Archive for the ‘Institute 193 Projects’ Category

SO-IL OPENS SEPT. 9 @ 193

SO-IL (Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu): FUTURE ARCHEOLOGY
September 9, 2010 – October 2, 2010
OPENING RECEPTION: 9 SEPTEMBER 2010, 6 – 9 PM

SO-IL (Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu) bills itself as a “small office with a global reach.” Sound familiar? SO-IL was founded in 2007 as a “creative catalyst” designed to aid in any and all stages of the architectural process and “vehemently believes in realizing their ideas in the world.” Enterprises like SO-IL are not think tanks or conceptual incubators, but action-oriented businesses focused on the physical realization of their ideas across the globe.

Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu, the founders of SO-IL, will be traveling periodically to Lexington this fall to run the Brown Forman Urban Design Studio. Institute 193 is collaborating with the UK College of Design to present an exhibition that will introduce the architects and their work to the Lexington community, providing an opportunity for interaction and discussion outside of the traditional classroom setting. SO-IL’s structure and ambitious project schedule represent a model that we find particularly compelling. SO-IL is living proof that a small space can have a global reach.

Special thanks to Art Without Walls for their support.

Shaffer @ Latitude: One Nail Gallery

Travis Shaffer spoke to artists at Latitude this afternoon about his recent project, Eleven Mega Churches. According to the artist, “This work is interested in issues of access and diversity; land-use, suburban infrastructure, the automobile and it’s environmental impact; and the formation of isolated communal brands. It seeks to coax its audience into open dialogue about the impact of the church as a building and an institution upon our world, along with differences between its implied and actual purposes and responsibilities. As one views these works, gathered using stitched Google Satellite imagery, there is an obvious repetition of sprawling parking lots, coupled with cul-de-sac laden homogeneous housing developments and swimming pools, all icons of a distinctly American and more distinctly middle class ex-urban/suburban landscape.”

One Nail Gallery at Latitude’s studio space on Saunier Street in Lexington aims to create a dialogue amongst regional contemporary artists and the artists at Latitude. Exhibiting artists will give a short talk and spend a day at Latitude. The exchange will hopefully impact the work of everyone involved creating a deliberate bridge between Latitude Artist Community and the regional art community .

Bruce Burris – BOOK AVAILABLE!

Institute 193 recently released Bruce Burris: We Will Someday, Someday We Will. The book features 40 full-color pages of Burris’ recent work including his Lonely Mountain Community Center Project. All Institute 193 publications are available through blurb.com. Email phillip@institute193.org for additional information.

NONES – PREVIEW

Check out this video montage spliced together by Coleman Guyon of Robert Beatty’s NONES performance at Institute 193. Beatty invited 4 different collaborators to play with him during the week. Guyon filmed several of the events and created this video. Rad.

Nones Preview from Institute 193 on Vimeo.

Guy Mendes: 40/40 on KICKSTARTER

Institute 193 and Guy Mendes would like to publish 40/40: Forty Years, Forty Portraits, a book that functions as a “studio tour” with Mendes. The book will trace Mendes’ career through portraits taken over the last four decades. Each photo is complimented by a written passage about the subject being photographed. Wendell Berry has agreed to write an introduction for the book which will be available November 1, 2010. The book is being accompanied by an exhibition opening at Institute 193 in Lexington, Kentucky on December 2. The money raised through Kickstarter will be used to print the book and get a signed copy of it into your hands! This will be the first book published about Mendes’ work in over 20 years.

Slowest Runner, Ascent of Everest, Ara

Institute 193 invited Ara, Ascent of Everest and Slowest Runner to perform on July 23 as part of the on-going North of Center Music Series. We are posting pictures from the show below and links to the band’s web pages. Make sure to stay tuned for announcements about upcoming live shows at 193.

SMOKERS AND LINGERERS BETWEEN SETS

ARA

ASCENT OF EVEREST

THE SLOWEST RUNNER IN ALL THE WORLD

Guy Mendes – 40/40 Book Announced

Institute 193 is announcing a public collaboration with Carly Goes To Space and Guy Mendes to publish 40/40 – Forty Years, Forty Portraits. The book – still in its preliminary design stage – will feature portraits taken by Mendes over the last forty years and passages written by Mendes explaining his relationship to the various characters. Among the photographed are: Ashley Judd, Wendell Berry, Ben Sollee, Lil’ Enis, Sister Gertrude Morgan, etc… The book is scheduled to be released late this fall. Stay tuned for more details. The project will be primarily funded through KICKSTARTER, and we will be sending out updates periodically. We are posting working images of the book’s cover and layout. Let us know what you think.

The book will be accompanied by an exhibition at Institute 193 produced in conjunction with the Ann Tower Gallery.

NONES – Robert Beatty + Co.

Institute 193 is pleased to announce a series of collaborative performances with Robert Beatty from August 5 – August 9 at 9 PM. Beatty will be inviting various musicians to perform with him for one hour every night at 9 PM beginning August 5.

