA from Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland.
Approaching ceramic sculpture with the intent to blend pop culture with fine art, Lee Renninger from Gulfport, MS, interested in the dichotomy of fashion as art, has led her to create detailed installations of fashion in life experience, most recently her Bridal Suite installation. She holds a BA in English and a MA in Political Science from the University of Florida. Renninger has exhibited extensively in the United States, and has work in the permanent collection at the Shepparton Art Gallery in Australia.
Howard Sherman from Houston, TX, received his BA and MFA from the University of Texas. He explores modern American issues through his unorthodox work. Using the "cartoon narrative" as a starting point, Sherman mutates the historical tradition of painting, creating an aggressive yet humorous expression which explores issue such as sex, consumerism, terrorism and technology.
Tseng Wei-Hao, from Tainan, Taiwan, received his BFA from National Taiwan College of the Arts and his MFA from Tainan National University of Art. His work creates an interface between sound, drawing and sculpture, often using the audience's interaction to activate the work. By inviting the participation of the viewer, the work invites unforeseeable chemical reactions. He attempts to establish a closer relationship between art and people and to ensure the audience considers ideas. He has participated in residency programs in both London and Paris. Tseng Wei-Hao's residency is sponsored by the Asian Cultural Council.
A sculpture and installation artist from Westford, MA, Nadya Volicer is working towards a visual vibrancy that imparts feelings of energy, chaos and harmony. Using primarily recycled wood, themes of home, memory, movement, and architecture are predominant in her site-specific installations. Volicer received her BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Vermont Studio and Millay Colony.
From Charlotte, NC, Lisa Holder is the Center's 9th CMS Art Teacher-in-Residence. She received her BFA from the University of Colorado and her MFA from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Holder is a mixed-media artist, focusing on alternative photographic techniques, while exploring issues of self and identity. Through performance-based self-portraiture and portraits of others, she attempts to disrupt the expectations and preconceived notions of the role of women.
Open Studio Saturdays are scheduled Jan. 19, Feb. 23 and Mar. 8, from 11am-4pm and all artists will be working in their studios with the doors open. It is an opportunity for the public to meet the artists and learn about their work. The 2008 Winter Artists-in-Residence will be in residence through March 24, 2008.
McColl Center for Visual Art is an artists' residency program and gallery dedicated to promoting contemporary art and supporting artists regionally, nationally, and internationally. The Center's goal is to present art and artists in a way that engages and enriches the public while revealing the creative process through open studios, outreaches, community projects, and educational programs.
For further information check our NC Institutional
Gallery listings, call the center at 704/332-5535 or visit (www.mccollcenter.org).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2008 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2008 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.