ALUMNI NEWS

February 15, 2012

hygienic dress league featured in Detropia

hygienic dress league, an art project by Steve Coy (BFA 2001)  in collaboration with his wife Dorota, was featured in Detropia, a documentary film about Detroit that premiered at Sundance.

hygienic dress league (HDL) is an ongoing public art project by husband and wife duo Steve and Dorota Coy that uses a corporation (officially registered in the state of Michigan) as a new and original form of art. HDL, headquartered in Detroit, uses traditional and non-traditional modes of advertising such as street art, internet, video sharing websites, hype, word of mouth, magazines and newspapers as well as other media outlets. HDL billboards and signs activate abandoned structures in post-industrial areas and cleverly draw meaning from their locations. These various marketing tactics are used to disseminate its “Brand” and create a social identity, while delivering a fantasy narrative through an interrelated multi experiential art project to an unsuspecting public audience.

DETROPIA is a cinematic tapestry that chronicles the lives of several Detroiters trying to survive the D and make sense of what is happening to their city. An owner of a blues bar, a young blogger, an auto union rep, a group of young artists, an opera impresario and a gang of illegal “scrappers” make up an unlikely chorus that illuminates the tale of both city and a country in a soul searching mood, desperate for a new identity. Detroit’s story has encapsulated the iconic narrative of America over the last century— the Great Migration of African Americans escaping Jim Crow; the rise of manufacturing and the middle class; the love affair with automobiles; the flowering of the American dream; and now . . . the collapse of the economy and the fading American mythos. With its vivid, painterly palette and haunting score, DETROPIA sculpts a dreamlike collage of a grand city teetering on the brink of dissolution. As houses are demolished by the thousands, automobile-company wages plummet, institutions crumble, and tourists gawk at the “charming decay,” the film’s vibrant, gutsy characters glow and erupt like flames from the ashes. These soulful pragmatists and stalwart philosophers strive to make ends meet and make sense of it all, refusing to abandon hope or resistance. Their grit and pluck embody the spirit of the Motor City as it struggles to survive postindustrial America and begins to envision a radically different future.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/story/2012-01-21/detropia-detroit-economy-crisis/52725988/1

February 9, 2012

Robin Street-Morris Featured

“Fourche La Fave River” and “Starling Circle with Morning Star (at Cahokia Mounds)”, two works by Robin Street-Morris (BFA 2000) have been juried into EAC:II, opening at Edwardsville Arts Center on February 17.

“EAC:TWO” All Media Juried Exhibit, February 17 - March 16
Opening Reception: Friday, February 17, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Juror: Robin Hirsch, Associate Director & Gallery Director of Art St Louis
The Edwardsville Arts Center is proud to exhibit its 2nd All Media Competition, juried by Robin Hirsch of Art Saint Louis.
http://edwardsvilleartscenter.com/2012/01/12/eactwo-juried-show/

February 7, 2012

Wildwood Press: Eva Lundsager

Wildwood Press, founded by A&D Alumna Maryanne Ellison Simmons (BFA 1971), is hosting artist Eva Lundsager’s newest print collection, Works in Progress.  The collection consists of seventeen one-of-a kind prints. The exhibit will open on Thursday evening, February 16, 2012 from 5:30 - 8:30 pm at Pele Prints, 9400 Watson Road, Crestwood, Missouri 63126.

January 30, 2012

Science Gallery Serves Up “A Taste of Things to Come”

As members of the Center for Genomic Gastronomy, Zack Denfeld (MFA 2007) and Cat Kramer have curated a new exhibition for the Science Gallery at Trinity College, Dublin which opens Feb. 9th 2012.

Edible: a Taste of Things to Come will explore how we reshape the planet through the food choices we make. The Center for Genomic Gastronomy have assembled a diverse group of artists, scientists, restaurateurs and foodies whose work is set to challenge our perception of what ‘edible’ really means. The show runs through the biodiversity of the kitchen and includes ingredients like mutagenic peppermint, transgenic zebrafish, 8 fermenting fruits, 10 heirloom potatoes and desserts that let you taste smog. The exhibition also includes 3-D printed insect snacks, an edible wall of seaweed and a range of centrifuged foods. At twice-daily feeding times, visitors will have a chance to sink their teeth into a vegan version of the cruelest recipe ever invented, dine on the kimchi quesadilla and sample other recipes especially created for EDIBLE by artists, chefs and scientists.

http://www.sciencegallery.com/

January 30, 2012

Shannon Kohlitz: Toronto International Film and Video Awards

Shannon Kohlitz (BFA ‘11) has won the award for Best Experimental Film from the Toronto International Film and Video Awards.
Her piece used a series of kinetic sets, culminating in a screening and an installation about immigration, love and World War II.  Over 500 films were submitted in a variety of categories.

