On-Site Sights – Bemis Center Opens Seminal Installation
“Placemakers”
Opens Jan. 13, through March 31 Opening reception, 6-9 p.m., Friday, Jan. 13
“Transceiver”
Opens Jan. 13, through Feb. 11 Opening reception, 6-9 p.m., Friday, Jan. 13
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts 724 S. 12th St. bemiscenter.org
ON-SITE SIGHTS
BEMIS CENTER OPENS SEMINAL INSTALLATION ART SHOW, ‘PLACEMAKERS’
By Augusta Olsen
The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts is in rare form as it opens two new shows this weekend. Spanning the physical and conceptual terrain of form and media, “Placemakers” features site-specific installations from nine artists. Simultaneously, “Transceiver” in the Bemis Underground transmits the other end of the form spectrum, offering works from national artists that were all sent to the Bemis Center by electronic means, including email, Twitter, Skype and others. While the juxtaposition of these two shows in interesting, it is definitely “Placemakers” that creates a valid and provocative claim for contemporary art installations.
Installation art is an energetic lodestar in to- day’s contemporary art movement. Site-specific creations, both vast and intricate, rose in prominence through the 1980s and ‘90s to become the one of the leading hallmarks of contemporary art in the 2000s. Galleries such as the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh and the Fassbender Gallery in Chicago have embraced installation art, literally making the space for the development of the art form. Although a truly contemporary development, installation art often expresses connections to the Surrealist movement with its relentless drive to question and alter mundane perceptions. Today, installation art often explores an infinitely creative grey area some- where between art, architecture and design with various degrees of functionality and inter- action thrown into the mix just for fun.
“Placemakers,” located in the main galleries of the Bemis Center, is a visually rich, interactive show highlighting many bright lights in the genre, and introducing a thoughtful, entertaining collection of installation pieces from five former Bemis residents and a number of nationally recognized artists.
The artwork is unavoidable. Visitors to the Bemis Center and much of the Old Market will first be welcomed by Jason Manley’s rooftop installation, “Suspending Belief.” Manley’s 22-foot scaffolding supports 3-foot steel letters emblazoned with red LED lights reading, “BE- LIEVE.”
Manley arrived at the Bemis Center this week from his current home in Los Angeles to build the installation piece. “Signage is a big in- terest in my work,” he said, taking a break from his construction process on the Bemis rooftop. “That’s really been inspired by the L.A. landscape, the antique old marquis and signage.”
Manley is also constructing the “Believe, Green” installation at the Manhattan Beach Sculpture Garden in Manhattan Beach, Calif. That piece, commissioned by the city of Manhattan Beach, opens in Febuary, a coincidence in timing, says Manley.
Quynh Vantu’s work dominates the Bemis hallway with nine giant white balls. This piece, entitled “Squeeze,” is interactive, and the friendly fun of the behemoth, canvas-covered balls gives way to the challenge of people try- ing to navigate their way through the artful maze. Similarly, Vantu’s construction, “Courtesy Hallways | Doors” forces people to consider the parameters of tight quarters and common courtesy. Vantu’s work elicits participants more than viewers, and her background as a licensed architect greatly informs her playful sense of space and how humans interact within it.
Space and light are explored by most of the pieces in the show in various ways. Letha Wilson’s pieces “Ghost of a Tree” and “Badlands Wall Rip” pair photography of the natural world with a divergent element of construction. “Ghost of a Tree” features a concrete pillar in the Bemis Center’s main gallery growing out of a photograph where a tree once stood and still stands, the viewer realizes by walking around the installation and viewing it from different angles. “Badlands Wall Rip” is even more evocative, as strips of a bucolic scene are pulled
back to reveal a current reality, at the very least. There is something uncomfortable about Wilson’s pieces, which makes them a brilliant look at the interaction between our natural world and our constructed world; similarly our mental constructions of perfection or beauty versus the reality around us.
Cybele Lyle’s installation, “Untitled (Shift- ing Space)” inhabits an entire room of the main gallery. Between six projections and various screens, Lyle achieves a Alice-in-Wonderland type of effect in altering perception of space and mass. Zach Rockhill’s installation, “Solar Void” blurs the lines between sculpture and functionality, creating an ambience that is both defined and permissive. Isabelle Hayeur’s image, “Innerland” is a video still from an intriguing project connected with the “Placemakers” show. Hayeur created a video projection that is to be cast into an alleyway in the Old Market, transforming the space by creating a variant illusion of reality. The Bemis Center will sponsor a separate event later in the spring to showcase Hayeur’s project.
The brightest star of the show is Anne Lindberg’s piece, “drawn pink.” Made from Egyptian cotton threads of various colors, the sculptural installation transforms one corner of the main gallery into a visually humming colorscape. Lindberg’s method of lacing threads between two walls is engaging, creating an optical illusion that transforms the perception of space, density, hue and vibration. Her precise manipulation of a simple medium effectively broadcasts her mind’s vision. Ultimately, Lind- berg’s exploration of color and light is mesmerizing, creating fascinating, mutable visual patterns that express the living heart of transformative installation work.
Manley, Vantu, Wilson, Hayeur and Lyle are all former artists-in-residence at the Bemis Center.