March 12- April 3, 2016
Rooms 1 & 2:
Veronica, Nat, Jessie Vogel
Clouds/Cows
Artist Talk Saturday March 12 at 5pm, Performance 6-10pm
Closing Talk Sunday, April 3 at 3pm, Closing performance time to be announced
Nat & Veronica are an artistic team dedicated to the creation of provocative and viscerally rich performance work with a strong focus on audience experience. Driven by a desire to find new and powerful potential in live performance their work combines visual spectacle, presence based performance and subtle humor to explore the problem of how to live. Their work has been presented by Rude Mech’s Rude Fusion program, Mount Tremper Arts, Catch Brooklyn, New Orleans Museum of Art, Contemporary Art Center New Orleans and more, and they have been artists in residence at LiveArts Bard, Sawyer Farm Artist Residency and The Tigermen Den. They are also two of the co-founders of New Orleans based company Skin Horse Theater. Currently, they split their time between New Orleans and New York's Hudson Valley.
Learn more at www.natandveronica.com
Jessie Vogel is a mix media artist investigating the visual grammar of materials through sculpture, two dimensional work and installations. She received her Bachelors in Fine Art from Wake Forest University and her Masters in Sculpture from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Her work has been exhibited at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, BravinLee Programs, Gallery Kayafa, Southeastern Center for Contemporary A and the Cameron Art Museum. Jessie currently lives and works in New Orleans and is a member of The Front Gallery.
jessievogel.com
Clouds/Cows, a collaboration between visual artist Jessie Vogel and performance makers Nat & Veronica, was initially conceived and presented as a theater piece. In this exhibition the artists attempt to access the same material through a different entry point by recontextualizing the work in a gallery.
Clouds Artist Statement by Jessie Vogel
The visual work made for the theatrical version of Cloud/Cows started as an investigation of how to create the essence of something metaphysical, but still solid enough to be physically moved or altered by a performer. Much of my work as an artist has a tactile quality, and could be considered loosely interactive, but rarely, if ever, kinetic. With this challenge, I relied heavily on the collaborative efforts of Nat & Veronica. With their experience in performance, we were able to make clouds that were at times imposing as well as impressionistic.
This show is the outcome of my continued investigation of clouds. I started seeing particular parts of objects that reminded me of particular types of clouds. Just as you can see any image you want in a cloud over head, I started to see clouds in everything I made. Unlike the objects made for the performance, these objects are static and put on display. Without going so far as to put a literal cloud in a jar, these are my cloud specimens ... that perhaps at one time, or maybe even still do, have a life force within.
Cows Artists Statement by Nat & Veronica
“It is hard to believe that a life could be so simple, but it is just this simple. It is the life of a ruminant, a protected domestic ruminant.” – Lydia Davis, The Cows
Attention is something that we pay– it’s a currency. It can be borrowed, spent and stolen. We live in an age of unprecedented demands on our attention from sources that yield less and less in return. This project began as a tribute to the transformation of perception that occurs when we shift our focus from that which clamors for our attention to that which simply exists.
In the theatrical version, Cows was performed for thirty minutes – here in the gallery we push the performance and the performers further by presenting a three hour version. By committing fully to the portrayal of a life that is uneventful and potentially meaningless by human standards, we ask the viewer to examine how and why value is assigned in our own lives, and to reflect on the potential simplicity of what constitutes a life.
Cow Trailer
https://vimeo.com/137393956
Clouds/Cows performance
https://vimeo.com/111471702
Rooms 3 & 4:
Imen Djouini
One Hand Cannot Applaud
Imen Djouini (b. Algiers, Algeria) is an artist and educator. Her research-based practice often incorporates print based media with animation and installation. Her work frequently explores the employment of language and design as tools for shaping perception. She critically investigates theoretical frameworks like binary opposition, delineation and compartmentalization in contested cultural and political histories. Recent works have looked into uses of symbolism found in arrangements like flags, textiles, tile pattern and text.