Upcoming Exhibition: Actions for Urban Spaces

The result of a lucky studio visit I had on Friday the 13th of last month:
I'm going to be in an exhibition at Art in General, opening next Friday, March 20 and on view through May 2. The reception will be March 20, 6-8PM.

Actions for Urban Spaces

John Hawke, Michael Konrad, Virginia Poundstone

Curated by Nina Horisaki-Christens

I'm going to be showing documentary images and sculpture from 2 Tons of "Take That!" (on wheels) and Dead End. I'm happy about this, because even though 2 Tons is an older piece, the vitrine of broken wheels has never been shown. I am also currently working on a new format for presenting the concrete bombs from Dead End which will make it's first appearance at this exhibition.

Everything must go!

Well, maybe not everything, but I am trying to get rid of a lot of stuff. I still have some old sculptures from my school days and most of those are going in the trash. They have been adequately documented and I have no intention of ever exhibiting them, so they gotta go.

It's kind of liberating to get rid of stuff once and for all. Of course it makes room in the studio so that there is more physical space, but it also helps clear out the mind and make room for some fresh thoughts. I've been looking forward to a fresh start with a blank slate for some time now. A chance to experiment and work out some new ideas without any specific expectations.

I already mentioned two sculptures that I will not trash, but I do have to get them out of my studio. My preference is to sell them or put them on exhibit somewhere, but the condition is that I do not want them to come back to me. If I can't find some kind of sponsored solutions, I may just give them a new life with a variety of well situated installations throughout the city. Here are some of my thoughts about what to can be done with them:

Keeping the Powder Dry, 2004

This sculpture is pretty versatile. In concept, it consists of infinite miniature concrete barricades. In actuality, I only casted 72 pieces, which is more than I want to have now. I can see these existing publicly in various types of urban space: piled up into a corner, staking out ground in the middle of a plaza, or maybe the other way around. Also, they seem like they could be painted. I'm toying with the idea of donating them to other artists for a group exhibition. But I hesitate because although I like the communal aspect of the idea, it also seems way too egotistical and a bit too much like those terrible painted cow sculptures.

Dead End, 2006

I think this sculpture can also exist under a variety of circumstances. The original installation consisted of 12 concrete bomb sculptures. I only have 7 remaining. Ideally, I'd like to find an outdoor site in the city where I can install all of them together (I'm open to suggestions), but I think they will also work if installed individually.

So, that's the idea. It's a tall order to find a good home for all of these pieces before the end of March (when I close the studio), but that's my goal. Of course, these works are also available for sale, and I would consider trades with other artists. Feedback, suggestions, and inquiries are welcome.

Dusting off the cobwebs

I hope everyone had a happy holiday. Sorry I've neglected the blog for nearly two months now, but it's not because I haven't had anything to say. In fact, I've got a lot on my mind, but until now I haven't been able to overcome the inertia to actually write about it. So, I'm just going to outline a few things to get started, and I'll try to follow up on each one of the topics in more detail in future posts.

1. I'm going to finish up a few things and close my studio in a few months. For various reasons, I haven't used it very much in the last 2 months (although I have been working from home), and I'm starting to feel guilty about the wasted the rent money.

2. I'm actively looking for locations to permanently place 2 artworks. The pieces are the small concrete barricades from Keeping the Powder Dry and the concrete bombs from Dead End. In the interest of minimizing my possessions and starting from scratch, I am trying to get rid of a lot of stuff, but I am unwilling to trash these two projects.

3. I am going to work at an archaeological dig in Egypt for two weeks in January. I'm pretty excited about this, and I will follow-up soon with more details and the nature of my job.

So that's it for now. I've also recently seen some exhibitions/watched some movies/read some books, which I might write about soon. The truth is, I'm not much of a blogger, but you can at least count on more details on the three items above soon.