Stuff Art

Stuff Art

November 6th—27th, 2010

4th Floor Award Kick Off Party + Exhibition Preview: Friday, November 5th, 6-8 pm.

Opening reception: Saturday, November 6th, 7:00 – 10:00 pm

Cincinnati, OH—U·turn Art Space is very pleased to present Stuff Art, a group exhibition that includes works by Deb Brod, Michael Hunter, Pam Lins, Paige Williams and B. Wurtz. Along with an opening reception on Saturday, November 6th, we are excited to also celebrate the kick off to the Cincinnati Art Museum’s second biennial 4th Floor Award with a preview of the exhibition that is free and open to the public on Friday, November 5th.

Perhaps more than any previous exhibition at U·turn, Stuff Art draws attention to a central concern in all of the gallery’s aesthetic decisions. These gathered artists allow the materials from which their works are created to remain evidently themselves. Whether it be wood and particle board, paint, or other collected detritus, the ‘stuff’ in this exhibition remains basically untransformed. Rather, through shifts in context (especially the relocation of humble materials into the gallery environ) and control, everyday objects and non-illusionary uses of art materials are aestheticized. These artists use spatial relationships and juxtaposition to increase our awareness of the common by approaching a free-for-all range of materials as freed form.

This discussion has its origin in early collage and assemblage art, as well as Duchamp’s notorious Readymadesfrom the beginning of last century. The evolution of these art practices is also in dialogue with “truth to materials” philosophies that began in the International Style of Modernist architecture, which was such an influential shift in thinking that we continue to live in cities and environments that embody those ideals. This conversation has cycled through other art movements and modes of working, such as the Italian conceptual art movement called Arte Povera and even the Post-minimalists who sought to call attention to a material’s potential by using it in blunt, casually experimental and straightforward ways. Even in our own gallery’s history, artists like Ellen Nagel, Keith Benjamin and Shinsuke Aso, as well as work from our collective, have demonstrated a faith in the potential for surprise and profundity that resides in the most humble or mundane of materials. Stuff Art seeks to isolate this trait in contemporary art practices by pairing two of Cincinnati’s most interesting artists with artists from Chicago and New York.With this light treatment of materials as a point of convergence among the artists assembled, each also introduce their own variously idiosyncratic or reductive visual languages into the exhibition, as well as conceptual concerns about time and space, the significance of the rarified art object, and the escapism associated with the creative practice. 

The conceit of this exhibition predisposes it to sculpture in the round, but solutions that address the wall and the history of painting are included as well. Paige Williams, for example, presents brand new paintings that allow the supports she is working on (wood panel or, in other cases, thick paper) to operate in their final visual experience. Revealed wood grain is interfiled with a sparse visual language of horizontal lines in paint. Michael Hunter also explores the potential of a painting as an object in raw, poetic installations.

Deb Brod’s work recycles a hodgepodge of her everyday life into installations and arrangements that reflect on the human potential to imbue objects with associations and symbolic meaning. Furniture, clothes, books, yard clippings and knick knacks are practically enshrined through Brod’s thoughtful placement and consideration. Thus composed, these still lifes flash with memory and secrets, appearing obviously meaningful without their direct sources explained.

In some ways, Lins’ practice reflects the variety of this exhibition. Traversing sculpture, painting and the repositioning of cultural artifacts, Lins builds constructions that wobble between the totally familiar and the totally abstract. For Stuff Art, Lins is presenting several works that play critically with reflectivity through simple constructions of boards and mirrors. Like small, smart cartoons of Robert Smithson’s indoor sculptural experiments with mirrors, these pieces are positioned so that reflections of their environment are mapped across their surfaces.

B. Wurtz is the final word on poetic, minimal and humble assemblage art. Wurtz is at the heart of this exhibition, around whom the rest of the artists were selected. His quirky oeuvre has searched out all sorts of strategies to augment the everyday with the slightest gesture. For Stuff Art, Wurtz has curated a number of diverse works that summarize his interests in objects and how they operate in conjunction with one another. Plastic shopping bags, various food container lids, screws, bits of wood, a wire hanger and a sock without its mate are brought together in a series of works to be displayed on the wall and in space.

Artist Bios

Deb Brod has an M.F.A. in painting from the University of Cincinnati (1992), and a B.A. from Oberlin College, the Sorbonne (Paris, France) and the University of Cincinnati (1980) in French and Fine Art. Her multi-media artwork has been exhibited regionally and nationally, including at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center’s UnMuseum. With a background in painting and drawing, her artwork incorporates many media and approaches, including textiles, digital imagery, and installation. Grants include City of Cincinnati Artist Grant, Summerfair, Kentucky Foundation for Women, two Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowships, and Arts Midwest/NEA Regional Visual Artist Fellowship. Brod has lived in France (1977-78) and England (1984-87), and has traveled in Europe, Israel, Russia, Mexico, Canada, Dominica, Sri Lanka, and India. This exhibition coincides with another of her exhibitions: Savedat the Pearlman Gallery in the Art Academy of Cincinnati (1212 Jackson Street in Over-the-Rhine). It is a three-person exhibition that also includes Kate Kern and Migiwa Orimo. On view through November 12th.

