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ASU Art Museum receives NEA grant to support program with visiting international artists
The NEA grant will help fund the artists residency program at Combine Studio that is host to artists such as Matteo Rubbi whose Magic Fridays at the ASU Art Museum is shown here.
Photo by Sean Deckert, courtesy Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.
One of 832 Art Works grants totalling $23.3 million in funding nationwide
Nov 29, 2012
Rocco Landesman, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), announced that the ASU Art Museum in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts is one of 832 non-profit organizations nationwide to receive an NEA Art Works grant. The ASU Art Museum is recommended for a $45,000 grant to support its International Artist Residency Program at Combine Studios in downtown Phoenix.
“We’re immensely honored that the NEA recognizes and supports the work of the ASU Art Museum to serve as a catalyst for social change through the innovative vision and work of international artists,” said Gordon Knox, Director of the ASU Art Museum. “Art is a way of knowing and investigating the world and this grant allows us to build more collaborations and reach new audiences.”
The NEA funds will support the ASU Art Museum International Artist Residency Program at Combine Studios which brings accomplished professional artists from around the world to develop new work in partnership with the intellectual resources of Arizona State University and the diverse communities within Arizona. Through the program, artists develop work in collaboration with scientists, technologists, social agencies and community organizations that investigate the pressing issues of our time.
Greg Esser, director of the International Artist Residency program and the Desert Initiative, plans to bring four international artists to Arizona to develop new work. “This program represents an incredible opportunity for Arizona residents to engage with international artists and to deepen the impact of research and learning at ASU,” said Esser.
In March 2012, the NEA received 1,509 eligible applications for Art Works grants requesting more than $74 million in funding. Those recommended for grants span 13 artistic disciplines and fields and focus primarily on the creation of work and presentation of both new and existing works for the benefit of American audiences. Applications were reviewed by panels of outside experts convened by NEA staff and each project was judged on its artistic excellence and artistic merit.
For a complete listing of projects recommended for Art Works grant support, please visit the NEA website at arts.gov.
Combine Studios is located at 821 N. Third St. connecting the ASU campus to the Roosevelt Row Arts District. The building, owned by Phoenix artists Matthew Moore and Carrie Marill, includes six residential units for visiting artists, a common kitchen area, resource library and a storefront gallery and event space. For more information about the international residency program, visit the Desert Initiative website.
Media Contact:
Deborah Sussman Susser
ASU Art Museum
480.965.0014
Deborah.susser@asu.edu
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Tales From A Distant, Not-So-Distant World
Click. A photo of desert scenery. Click. Another photo of the desert. Is that the same one? Click. Oh, another! Have I seen this one already? Click. And another? This one’s probably different. Click. Is it? It is. Click.
The slide projector spins the wheel of slides. Each of the 50 some-odd photos are shots of the desert, a part of Miguel Palma’s latest exhibition, “Trajectory.”
The photos are projected onto a white wall by an old-fashioned slide projector set on a timer. The photos roll around, each a different photo of Arizona’s desert scenery.
On the other side of the wall, there is an orange astronaut suit with one noticeable addition: several dozen small, black computer fans attached to the outside of the suit. Palma wore this suit as he traversed the desert, taking photos of the sights and scenery. The black computer fans were used to keep him cool during his expedition.
Click. Drip. Suddenly, I notice a new sound in the exhibit. Drip. Drip. Click. I realize that the sound of the projector isn’t alone. The sound is coming from a piece called “Bypass.”
“Bypass” is a device that Palma created. It takes water from a bucket, runs it up tubing into a chunk of wood, and then drips the water back down into the bucket. The natural and organic element of the wood and the water contrasts with the metal and silicone. There is a pump inside the bucket of water that looks like it was put there to bring water to the tree, but then the tubing and the metal cause the water to bypass the tree and return to the bucket. The manmade apparatus of tubing and silicone is depriving the tree of the water that it needs. The hunk of wood is supported in the air by metal and a hydraulic lift. The manmade system isn’t only depriving the tree of water, but it also supports the tree and holds it up. This brings up a question: is this what we’re doing to the desert? Are we trying our best to uphold it and support it, yet ultimately just depriving it of what it needs to survive? I arrive at more questions than I have answers. I have to move on.
Along the northern and eastern wall, there is an absolute cascade of poster paper full of art and ideas. Each poster contains ideas about the desert and the culture of the people who live in it. Palma uses collages, images, drawings and commentary of our culture to show these ideas. As I walk and read each poster, I see themes connect and I begin to understand the corollaries between them. For example, Palma wrote about swimming pool shapes, and the purpose of each shape. He wrote about L-shaped pools. “The L-shape fits easily into a corner or around a house projection.” I see that phrase written multiple times around swimming pools and even around old desert photos where, presumably, a pool would eventually go. There are stories about the destruction of the desert, and how manmade tools changed the scenery into what we call Phoenix.
I notice one piece called “War Games.” It shows photos of the desert, with yellow dots painted over it. Each dot has a line pointing at a construction truck, many with Xs drawn over them. Palma seems to be trying to show that people are at war with the desert; our weapons are the tools we used to put ourselves into the desert with, like tools of construction, transportation and infrastructure. I have never thought of it like that. Are we at war with the desert?
