Call for Art

MTA –Artists Unite Subway Elevator Poster Project

CALL FOR ARTWORK: Phase 4

Northern Manhattan Artists

Deadline: Tuesday, June 4, 2013 Midnight
Administrative Fee: $10

Dear Artists, Friends and Community Members,

The MTA-Artists Unite Subway Elevator Poster Project, a long standing effort by the community is happy to announce this fourth call for artwork to be placed in the subway elevators at the A-Line 184h St (181st. Subway Stop) & 190th St. Subway Stations.

This collaborative project acknowledges the uniqueness of our community and fulfills Artists Unite Mission to bring art to the public in creative new venues. The third set of posters can still be seen in the elevators.

We are looking for six (6) original artworks by artists residing in CB 12* to be produced as posters and placed, one in each of the 3 elevators per station. Work will be seen by thousands of residents and tourists en route to the Cloisters Museum. See Instructions below.

* CB 12 covers Manhattan north of 155th street, river to river.

Guidelines:

• Material must be sensitive to and respectful of the diversity of the community.
• Materials may (but need not) reflect icons associated with the surrounding neighborhood (by way of example, local parks, places of interest, etc.); they may not include depictions of commercial establishments or photographs of individuals, pets, or private residences.
• Materials shall not include written or printed text.
• Materials shall not include messages that might reasonably be interpreted as an endorsement or advocacy of any political, religious, social or ethnic organization, cause, or belief nor contain logos or other symbols of same.
• The transit system is used by a diverse population, and accordingly, the materials shall be appropriate for viewing by persons of all ages and varying backgrounds. They shall not include content or references which might be reasonably construed as being of a sexual or violent nature.
• Proposed art must lend itself to reproduction as a two-dimensional poster, no more than 29.5 inches wide by 45 inches long, (vertical/portrait orientation).
• There will be a seven-inch strip running across the bottom of the poster on which will appear the MTA New York City Transit logo.
• Of the 6 posters frames, 5 are portrait, and 1 landscape. Please indicate the direction of your image.

Deadline for submissions: Tuesday, June 4, 2013, 12:00 Midnight. Previous Winners Not Eligible.

Posters will be exhibited for a minimum of six months.

Instructions:

Please submit no more than 4 images in JPG format for viewing. JPG files should be no more than 1440 pixels in any direction (e.g., 800 by 1440, or 1440 x 800 pixels). Include artist’s last name in the filename for each image (e.g., Rodriguez-landscape1.jpg).

Original work may be in any medium: painting, collage, sculpture, photography.

Selected artists will be contacted regarding image specifications for reproduction.

Send Images by e-mail to: rosa@artistsunite-ny.org along with your address in CB12 (Manhattan north of 155th street, river to river). In the subject line enter Poster Contest 2013.

Mail the Administrative Fee: To be considered by the judges, you must mail in the Administrative Fee postmarked by Wednesday, June 5, 2013. Please send a check for $10.00 payable to Artists Unite and mail to: Artists Unite, 720 Fort Washington Ave. #2K, New York, NY 10040

For More Information:

Contact rosa@artistsunite-ny.org or call: 212.740-9378

Judging:

Artists Unite will convene a 3-7-person panel to select artwork. Final approval is by the MTA in accordance with listed guidelines.

We look forward to your entries.

Thank you,

Rosa Naparstek,
Co-Director, Artists Unite

On a mini gallery crawl in Chelsea, topping my list was McKenzie Fine Art, Inc., where I stopped by to see Don Voisine’s show just before the opening. I was disappointed to not be able to take in all the energy of the opening, but there was a great advantage of having the gallery to myself – the calm before the storm. It was electrifying!

Voisine is a notable player in an increasingly visible contingent of artists painting in an abstract, hard-edged geometric style. Neo-geo, minimalism, I’m not sure what the current tag is for this work, but the jargon and semantics hold little interest for me, especially when the work itself is so compelling. I believe the loosely connected group of artists, if one would call it that (more like a Facebook friends’ mutual admiration society?), might be clustered around a vision of ‘reductive abstraction’ or something like that. I suppose labels are effective marketing tools, but that’s not the point of what’s going on here.

