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featured gallery for March 2012
From Arches to Earrings
In looking through The Archive Project at Visual AIDS, we were seduced by works that blurred the line between the decorative, functional, craft, and the so-called fine arts.
We started with wearable works such as Jerome Walker's delicately handcrafted Fan Earrings and Tim Jocelyn'sConstructivist Coat, whose bold lines and colors pay tribute to constructivist compositions. Jocelyn's references to art and architecture are also evident in his silk and leather dressing screens, Post Metropolis and Napoli, dominated by graphic Greco-Roman arches. Osvaldo Barrocal's raw, abstract, painted window shade, The Crossroads, almost obscures its functionality, both literally and figuratively, through the beauty of the object.
Joel Hoyer's opulent medallions and maps are a more luxe take on the decorative. Maps on Cotton seems to drip with gold, alluding to a bounty to which the map may guide you. His large scale medallions are also treasure-like. Robert Blanchon's Untitled (Bell) is a more quiet take on ornamentation. His photograph of a discarded party favor is celebratory yet somber.
Scott Burton's minimalist marble chairs can be understood as functional sculpture. His work has been presented both in the gallery and in public plazas. Similarly, the Bob Burnside wall piece Untitled works on an architectural scale.
All of the works in this portfolio speak to our own curiosity, an interest in the work of artists previously unknown to us. These works look to the decorative or functional while retaining the intellectual rigor required to elevate works from decorative or craft to fine art.
Curator
Glynnis McDaris and Julia Trotta
Originally from Memphis, Tenn., Glynnis McDaris is an NYC-based artist, photographer, filmmaker and curator. Her artistic practice is multidisciplinary, comprised predominately of photography, video, film and sound.
McDaris has exhibited widely in solo and group shows in the U.S. and abroad, and has been published in numerous publications including Shoot: Photography of the Moment, Rizzoli, 2009. Her selected curatorial projects include: You Have Left Your Lotus Pods on the Bus at Blackston, 2011, and accompanying film screening at Anthology Film Archives, NYC; the collaborative editing and curation ofBlind Spot Issue #41 and the coinciding exhibition, NYC;God is in the Details, 2008, New Orleans Biennial, Prospect 1; Catholic No. 1: CATS, opened in New York in 2005 and traveled to Tokyo and Melbourne, and co-edited the bookCatholic No1: Cats published by Evilt Twin & D.A.P. Her solo show, In Time and with Water, will open on March 1, 2012, at Blackston Gallery, NYC. She will also show new work in the exhibition Till Dust Gathers on Grass, curated by Amanda Schmitt and opening March 6, 2012, at The Old School, NYC.
McDaris is currently in production on a feature-length documentary about art historian Linda Nochlin, with Julia Trotta and Dustin Bowlin. The film is scheduled to wrap production in mid-2012.
Julia Trotta has worked for a number of artists and galleries, eventually opening her own experimental gallery space, Fake Estate, in 2007. The programming at Fake Estate earned a great deal of critical success, with reviews in The New York Times, ArtForum and Art in America. Trotta closed the space in 2009 and has continued to curate exhibitions and produce work with artists, both in New York and Paris. She is currently in production on a feature documentary about her grandmother, art historian Linda Nochlin.