Palma was a visitor to our desert, but it took me a while to connect the dots. He wasn’t just an explorer of the desert; he is implying that he is like an astronaut exploring unknown worlds with his space suit and his rover vehicle. It all became clear to me. His art is a tale of his exploration of the unknown territory, the Arizona desert. He charted our destruction of the desert as well; we have been using our war tools to build our L-shaped pools and destroy the beauty of the desert around us. Palma researched our history and recorded lives, not just our lives, but also the life of the desert itself.
But what does that make me, a desert-dweller observing Palma’s observations? I suppose I’m the Martian who lives on this strange planet of rock and cacti. I suppose we should all take a better look at the world outside our cities. It’s beautiful.
“Miguel Palma: Trajectory” is on display at the ASU Art Museum until February 9, 2013
–Colton Robertson
ASU Art Museum Intern
Thanks to Sean Deckert and the Desert Initiative for use of their photographs.
Bookmaking at First Saturday
ASU Art Museum and First Saturdays for families are pleased to be having fine arts bookmaker Alice Vinson returning for a kids bookmaking workshop on November 3. Alice is an award-winning book artist as well as a children’s bookmaking workshop instructor for The Drawing Studio, in Tucson AZ.
Due to overwhelming response to her first workshop, Alice will be doing two sessions. The first session is from 11:30 – 1:00pm and the second is from 1:30 – 3:00pm. The workshop sessions and supplies are FREE!
There is very limited space, so sign-up is first-come, first-serve, so save your spot by emailing Aimee Leon at Aimee.Leon@asu.edu with the name(s) and age(s) of the child(ren), attending parent(s) names, a contact phone number and which session you’d like to attend.
We will be providing activities in rotating hour-long intervals. If you come for the first session, feel free to stay after. If you are in the second session we hope to see you a little early.
Photo by Tim Trumble.Time capsules and popsicles: Ant Farm Media Van at the Ceramics Research Center
What are three things you could not live without? What are you looking forward to for this year? What is your obsession?
These are some of the questions pondered at the ASU Art Museum last Saturday, the 25th of August. Each of the buildings in the Arcadia Residential Community was given a blank filing box and told to build a time capsule out of it to be opened at the end of the year.
We were given sticky letters, tape, markers, oil pastels, anything we wanted to beautify this box with the other residents of our building. Each team deliberated on how they would make their time capsule stand out from the rest. Some people went crazy with tape, and others even wrapped their box in gift wrap, like they were assembling a present for their future selves.
Across the street at the Ceramics Research Center, art museum staff (clad in their awesome AMUSEUM shirts) gave away popsicles from AZ Pops and handed out pages with questions to be answered and put in the time capsule.
Some questions were easy, like the ones I mentioned above. But some really made me ponder: What do you expect to accomplish this year? In what ways do you hope to grow this year?
These were remarkably deep questions for the atmosphere of popsicles and friends in the Ceramics Research Center. But it was as good a time as any to take stock. What DO I expect to accomplish this year at ASU?
After deliberating on those questions, we left the classroom and found the Ant Farm Media Van. Now, this was interesting: an interactive exhibit dedicated to collecting donations from cell phones, camera sticks and other electronic devices.
Now, it looked just like a hollowed-out van with the windows painted over, but inside sat a small green computer, called the HUQQUH (pronounced “hookah”), with cords to fit cell phones sticking out in every direction. The goal was to plug in your cell phone, iPod, or camera, and the HUQQUH would randomly select a file, then copy it to make it an electronic piece of the exhibit. For the most part, it was just taking photos and occasionally songs.
On the wall behind the media van hung a huge poster with little thumbnails of the pictures, songs and files taken during the media van’s time in San Francisco.
It was an entire wall of memories, just little digital files, each randomly taken from someone, making up a collection of images from people’s lives.
I decided that I had to give it a shot. I sat down inside the Media Van and plugged my iPhone into the HUQQUH. It sat for a small time before a picture from my phone appeared on the screen on top. A computer voice came from nowhere, thanking me for my donation and instructing me to unplug my iPhone from the HUQQUH. It spit out a receipt, thanking me for my donation with a little copy of the picture I donated.
The picture taken was a photo of my grandfather, with my little cousin — the last time I saw my grandfather before he passed away last fall.
And now that picture is stored inside the HUQQUH, to travel the country and become a part of the exhibit.
So on the day that we were decorating and putting items into our own time capsule, we were also contributing to a larger time capsule, set to continue its tour and continue to collect small bits of people’s lives. So while the HUQQUH wasn’t pressing us for personal questions, like what am I passionate about, it was still going through my personal phone and pulling out a very personal work about who I am and what I do. In that regard, this was a great day to take stock, and look at ourselves and ask, who are we and where do we want to be?
Oh, and my building’s time capsule? I think it turned out pretty cool.
—Colton Robertson, Community Assistant for Arcadia Residential Community
Photos by Colton Robertson.
ASU Art Museum 