Michael Hunter—originally from Birmingham, AL—is a painter and a sculptor who lives and works in Chicago, IL. He received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009. Selected exhibitions include: Summer Group Show at The Contemporary Art Workshop (Chicago), Winners Circle at Scott Projects (Chicago), Casual Object Garden and Other Material Matters at Roots & Culture (Chicago), Pattern at Hallway Projects (San Francisco), At Them Not Through Them at Knock Knock Gallery (Chicago) and Days of Plenty at Hyde St. Gallery (San Francisco). For more information please visit the artist's website.

Hunter’s statement:

I make work that deals with formal elements of painting and sculpture. I am interested in the juxtaposition of these two modes of art making and often work between them in order to discover how one method can inform the other. I am interested in the constraints of painting and the seemingly endless possibilities of sculpture. I use both found and made objects in a combination of arrangement, installation and spatial investigation to further my understanding of mark making, abstraction, form, collage and material play.

Pam Lins is an artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Lins received her B.A. from State University of Minnesota and her MFA from Hunter College, CUNY, NY, NY. Lins has exhibited extensively and prominently in New York, California and in exhibitions throughout Europe. Recent notable exhibitions include projects at the Portland Institute of Fine Arts, Hunch and Fail—a group exhibition at Artists Space curated by Amy Sillman, and solo exhibitions in 2008 and 2010 at Rachel Uffner Gallery in New York, NY, by whom Lins is currently represented. Lins has been awarded numerous prestigious honors, including a 2008 John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship Award, as well as residencies at Yaddo Artist Colony, MacDowell Colony and the Farpath Foundation, a residency in Dijon, France. Lins is a faculty member at the Cooper Union School of Art, NY. Lins appears in Stuff Art courtesy of the artist and Rachel Uffner Gallery. To read a New York Times review of her October solo exhibition, visit this link.  More information about Lins’ work here.

Paige Williams is currently a professor of painting and drawing at the Art Academy of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio. She exhibits locally, nationally and internationally including exhibitions in Germany, the Ukraine, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and New York. Of note are recent two-person exhibitions at Aisle Gallery (Cincinnati, OH, with Jeffrey Cortland Jones), Pearl Conard Gallery (Ohio State University, Mansfield, OH, with Rebecca Seeman), and Blank Space Gallery (New York, NY, with Karen Schifano). She has been selected as an Artist in Residence at the Millay Colony for the Arts in New York, The University of Alaska in Anchorage, The Neu Rathaus Gallery in Munich, Germany and The Vermont Studio Center. Grants include an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and a Summerfair Award to Individual Artists.

Williams’ work explores the space between us: the physical and psychological disparities that exist in relationships along with the joys and tensions that arise as a result of navigating these intervals. The works are about discovery, the struggle to relinquish control and reveling in the absurd and unexpected. More information about Williams can be found here.

B. Wurtz is an artist based in New York, NY. Born in Pasadena, CA, he has exhibited widely since the early 1980s. Wurtz is represented by Feature Inc. in New York, where he has presented solo exhibitions since 1990. He has been included in numerous notable exhibitions at Castillo/Corrales (Paris, France); Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon, France; Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles; Leo Koenig Inc., New York; Mudam Luxembourg, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg; Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Galerie van Gelder, Amsterdam; Cabinet, London; Cokkie Snoei, Rotterdam; and many others. His work has been written about frequently in The New York Times, Artforum, The Village Voice, Frieze, Art in America and The Brooklyn Rail. Wurtz is included in Stuff Art courtesy of the artist and Feature Inc. More information at can be found here.

About 4th Floor

The 4th Floor is an upper level affiliated membership group of the Cincinnati Art Museum for fans and supporters of contemporary art. Members deepen their knowledge of contemporary art and the local art scene through a variety of events, including visits to artists' studios, behind-the-scenes tours and members only programs.

The 4th Floor Award is a biennial regional art competition open to professional (non-student) artists in the Greater Cincinnati Area. Juried exclusively by 4th Floor Members, the Award seeks to recognize emerging local talent in the visual arts while creating dialogue between collectors, artists and enthusiasts. Three finalists and the winner will receive monetary awards. The winner receives a solo exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum. More information can be found here.