January 27, 2012

Margaret Parker featured in Momentum

The Women’s Caucus for Art is having its 40th anniversary show “Momentum” from February 17 - March 2 to coincide with “Pacific Standard Time”, a Los Angeles region-wide celebration of art.  It gathers work from across the country curated by Rita Gonzalez, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Ann Arbor artist and A&D alumna Margaret Parker’s installation, Kali: she who destroys regenerates, will be part of the exhibition.

Parker’s work has been gaining attention this year: in February, a piece was featured in “HiddenCites” at New Century Artists Gallery in NYC. Her large installation C’ood: a democracy experiment, first seen at ArtPrize in 2010, was displayed in Lansing for three months in “City Streets” sponsored by the Lansing Art Gallery. Her work was also featured in a four-person show at Flint’s Buckham Gallery, where two large installations and 3 smaller pieces made from cutup cotton T-shirts were shown.

“T-shirts are like our second skin,” Parker says, “they’re the generic shape of the human torso. But when they’re cut apart,they can become anything, they allow me to explore what humans can become. I carve into them, but always leave them in one whole piece. Viewers recognize the familiar shirt, imagine the original shape, and then figure out the steps in between. The imaginative process that the viewer goes through makes the art work theirs.”

Parker was also one of only eight Americans to have work featured at the 2011 Windsor Biennial in Windsor, Ontario, curated by Ian Baxter, professor of art at University of Windsor School of Visual Art.

http://www.margaretparkerstudio.com

January 20, 2012

Jana Bisset: Auto Part Jewelry on Dateline Detroit

Jewelry created using auto parts by artist/photographer Janna Bissett was featured on Dateline Detroit Primetime Edition. The jewelry was created for former Miss Michigan and Channel 4 Traffic Reporter Ashlee Baracy to wear to the Auto Show Charity Preview. Bissett has been creating jewelry out of vintage machine parts and sells her work at http://shoplilacpop.com, http://ustrendy.com/lilacpop, and in local stores such as Yellow Door Art Market, Ann Arbor Art Center, and more. She is also a fashion, fine art, and real estate photographer and recently had work accepted at Italian Vogue.

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/Dateline-Detroit-Car-ture/-/1719418/8266792/-/lujnx5/-/index.html

January 13, 2012

Sarah Bereza Exhibits at WWA Gallery

Sarah Bereza will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at WWA Gallery in Culver City, CA. Aptly titled About Face, this exhibit is a contemporary look at the classic genre of portraiture. Exhibiting alongside Bereza will be some of the most diverse and much talked about artists of the day. Works featured will range from the surreal and vivid to the dark and macabre. With constant advances in digital photography and the instant gratification it brings, the painted portrait is often overlooked. However it’s quite possibly the one genre that ties all artist together. From Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa to Warhol’s Marilyn Monroes, the classic painted portrait stood as a reflection of society and culture through a reflection of the essence of its subjects and the artist as well. After all, we are our own favorite subjects, and in the era of Facebook and Twitter this has never been truer.

Opening Reception, Friday January 13th, from 8- 11pm
WWA Gallery
9517 Culver Blvd Culver City, CA 90232
(310) 836-4992

January 10, 2012

Michael Borowski Exhibits in Netherlands

Photographs and video documenting Michael Borowski’s (MFA 2011)  “Window/Seat” will be included in Global Village 2012, on display at Projekt 072 in Alkmaar, Netherlands from Feb 3rd to March 11th. The opening reception is Friday, Feb 3rd 7:30 - Midnight. The exhibit will travel to France and Denmark later this year.

http://www.stichtingwhitecube.nl/globalvillage/algeng.html

December 15, 2011

Sarah Berkeley and Reed Esslinger-Payet Perform

Sarah Berkeley (MFA 2011) and Rachel (Reed) Esslinger-Payet (MFA Candidate 2012) will perform at Chicago’s Enemy Sound on Friday, December 16th.  The performance draws on Reed’s artistic research in fibers and the emotional and corporeal experience of belonging while repeatedly immersing oneself into foreign cultures and immigrant communities. The malleability of language and the subjectivity of ethnographic writing provide the basis for the sound component of the performance.

Enemy Sound
1550 N. Milwaukee, 3rd Floor.

