Rowan
University
College of Fine
&
Performing
Arts
Dr. Jon
Robert
Cart,
Dean
Contact:
Dennis Dougherty,
856-256-4537
FOR
IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
ACTING
OUT
ROWAN EXHIBIT QUESTIONS
IDENTITY,
EXPLORES IDEAS OF WHO WE
ARE
GLASSBORO
– Acting Out brings together six contemporary artists who utilize
their
own bodies as the key element in works that explore human agency,
normalcy,
fantasy and self-promotion. The Rowan University Art Gallery exhibit
continues
a season-long exploration of the body in art and runs January 20 –
March
12, 2011. A reception, featuring a gallery lecture by the curator, is
January
20 from 5:30 – 7:30
pm.
The
exhibition title, Acting Out, conjures the psychological response of
a
child or adolescent to an unpleasant situation. It speaks to actions that
are
emotional and intense, but also to notions of play and therapeutic
resolution.
Each participating artist - using combinations of painting, photography,
video
and performance - defines specific states of being informed by gender,
race,
mobility and desire. The artists’ activities are generated in
traditional
studios as well as carefully selected locations (city streets,
forests,
deserts) that act as stages for precise gestures produced for the
camera,
canvas or
passersby.
Curator
Stuart Horodner, artistic director of the Atlanta Contemporary Art
Center,
notes that Acting Out seeks to engage notions of who and how to
be.
Presented in the context of a university gallery, it speaks to
youthful
questions about identity and possibility. By bringing together artists
using
diverse media with seriousness and silliness, the exhibition posits
that
personal investigations of self and sensibility are always in flux, modified
by
context and empowered by curiosity and risk.
Atlanta-based artist and event producer Fahamu Pecou’s paintings show
his
body as the place where complex aspects of race and masculinity are
negotiated.
With his sagging underwear and coded hand gestures, his work connects
to
popular fashions that draw inspiration from gang culture and the
sexual
posturing of rap
music.
Nancy Popp is a Los Angeles-based artist and performer whose
Untitled
(Street Performances) 2005-2008, chronicle her climbing street poles
and
signposts, temporarily positioning herself above the street, stores
and
citizens. This gesture of empowerment and elevation questions notions
of
regulated public space and private desire, while conjuring the history
of
protest and activism, publicity stunts and endurance
events.
Joe Sola, a Los Angeles artist who has used video, watercolor and
performance
in his work, draws on action films and sports training to create videos
in
which he presents himself performing tests of masculinity that border
on
masochistic
slapstick.
Works by New York’s Nina Katchadourian, Atlanta’s Shana Robbins
and
Kansas City’s Jaimie Warren involve the construction of
escapist
fantasies, with these artists using costumes, make-up and props to
transform
themselves into heroic figures or mythic creatures. These avatars
or
surrogate-selves draw inspiration from personal circumstances as well as
art
history, mythology and
film.
In
addition to his work at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Horodner
has
served in director and curator positions at art centers and
universities
including the Atlanta College of Art Gallery, Portland Institute for
Contemporary
Art and Bucknell University Art Gallery. He was the founder and co-organizer
of
“Affair” at the Jupiter Hotel, an intimate art fair in Portland,
OR
from 2004-2007; and was co-owner and director of the Horodner Romley
Gallery
from 1992-97. His art writing has appeared in publications including
Art
Lies, Art Issues, Bomb, Dazed & Confused,
Sculpture
and
Surface.
Admission
to exhibit and reception is free and open to the public. Gallery hours
are
Monday – Friday, 10 am to 5 pm, and Saturday, 12 to 5 pm. For
more
information, call 856-256-4521 or visit
www.rowan.edu/fpa/artgallery. Rowan University Art
Gallery
is located on the lower level of Westby Hall on the university campus,
Route
322 in Glassboro,
NJ.
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