From Below: Opening Reception

From Below. Lord Grizzly Gallery, Coffey Contemporary Art, January 5-February 23rd, 2019.

This January I had the the privilege of exhibition my work at another amazing space in rural Minnesota: Lord Grizzly Gallery in Luverne. This is another one of those art venues that you would never predict to be found in a town of less than 2,000 people.

From Below. Lord Grizzly Gallery, Coffey Contemporary Art, Luverne MN, January 05-February 23rd, 2019. Foreground: DId He Jump or Was He pushed? Mylar, 2019. Backwall: Saussure Model of Communication (Version 2). Mylar. 2019.

One of my favorite features of this space is the windows that comprise the entire front of the gallery. Coffey Contemporary is a former storefront, and retaining this feature makes it an ideal location for installation art. It was a great experience working with this windows—capitalize on the light and angles was especially challenging and rewarding.

From Below. Lord Grizzly Gallery, Coffey Contemporary Art, Luverne MN, January 5th through February 23rd, 2019.

My vision for this show was to build a set of windows within the modular piece Archival Structure 5 (more details on this piece can be found in the Feature section). The idea was to create a situation in which the viewer would have an ambiguous experience of who was within and who without a walled space, or who was on the inside and who the outside of a protective wall. The windows that comprise the front of the space created an additional visual layer of observing and being observed.

Saussure Model of Communication (Version 2). Mylar Food Bags. 2019.

The windows and the light increase the sense of observing as well as participating in communication, and the essential illusion of inside and outside, together and separate, us and them. For the second time I made a recycled version of Saussure’s Model of Communication—this time from Mylar Dog food bags. I like this image because, despite what it intends to convey, it sends the visual message that we talk over each other, and that something often changes between what is said and what is heard.

From Below. Lord Grizzly Gallery, Coffey Contemporary Art, Luverne MN, January 05-February 23rd, 2019.

The interaction of the natural light with the bubbles on Archival Structure 11 was an unexpected bonus.

Opening reception, From Below.. Lord Grizzly Gallery, Coffey Contemporary, January 05, 2019.

I feel like the big front windows are a great way to entice the people of Luverne—many of whom may have never had a direct experience of contemporary art—to take a chance and step inside. I’d like to think that the view I created from the windows had some affect on the good turn out for the opening.

People choosing bricks at the opening reception for From Below, Lord Grizzly Gallery, Coffey Contemporary Gallery, January 05, 2019.

One of my favorite parts of an installation of Archival Structure 5 is people making and/or choosing bricks to adopt. The people of Luverne were great in this regard! It was a great pleasure to invite them into the process.

Archival Structure 11: Lit version. From Below. Lord Grizzly Gallery, Coffey Contemporary, January 05-February 23rd, 2019.

I have been experimenting with lighting the spherical Archival Structures., and the windows created an opportunity to entice the passing viewer in another way.

Archival Structure 5: From Below version. Lord Grizzly Gallery, Coffey Contemporary, January 05-February 23rd, 2019.

I will miss this one! It will be hard to get the image of this natural light out of my mind! But I look forward to working with my new collaborators and continuing to mine the ever-deepening implications of windows and walls.