Archive for the ‘Robert Morgan’ tag

Neon Indian ‘Sleep Paralysist’ + Robert Morgan = RAD

Neon Indian – “Sleep Paralysist” Video from GreenLabelSound on Vimeo.

Institute 193 recently collaborated with GreenLabelSound to incorporated Robert Morgan’s studio into the filming of Neon Indian’s ‘Sleep Paralysist’ music video. The video features the Miller House in addition to Morgan’s studio and iconic altar installation. Attention Musicians: Institute 193 is always looking for creative ways to collaborate with musicians and performers. Please email: phillip@institute193.org for more information. Rock N’ Roll.

Neon Indian – Making-Of “Sleep Paralysist” Video (Long Version) from GreenLabelSound on Vimeo.

Robert Morgan Installation Shots

Louis Zoellar Bickett II has meticulously documented every show and project that has taken place at Institute 193, including our most recent show – All That Glitters… The Art of Robert Morgan. We are posting some of his pictures on our blog and invite you to view his full documentation of the Institute’s activities. CLICK HERE. All photos are copyrighted by Louis Zoellar Bickett II.

Goldenrod @ Institute 193 – North of Center Music Series

Goldenrod performed at Institute 193 on April 16, 2010 in conjunction with Robert Morgan: All That Glitters… This concert was the second in a series sponsored by North of Center, a weekly news publication.  Goldenrod is a Lexington-based electronic group that interweaves bluegrass, funk and soul music into complex musical collages that defy easy classification. Check it out!

Robert Morgan Opening (Snapshots)

Robert Morgan’s All That Glitters… opened to the public on April 15, 2010. We are posting snapshots from the opening for all of you who could not attend. Special thanks to LFUCG and the EcoGrant program for their funding of the exhibition, educational programming and publication printing. For more information about Morgan’s work, click here.

Gallery View

Chase Martin directing traffic.

Overflow Crowd/Block Party

Studio Visit with Robert Morgan

Studio Visit with Robert Morgan
by Chase Martin

When I met Bob Morgan for the first time, he was spraying red liquid rubber onto the back of a doll’s head, where he’d also affixed what appeared to be bull horns. “I don’t normally use red for blood, so I can generally get away with the really diabolical stuff,” he chortled happily, giving the spray can one last blast. I laughed too, mostly because I didn’t know how else to react to a piece of art that looks like a deity for the kind of religion that practices human sacrifice. What sort of mad genius was I talking to?

Morgan is lively, quick to laugh, and was eager to show me more of the work he’s prepared for his upcoming show at Institute 193. Many of his pieces consist of found objects he’s collected, which he then cobbles together with wire or nails and sprays with garish, sparkling colors. The results are eerie, witty, and rich in religious symbolism.

He says that he’s always felt the impulse to accumulate and assemble, and has been saving items since he was a child. “I went to a parochial school, where we won little statues of saints for contests and spelling bees. Even then, I used to arrange my little figures with the shells I’d collected in my room. That’s always been my aesthetic, and some of what I’m doing now is similar to what I was doing when I was very young.” As if to illustrate his point, he gestures to another piece: a statue of the Buddha, a horse, and a multitude of small Catholic saint figurines all lashed together with electrical wire.

The rest of his studio is crammed with tinsel, pieces of tires, industrial scraps, and all manner of other odds and ends. “This is only scratching the surface,” Morgan laughs. “I’m very disorderly–I’ve also got a studio downtown and a storage unit full of this stuff. I’m 61 years old, so I’ve gathered a lot over the years.”

He’s not kidding. Walking into his house is like walking into the belly of the beast; every inch is covered with the things that inspire him. A lacquered ape skull made of cigarette butts rests on a table (“I bought that for just $40!” he exclaims), a collection of Haitian voodoo flags lies in a pile on a chair, and little skeleton bats hang from the ceiling of the graffitied bedroom. A desk in his study is cluttered with framed photos of young drug addicts, some in the act of shooting up, along with several intricate bags constructed from cigarette packages and sent to him by friends in prison.

From the house’s nondescript exterior, you’d never guess there was an entire mythology inside. Along one wall of the living room–impossible to miss–is a huge altar decorated with religious paraphernalia and covered with photos, notes, and ephemera. These are the remnants left behind by hundreds of friends wiped out by the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s. “When people died, their families threw things away, they didn’t want anything to do with photo albums from their [the deceased’s] party years…their boyfriends. They would just throw it all in the gutter,” Morgan says. “I started stealing things out of houses. When I got sober, I started making art again, and I mingled all of their stories with the mythology of Hindu gods, Egyptian gods, Mayan religion, Byzantine icons…I wanted to turn all the drug addicts and people who died in the gutter with AIDS into the saints and martyrs of this incredible church that’s a lot more wonderful and true than all the other shit out there.”

The result is a work of thrilling complexity, raw sexuality, and shabby beauty played out on a massive scale. His altar is the center of the powerful mythology Morgan has created to apotheosize all of the people whose memory he promised to preserve even when society was turning its back on them. These are people he knew and loves and misses, and they are the impetus behind his art. Morgan’s work can be disconcerting, but once you understand the central place the AIDS tragedy holds for him, things make more sense. He’s employed the religious imagery of an array of cultures to create vital, challenging art, and to salvage some beauty from a decimating catastrophe someone of my generation can barely understand. Lexington is lucky to have him.

- Chase Martin

All That Glitters… The Art of Robert Morgan

Institute 193 is pleased to announce the opening of All That Glitters…. on April 15, 2010 at 6 PM. For more information about the exhibition and Morgan’s work, read on.

Institute 193 and Robert Morgan were recently awarded an EcoGrant by LFUCG to conduct a series of educational workshops aimed at exposing the public to the possibilities of recycling as a method of art-making. Morgan works with junk and found objects, assembling them into speaking cultural artifacts shaped by the artist’s Catholic childhood, previous drug addiction and the AIDS epidemic of the 90’s. His work addresses the concept of recycling both physically and conceptually. Through a process of collection and assemblage, Morgan is able to transform hair brushes, children’s toys, old radios and other various discarded objects into works of art that speak to the life experiences of the artist and the former lives and stories embodied by the objects themselves. The recycling of objects, photos, memories, and experience makes Morgan’s work engaging to people of all ages and education levels. Morgan is a Lexington-based artist whose family goes back to the early pioneers of central Kentucky and the mountains of Appalachia. This project serves as a formal introduction of Morgan’s work to the larger-community of schools, community centers and art enthusiasts.