November 29, 2011

Andrea Claire Maio: Back to Your Senses

Created by filmmaker and Ann Arbor native Andrea Claire Maio (BFA 2001), “Back to Your Senses” is a video series about people who are “leaving the safety of what they know, for the sake of what they love” in a time of economic uncertainty. As a platform for her work, Andrea has teamed up with a new crowd-funding website for independent TV called Mobcaster.com, started by another University of Michigan alumna, Aubrey Levy (BFA 2004, Theatre).

Andrea is currently raising resources through Mobcaster in order to produce the pilot episode of her show - an episode that will feature Michigan residents who are changing their lives. by turning their passion into their vocation. They are farmers, artists, scientists and entrepeneurs, who represent an unaffiliated nation-wide movement of people who are coming back to their senses; using their uncertainty about the future of our country’s economy as a fuel to make their dreams come true, and showing the way for those of us brave enough to do the same.

Mobcaster is like Kickstarter for TV - it has the potential to help build audiences for content that networks might not take a risk on. It gives people the opportunity to fund what it is they want to see, and to see it through multiple phases of production. Like with Kickstarter, no money changes hands unless the project meets its fundraising goal. Unlike Kickstarter, if the project does reach it’s goal, the final product gets broadcast on Mobcaster.

The fundraiser for Maio’s Back to Your Senses lasts through January 8th - visit http://www.mobcaster.com/project/back-to-your-senses to find out more or contribute.

For more info about the project and Andrea, visit http://www.backtoyoursenses.org or email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

November 28, 2011

Gilleran Crow at Anton Art Center

Peter Gilleran (A.K.A. Peter Crow, BFA 1976) is featured in a solo show of drawings, paintings and works on paper at the Anton Art Center’s Petitpren Community Gallery in Mount Clemens, Michigan, from November 18-December 22, 2011.

http://www.theartcenter.org/

November 15, 2011

Ruth Taubman Open House

Ruth Taubman (BFA ‘81) will present her 2011 fall jewelry line at an open house in her Ann Arbor studio December 1-3. To receive an invitation or more information, please visit http://www.ruthtaubman.com and click on “Contact Us.”

November 11, 2011

Chin-Azzaro Art & Design Firm Featured

Chin-Azzaro, the new Ann Arbor art & design firm launched by A&D alums Nick and Yen Azzaro (BFA 2003) , is featured in a profile on AnnArbor.com.

The two University of Michigan School of Art & Design graduates spent seven years after graduation sharpening their skills in Chicago - Nick as a commercial and art photographer and Yen as director of a gallery and consulting on fine art.

But the couple recently returned to Ann Arbor and this month launched what they say is a unique collection of art and design services under their business banner, Chin-Azzaro. Chin is Yen’s maiden name.

The new art and design firm offers a plate full of services, including commercial and portrait photography, commercial and residential mural painting and appraising and consulting about art. They even have services for young customers, Chin-Azzaro Kids, with bedroom murals, custom party invitations and family and child photo portraits.

“We want to be trendy, but not in a fad kind of way. Very contemporary, but based on art history,” Yen said.

http://annarbor.com/business-review/new-art-design-firm-chin-azzaro-caters-to-residential-and-commercial-customers/

November 8, 2011

Cathy VanVoorhis: Stand in the Place Where You Live

Artists support environmental preservation of land for
Work by Cathy VanVoorhis (MFA 1986) is featured in Stand in the Place Where You Live, a collaborative benefit for Legacy Land Conservancy of Southern Michigan and Chelsea Center for the Arts celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Legacy Land Conservancy.

Exhibition runs Nov. 13, 2011 - Jan. 8, 2012
Opening reception: Friday, December 2,  6 - 8 pm
Chelsea Center for the Arts
400 Congdon St., Chelsea, MI 48118

Over the past 40 years, Legacy Land Conservancy (Ann Arbor) has helped protect over 4,500 acres of forests, prairies, farms, wetlands, and waters. To celebrate this achievement and inspire future conservation efforts, Chelsea Center for the Arts and Legacy Land Conservancy commisioned a small group of selected artists to create original works of art about specific local public and private lands preserved through the Conservancy.

Participating artists: Barbara Bushey, Deborah Campbell, Nancy Feldkamp, Steve Gilzow, Birgit Hutteman-Holz, Angelis Jackowski, Janet Kohler, John Lloyd, Nancy McKay, Brenda Miller, Susan Moran, Lynn Quick, Anne Rubin, Cathy VanVoorhis, Nora Venturelli, Elaine Wilson

http://www.legacylandconservancy.org/index.php/news-and-events/view/stand