The artist and blogger Joanne Mattera is among the ranks of these painters, and has found a way to use Facebook for good instead of evil. Recently, she asked her Facebook friends who worked in geometric abstraction to send her images of their work featuring rhomboid shapes. Mattera then curated a wildly varied and potent on-line exhibition of these works. A piece by Voisine is included, and the grouping is a great overview that demonstrates the startling variety of approaches and visions within this relatively cohesive bunch of contemporary artists. Introducing the show, “Rhomboid Rhumba,” Mattera writes, “The works in this scroll-down reflect a variety of ideas: tectonic shift, Archimedian displacement, spiritual thinking, a textile sensibility, references to the body, constructivist principles, optical challenge, formal push/pull, and the pure pleasure of geometric abstraction. Materiality, another of my interests, is very much in evidence here as well.” Minus Space is another place to visit to extensively explore work in this vein. (Voisine can be found here too, along with some others worth knowing about like Karen Schifano and Douglas Witmer.)

Voisine’s bold blacks and crisp compositions have enough of the artist’s hand visible, paired with enough sensuality to engage the viewer immediately. The work is hard-edged but with a dry wit instead of being just dry. It says HEY to get your attention, but the conversation immediately gets deeper. The paintings slyly change as you move in front of them, rewarding the patient eye over and over with their idiosyncratic symmetries, subtleties and shifting planes and voids. Voisine’s self-imposed limitations result in a flourishing body of work that feels anything but restrictive and repetitive. These are paintings made to stand up to a lifetime of looking.

I recently saw Voisine’s work at the American Academy of Arts & Letters Invitational exhibition, and had hoped to have a chance to write about it then. Happily, I heard he received a coveted Arts & Letters Purchase Prize, so the work can still be seen at the gallery on Audubon Terrace until June 12th, as well as at McKenzie until June 11th, and I will definitely be making another trip to revisit this show before it closes. Here’s congratulating Don Voisine for doing terrific work and garnering well-deserved recognition for it.

I sometimes make note, at least a mental note, when gallery owners or staff are either exceptionally talented or awful in their dealings with the public, collectors, press, and/or artists. In this case I would like to recognize gallery owner Valerie McKenzie for her friendly and knowledgeable interaction. Her enthusiasm and astute conversation about the work she is representing are superbly refreshing. She sets the bar a little higher for others in the field.

Images from top to bottom, all © Don Voisine, Courtesy McKenzie Fine Art, Inc.
“Pan, 2011 Oil on wood 13 x 24 inches
“Off Register,” 2011 Oil on wood 16 x 17 inches,
“N,” 2011 Oil on wood 20 x 16 inches
“Otto”, 2011 Oil on wood 32 x 60 inches

[This article is reposted from Sky Pape's blog "Drawn Together"]

Wendy Perron of Dance Magazine looks at appropriation as tribute in her interesting, history-referencing article. Check it out.

http://www.dancemagazine.com/blogs/wendy/3694

Collaborators Dekka Raymaker, Misprint Thursday, Penumbra Carter, Selavy Oh, and Aequitas have encapsulated the theme of the Real life / Second Life crossover exhibition with their Networked Collaboration, Field of Voices previously mentioned in New World Notes January 21, 2010.

The idea was to illuminate the shift of perception from outside to inside the virtual world. The visitor is presented with a beautiful expanse of white columns not unlike a circuit board or a graveyard. Jumping down in to the field we are treated to the voices of a diverse group of real people belaying the sterile perception of Second Life, and social media in general by reminding us there are people behind the virtual avatar on the screen. The effect is quite touching and before you know it the visitor falls through the floor and is treated to a soothing light show as they walk through the amusing, touching, and clever proximity activated voices in the poles.

