Institute 193 founder and creative director Phillip March Jones will sign copies of his new book, Points of Departure: Roadside Memorial Polaroids (Jargon 114),February 25 from 2:00-4:00 PM at Morris Book Shop in Lexington, KY. The book–published by the Jargon Society–includes a foreword by the poet Thomas Meyer and 172 color photographs of roadside memorials across the United States, taken just before Polaroid film was discontinued in 2008.
Anna Roberts-Gevalt and Elizabeth LaPrelle visited Institute 193’s gallery on January 21 to perform traditional Appalachian music and display the extraordinary illustrated scrolls they call “crankies.” We managed to cram over 60 people into our small space. Thanks to everyone who came to the show.
ELIZABETH PERFORMING WITH A CRANKIE
THE CROWD
EXAMINING AN UNROLLED CRANKIE AFTER THE PERFORMANCE
On January 20, Anna Roberts-Gevalt and Elizabeth LaPrelle conducted a community workshop at Latitude Artist Community. The duo performed traditional Appalachian ballads and presented their “crankies” for the community members in attendance. “Crankies” are cloth, linoleum, and paper scrolls that are stitched or illustrated with images that interpret the lyrics of their music; loaded into a wooden apparatus, a hand crank slowly pulls the scrolls past a viewing window.
At the end of the workshop, Latitude artists and other community members used paints, markers, and pastels to make a “crankie” of their own around the theme of “winter.”
Special thanks to the Catherine Cropper Foundation for making this collaboration possible.
The work of Robert Beatty, whose solo exhibition “Cream Grid Reruns” was on display at Institute 193 in the summer of 2011, was recently featured in a 16-page full-color spread in the comic art anthology Kramer’s Ergot 8. People are taking notice. Beatty’s work has recently been profiled in a variety of media outlets, including:
Thanks to everyone who braved the winter weather January 12 and came to the opening reception for the exhibition Albert Moser: Designs. Here are a few snapshots by the delightful Jaime Lazich. If you couldn’t make it to the opening, the gallery will be open Wednesday – Saturday, 10-5 until February 11. Stop in to see Moser’s extraordinary work. To schedule an appointment outside of normal gallery hours, email chase@institute193.org.
THE ARTIST ROBERT BEATTY EXAMINES MOSER’S DRAWINGS
GALLERY PATRONS ENJOYING A VIDEO INSTALLATION OF MOSER’S ARTISTIC PROCESS
I (Phillip) traveled to Winnipeg, Canada this past week for a press check on my new book titled Points of Departure: Roadside Memorial Polaroids, published by the Jargon Society. It was a balmy -13 degrees, but despite the ridiculous weather, everything went smoothly, and the books should be ready for delivery in early February. In the meantime, I have created a Facebook page to keep everyone posted on where to find the book, production photos, and anything else you could ever want to know. Click here to check it out.
Ben Sollee, a long-time supporter of Institute 193, is raising funds for his next album titled Half-Made Man with Pledge Music, an online resource for musicians and record labels creating new projects. For as little as 10 dollars you will receive a digital copy of the record when it becomes available. PLUS – ten percent of the funds go to support Oxfam America, an international relief and development organization that creates lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice. Rad. Rad. Rad.
21 Nights Happy Hours–a collaboration between Institute 193, LexArts, KET, and Art21–screens episodes of Art21, the Peabody award winning PBS program about contemporary art, in local bars throughout the winter. Each event will present the work of a Kentucky artist in addition to the artists in the program.
On January 9 at Parlay Social, the first 21 Nights Happy Hour will feature the Art21 episode “Tranformations,” which highlights the work of Yinka Shonibare MBE, Cindy Sherman, and Paul McCarthy, and explores the ways in which they refashion personal identity and question cultural mores through their artistic practices. The evening will also feature a screening of Moments, a short film by Mare Vaccaro, an artist who uses the deconstructed female form to examine standards of femininity and explore the ways in which adornment can mask the true self. Multiple Personalities, an exhibition of Vaccaro’s self-portraits, was on display at Institute 193 in the spring of 2010.
Institute 193 is pleased to present a performance of Appalachian music and stories accompanied by a unique display of illustrated scrolls—called “crankies”—by the artists and musicians Anna Roberts-Gevalt and Elizabeth LaPrelle at 8 PM on Saturday, January 21, 2012.
Made of cloth, linoleum, and paper, “crankie” scrolls are illustrated with images that complement the stories and music of LaPrelle and Roberts-Gevalt. Loaded into a wooden apparatus, a hand crank slowly pulls the scrolls past a viewing window that is lit from behind. Once a popular form of visual storytelling, the artists have revived and reinterpreted the medium to create stunning works of kinetic art.
Originally from Southwest Virginia, Anna Roberts-Gevalt and Elizabeth LaPrelle have each spent months visiting with Appalachian musicians, learning traditional ballads, collecting folk tales, and recording the biographical details of master musicians. This crankie show will focus on the music of fiddler Lella Todd of Kentucky, and ballad singers Texas Gladden of Virginia and Addie Graham of Eastern Kentucky.
Roberts-Gevalt and LaPrelle have performed together at festivals throughout the United States. Both have studied with masters of Appalachian fiddling and ballad singing, and have been faculty members at traditional music schools in Appalachia and in the state of Washington. Roberts-Gevalt was a grant recipient for her research into female fiddlers at Berea College; LaPrelle has released three solo albums and has appeared on Prairie Home Companion.
Albert Moser spent much of his free time wandering the streets of Trenton, New Jersey and Lexington, Kentucky, taking pictures and collecting bits of paper and other objects of interest. Moser later would develop and assemble his photographs into panoramic landscapes, documenting 360 degree views of streets, parks, and shopping malls. The found sheets of paper–bus schedules, take-out menus, and business flyers–became canvases for Moser’s “designs,” on which he created intricate geometric drawings using stencils fashioned from plastic lids, air fresheners, and pieces of cardboard.
Moser’s designs are sophisticated geometric compositions that represent a singular quest for balance and clarity in a world full of surprises and uncertainty. The works have no specific orientation: Moser creates them by constantly rotating the sheet of paper, drawing and tracing from a defined center point. He describes the various shapes and forms, “This equals that. This goes with that. This balances that.” Moser has created thousands of drawings over the past decade, entrusting the majority of them to his sister in Lexington.
Albert Moser: Designs is presented in conjunction with an exhibition of Moser’s panoramic photographs currently on view at UK Chandler Hospital.
Special thanks to Bruce Burris and Latitude Artist Community.
-Phillip March Jones, Creative Director
ALBERT MOSER: DESIGNS
JANUARY 12 – FEBRUARY 11, 2012, OPENING RECEPTION JANUARY 12, 6-9 PM
Institute 193 is a non-profit contemporary art space dedicated to enriching the cultural landscape of the Lexington area by exhibiting emerging and mid-career professional artists from the Southern region of the United States. Learn more...