Robert Beatty (born 1981, Lexington, KY) is an artist and electronic musician who performs under the name Three Legged Race. He is a long running member of Hair Police, Eyes and Arms of Smo…ke, and C. Spencer Yeh’s Burning Star Core. Since 2004 Beatty has maintained a collaborative relationship with artist Takeshi Murata, creating soundtracks for Murata’s videos. Their collaboration has spawned performances by Three Legged Race at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (Stray Alchemists,2007, Beijing), Deitch Projects (Heavy Light, 2008, New York), the Mattress Factory (Heavy Light, 2008, Pittsburgh), the New Museum (No Fun: Infinite Sound and Image, 2009, New York), and The Gene Siskel Film Center at the Art Institute of Chicago (Conversations at the Edge, 2010, Chicago).

Beatty’s constantly evolving aesthetic is realized via an elaborate network of primitive electronics and outmoded thrift store detritus. Each performance and recording explores the repetition and decay of simple musical themes, discovering a new world of rhythmic and harmonic possibilities with each tier of abstraction, evoking minimalist sci-fi soundtracks, clouded hypnotic landscapes, and primal industrial techno.

To RSVP for the event, please see our FACEBOOK INVITE.

Appalachian Voices + Dunahoo

Institute 193 recently collaborated with Jim James, Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore to install works by Jessie Dunahoo on stage at the opening of their Appalachian Voices US tour. Jessie Dunahoo is a blind and deaf artist who works at Lexington’s Latitude Artist Community and recently showed at 193’s space on North Limestone Street. We are posting video excerpts and photos from the show below. Special thanks to Latitude Artist Community (specifically to Bruce Burris and Crystal Bader) who are always willing to help the Institute any way they can. The show took place on July 22, 2010 at the Lexington Opera House.

Jim James, Ben Sollee, Daniel Martin Moore and Jessie Dunahoo from Institute 193 on Vimeo.

Save the Last Dance For Me – (EXCERPT) from Institute 193 on Vimeo.

Studio Visit with J.T. Dockery

Studio Visit with J.T. Dockery
by Chase Martin

When I meet J.T. Dockery, he’s sitting in a coffee shop, wearing thick-framed glasses and a battered fedora, scribbling in a notebook as a barista fires up the blender. “I used to keep my own studio,” he chuckles over the noise, “but there’ve been some domestic troubles on the home front, lately.” So, since around last October, he’s been filling his sketchbooks in coffee shops–usually Third Street Stuff. “Luckily, most of my drawings are 11 x 14 or smaller, so they’re pretty portable,” Dockery explains, gesturing towards a crammed shoulder bag slumped against his chair. Unlike artists working in more restrictive mediums, he can take his studio just about anywhere.

Dockery creates surreal, intricately detailed works of ink on paper, often combined with text rendered in jittery lettering. Many of these illustrations are designed to work together like a graphic novel, but the stories he’s telling are rarely straightforward. “I work in narrative, but for me, the writer part of my brain and the visual part of my brain are always working together, even if it’s not a sequential story,” he says. A plot about a tough gumshoe detective may veer suddenly into a series of panels about oozing space creatures invading from above. Though the story lines in his art are often as labyrinthine as his crosshatching, they are consistently compelling.

Influenced by the hard-boiled characters of film noir, underground comics of the 1960s and ‘70s, and gritty photographers such as Weegee, one page of Dockery’s work may startle you with its stark beauty–another may make you wonder what prescriptions he’s taking. “Absurdity and surrealism just kind of come out of me,” he remarks. Dockery’s instantly recognizable style makes use of bizarre, erotic, sometimes repulsive imagery paired with text that can in turn be funny, philosophical, or frightening.

Many images that start out in his sketchbooks find their way into his finished work. “I definitely refer back to them. They’re a way to keep drawing: ideas come out that take different forms later on.” With his Rapidograph pen, he points to a finished drawing of a stylized heart holding a gun. “This came from a sketchbook I filled about 3 years ago. I opened it one day, and there was this subversively cute cartoon heart there, holding a gun, waiting for me.” His current notebook contains abstract compositions, an eerie portrait of a man’s face, and a detailed replica of a Master of Kung Fu comic book cover he loved in his childhood.

Dockery grew up in Jackson County, Kentucky, where he developed a love for comic books and began drawing at an early age. When he was around 20, he stopped drawing temporarily when he discovered he was developing arthritis. “The pain really bothered me at that age,” he recalls, “but when I started drawing again it really helped me get through a tough time.” He eventually attended UK and Morehead University, and at first wanted to pursue a career in academia before finally deciding to devote himself to artistic efforts, intrigued by the union of narrative and visual imagery. “At some point, hopefully I can make some money off my art, but that’s not the main concern right now.”

Currently, Dockery makes ends meet by working at the downtown restaurant Gumbo Ya Ya’s, which leaves him with time and energy to pursue his passion. And he has been busy. In 2008, he finished an oversized, fifty-page graphic novel, In Tongues Illustrated, a tour-de-force of hallucinatory illustration and interwoven narrative. He is also collaborating on a project titled Creekwater with a friend from his band, The Smacks!, that’s being serialized in the newspaper North of Center. “It’s very old school to have a story that’s developing from week to week, literally like chapters in a book. It’s been challenging, but fun.” He is also working on some drawings for a book that will be printed by Larkspur Press, and is slowly chipping away at The Organ Grinder, a new graphic novel of his own.

To take a peek into Dockery’s sketchbooks, check out his blog, Covertly And By Snatches. Click HERE to see his current works in progress.

« Older Entries