This is all part of Virtual Art Initiative and the the RL/SL crossover exhibition Through the Virtual Looking Glass opening April 7th in five real world galleries and other spaces in as many countries, specifically, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, and the United States.

Australia will also participate in the April events virtually, while hosting a real world exhibition at a time later this year.

Organizers of the exhibition in each country will choose its content and methods of display which will include interactive artworks from the virtual worlds Second Life and OpenSim, images and machinimas (virtual world videos) shown on plasma screens and digital frames, prints of virtual artworks, physical sculptures and paintings inspired by virtual art, some with embedded electronic components, and literary readings and musical performances occurring in the real world exhibition spaces and streamed live into Second Life and OpenSim.

Through the Virtual Looking Glass is organized and presented by a network of international groups, all of them leaders in the field of virtual art, including the Caerleon Sims/Virtual Art Initiative, Cybernetic Art Research Project/Diablous, Museo del Metaverso/Uqbar, Pirats, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Western Australia.

It’s never too late to share your voice and participate! more info here. http://arsactual.com

http://arsactual.com/collab/

> I am writing to invite you to participate in a series of international

> exhibitions in the month of April, 2010 the purpose of which is to introduce

> the art currently being made in such Virtual Worlds as Second Life, OpenSim,

> and VastPark to real life audiences. The project originated at my university,

> the University of Massachusetts at Boston. The art gallery on our campus, the

> Harbor Gallery, will be hosting a month-long exhibition of virtual art this

> April, mostly presented with large scale computer screens, digital projectors,

> and digital frames, though we will also show prints of virtual work as well as

> physical sculptures inspired by virtual art, some with embedded electronic

> components. I organized the exhibition to coincide with an online course I am

> teaching next term titled, Art and Philosophy in Second Life and Other Virtual

> Worlds.

>

> Recently a number of galleries located in different countries have asked me if

> they could host similar exhibitions in April under the title we are using in

> Boston, Through the Virtual Looking Glass, as part of a connected set of

> international exhibitions. We now have galleries in France and Holland

> committed to hosting exhibitions in those countries, as well venues in Germany

> that will host real life literary events that will be streamed into a virtual

> literary cafe in Second Life. Key figures in the virtual art world are now

> exploring the possibility of holding similar exhibitions in Italy, Brazil, and

> Mexico.

Hoping to hear from you soon.

>

>

> Best,

>

> Gary Zabel

> Department of Philosophy

> University of Massachusetts at Boston

From Peter’s own post (an excerpt):

“Some Notes on Liveness: Part One”

By PETER WALSH

I’m addicted to the privilege of “being there.” In a society where the eyewitness testimony of one person can put another person behind bars – or set them free, it’s hard not to be. We honor the power of the witness. As a sensing person, my being shaped by a constant bodily flow of information, I prefer, for example, a well-made meal to simple calories. I also prefer theater to cinema, a big movie premiere to stuttering YouTube videos, the passion of a lover to the secondhand “sexiness” of pop culture….

Public Intervention Projection explores the universal fascination of people with the moon while evoking mythical, romantic, fantastic, and obscure attributes of the celestial body. TABULA LUNAR is an ephemeral surface on which people’s street presence is incorporated into visuals of and narratives about the lunar landscape appropriated from popular cinematic culture. Poetic and intrusive, familiar yet out of this world, intimate yet made into a public collaborative performance, the project prompts a possible dialogue of our connection to the night sky and what can be seen of it in an urban setting.

More information about the artist can be found at www.hectorcanonge.net.

More photos from the event are available at http://artistsunite.ning.com/photo/albums/tabula-lunar.

Watch for the next in the Projection Show series in late November/early December.

Creative Venues/Projection Show is made possible in part with public funds from the Fund for Creative Communities and the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, both supported by the New York State Council on the Arts and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Artists Unite LIVE! is funded in part by a discretionary grant from Councilmember Robert Jackson. Artists Unite receives support from the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance and the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone.