Installation Time!

The 2010 Masters of Fine Arts Exhibition is being busily loaded into the Space right now. The Space is just as exciting to experience during this stage of transition. If you have never seen the hustle and bustle of installation going on before a picture-perfect show goes up, you should come down before it opens April 21st and see this great process.

Image: Gradute student installing her work for the 2009 MFA Exhibition

-Leigh Lotocki, Social Media Assistant at the OSU Urban Arts Space

Highlights of Spring Perspective

I thought I would post some of the lovely photos taken of the MFA Dance Exhibition, Spring Perspective performances this past week. It has been a while since the Space saw such varied lighting environments...it was a wonderful performance to see!

Image: Lindsey Caddle-LaPointe performing with the videos of her project, OVERSIZED

Image: OSU Dance students watch video projection of, "What Can a Body Do?" by Lily Skove

Image: Lise Worthen-Chaudhari demonstrates how to interact with her Embedded Arts tool

Image: Rodney Veal performs amid his sculpture and video installation, The Persistence of Memory II

Images taken by Exhibitions Assistant Brianna Dance and other OSU Urban Arts Space staff.

-Leigh Lotocki, Social Media Assistant at the OSU Urban Arts Space

New Poetry

John M. Bennett, poet and curator at the OSU Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, sent along some of his latest poems to share. On his website you can see his own pieces of audio and visual poetry, which are the topic of this month's book club.

Watch It

the brick sneeze:::::: bolster your ,ash
lapper,,,,, [hogs] an ::: dice your pill
ow lock the [[]] gosh test an Name yr
fiddling........unit compaction or a ““line””
of g nats ..... fold my suit an dry. t
he flag lopper,,, holster ,,,cash,,, m
ice rust le in my,,,,sock what tIMe it
is¿¿¿¿

Coat

fumble an,,,,scout stop jot ,,,nooser
friendly;;;;muscle flagger - - - sp
read in wind - - - - - the tunnel O f
ulla fl ame spout twist the cashless
glue:::bottled heave ......the runny g
ame,,, down my leg,,,, was fireants,,,,, t
hey left me ay : c left my eye in
side a listed sleeve - - - - -

John M. Bennett
http://johnmbennettpoetry.blogspot.com/
www.johnmbennett.net

Indie Market This Weekend

The Tiny Canary Indie Design Market is going on this weekend, at the wonderful Junctionview Studios in Grandview Heights. This modern arts and crafts market is born out of the DIY movement, and great way to support local and independent artists and craftspeople. There will be various vendors and artsy happenings galore!

Going on November 14-15, 10am to 6pm.

Image: Tiny Canary

-Leigh Lotocki, Social Media Assistant at the OSU Urban Arts Space

"Art Squatters" Final Showing Event, Don't Miss This!

If you haven't seen this already, you should check out today's OSU's Image of the Day page and the WOSU Arts Blog, where you'll find more information about this awesome "Art Squatters" installation downtown. The last chance to view this first-ever project by OSU artists is this Saturday, October 3rd, from 6 - 10 PM in the area around High and Gay Streets.

-Leigh Lotocki, Social Media Assistant at the OSU Urban Arts Space

OSU Urban Arts Space, a Hopping and Lively Spot

Last week (June 9th through the 13th) was an exciting and jam packed week for the OSU Urban Arts Space filled with: the Design Exhibition opening and closing, two art receptions of the Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibition and Design Exhibition variety, and last but not least the successful Idea Lab Reception. And let me tell you, Columbus is noticing! We got press in the Indie Columbus for our Idea Lab Reception and all of the events were well attended. We had an outstanding number of 457 guests at the Design reception and 113 guests for the BFA Reception!

I was lucky enough to be scheduled to work during the Idea Lab Reception, and left work with new ideas and facts learned while also feeling creatively inspired. For those of you who do not know much about the Idea Lab, it was a contest generously funded by the Efroymson Family Fund, held in the fall of 2008. Over 30 Ohio State University students submitted project proposals for their dreams of programs, workshops, events, inventions and much, much more that their creative minds wanted to make into realities with the help of us here at The OSU Urban Arts Space. This year the chosen five student participants were: Morgan Green, Alex Hissong, Robert Klein, KC Wolfe, and Constance Rice. The Idea Lab reception gave these five student's a chance to present their hard-earned work to their peers, families, friends, and Columbus community. 

All of the projects were intuitive, unique, spunky, and definitely something to be proud of, but my two personal favorites were: Morgan Green’s “Connecting Abilities,” and Constant Rice’s “Student Farm at OSU.” “Connecting Abilities” was a program that showed off the artistic talent of artist’s with disabilities. Painted and collaged works of art were made as collaborations between OSU Art Scholars, student artists, and The Art Bridge Studio Artists. The Art Bridge Studio at the United Cerebral Palsy of Central Ohio provides a place where adults with disabilities learn about and participate in art, and we were lucky enough for some of the Art Bridge Artists to grace our space for the reception. I found the work to be quite unique and stunning. The art pieces featured everything from colorfully painted expressive elephants with a Van Gogh-esque brush stroke to magazine cutouts of 50’s glamorous women and popular rap stars in surreal, dream-like settings.

Constant Rice’s Idea Lab Project allowed for her and her OSU Student Organization “Student’s for Food Sovereignty” to create a student-run teaching and research farm at the existing Waterman Agriculture and Natural Resources Laboratory. This 1/2-acre organic garden plot is to be sustained by the students over the summer. While the Idea Lab Reception is over, many of the Idea Lab projects, including “Student Farm at OSU” are still very much involved, happening and up and running. We will see evidence of this here at The OSU Urban Arts Space on Wednesday, July 22nd from 11 – 2 pm and Tuesday, August 4th from 4 – 6 pm when fresh and organic produce from the OSU Student Farm will be sold at a pesticide-free produce stand right outside of our galleries. Make sure to come and shop for tasty, fresh produce. If you see a tall blonde working at the front desk stuffing her face with watermelon and carrots and all sorts of delicious goodies, that will be me. But no worries, I will not be rude and welcome you to OSU Urban Arts Space with a mouth full of fruits and vegetables.

The second week in June, 2009 was just another successful and enjoyable week here at 50 West Town Street, and there will be many more to come as we anxiously await the opening of our next stellar exhibition: BIGG (Breakthrough Ideas In Global Glass,) sponsored by Steuben Glass. Make sure to make it in to the gallery opening day, Friday, July 10, to see alluring, admirable, divine, and elegant glass pieces, some of them of epic large proportion, fill every corner and crevice of our space. You can also hang around for the BIGG Opening reception, also on opening day, from 5 – 7 pm for food, drinks, and to mingle with, or possibly meet some of the 27 local and international glass artists.

Joanna Reed, OSU Urban Arts Space Student Assistant

Images from top to bottom: (1) Idea lab recipient Alex Hissong discussing his project "Pedal Power for the People" at the Idea Lab Reception. (2) Some of the artwork, artists, and participants in Idea Lab recipient Morgan Green's project "Connecting Abilities." (3) The artwork for "Connecting Abilities" being made at The Art Bridge Studios in Columbus. (4) An OSU Student for the organization "Student's for Food Sovereignty" dressed as a carrot for a program that was part of Constance Rice's Idea Lab project "Student Farm at OSU."  

Dude, Where's My Brain??

For those that have ever HAD to create something, you know that it can be utterly awful sometimes. I don't mean HAVE TO in the sense that you are so inspired by something that you simply HAVE to create a work of art. In this sense things just flow from the magical pot of inspiration, your muse cup runneth over, life is great and you can express that. Well. . .I mean HAVE TO in the sense that this creation is your key to money, food, health insurance, freedom whatever. In this sense all things stop: time, the earth's rotation, your bowels, EVERYTHING. There is no progress in the world because all thigns are peeking over your shoulder, willing you to create something, mocking you because you can't. That's right folks, I am talking about when you are BLOCKED. I am particularly interested in this topic because I am currently experiencing the phenomenon.

Although most are familiar with the term "writer's block" I would venture to guess that it happens to all sorts of artists.

When I asked a visual artist, Molly (student education assistant here at the Urban Arts Space), what happens when she gets artist's block (I am making this a technical term people, pay attention) her eyes popped out of the sockets and I could tell that her body was going through the physical memory. She said that working out usually helps her. She has no trouble starting pieces, but sometimes she gets stuck in the middle.

I should have no problem right? There are a million things to write about. The Ohio Art League Spring Juried Exhibition is closing in two days.
The Theater Department's Stage/Studio: Space Transformed is over April 3rd.
The MFA Show is coming up and should be really exciting.

Writing about any one of these things should be relatively simple. HOWEVER, it's raining outside and it's colder than it has been the past few days, the Space is too quiet (I like to work with noise and chaos about) and to top it off I spent my morning paying homage to bread items such as the croissant and the bagel (both of which are known creativity killers).

What to do? In lieu of waxing poetic about what's going on at the Space (especially since words escape me, and by escape me I mean have run screaming away from my brain) I will encourage one and all to look at our website and come in to check out the two great shows that are leaving and come back to check out the MFA Show when it opens on April 22nd; and humbly beg your forgiveness.

Environmental issues are HOT right now (Global Warming pun anyone?). People are looking to sustainable solutions to a myriad of problems that we have created for ourselves, including the creation of green collar jobs. I personally look best in purple but I cannot deny the intelligence behind making a strong attempt not to poo where you sleep. . .or at least using that poo to fertilize something you are growing to eat when you wake up. I am all for making sure that things don't get too much worse. I saw Water World, bad acting and bad living conditions are in our future if we don't make some smart moves. I am especially concerned seeing as how I do not have the wherewithal to create a contraption that will turn human waste into drinking water (seriously, watch Water World, it is deliciously bad).

Anyway. . who's always at the forefront of new ideas, ART. It does not disappoint on the issue of sustainability as many are flocking to take pictures and eat cake at the marriage of art and sustainability. Live work spaces, pretty/functional household appliances, meaningful and moving art made out of recycled items and good old fashioned bird-feeders comprised of milk jigs, peanut butter and birdseed are all coming out of the art world.

Liz Celeste, in charge of sustainability and yelling at me when I put the plastic cup in the paper recycling bin (I deserve it), gets to demonstrate her care for the environment here at the Space. In addition to providing me with a plausible excuse for wanting a dishwasher (they are more environmentally friendly than washing by hand, or letting them pile up) she had this to say about sustainability efforts at the space:

Here at the OSU Urban Arts Space we are making every attempt to make environmentally responsible decisions. Some of the events & programs we have offered so far include the Ways of Knowing Water exhibition – with a special exhibit in the bathrooms highlighting the recycled rainwater to flush the toilets,



a recycled art-making event entitled Iron Artist Challenge,


an outreach project with Columbus School for Girls to help them imagine and design a green roof for their school, and an organic wine tasting with rooftop garden tours.

We hope to act as a model for other arts organizations by incorporating sustainability as a unique piece of our mission. In addition to our operations & programming, we are located within the historic Lazarus building which has been LEED gold-certified for the renovations. We are also happy to share the building with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, a trusted leader and environmental steward using innovation, quality service, and public involvement to ensure a safe and healthy environment for all Ohioans.

Finally, as a member of Mayor Coleman's Green Spot program we will promote our unique space for engaging in creative dialog about the environmental needs of our community and actively generating cooperative solutions.

If you are interested in a tour of the rooftop gardens, have an idea for a green event, or just want to learn more – please contact our Sustainability Coordinator, Liz Celeste at celeste.1@osu.edu

Reflections on the Department of Art Exhibition

With the Department of Art Faculty Exhibition winding into its final days here at the OSU Urban Arts Space, it seems to be an appropriate time to reflect upon the experience. While a lot of positive and productive discussions have emerged as a result of this exhibit, among both the visitors and staff alike, a quiet and unspoken observation has alluded capture thus far.
The pieces that have stood out the most for me in this exhibit are Sergio Soave’s “The Kindergarten Project” and Ken Rinaldo’s “Buzz 2 2008”. I have found that when I talk to people about this exhibit, I often gravitate toward these pieces and find myself on the verge of ranting in their praise. While I cannot explain why I have been so invariably attracted to such different pieces, I could never shake the feeling that there was something under the surface that connected them. It wasn’t until today that I posited an idea about their connection, in that they serve as microcosms of the Department of Art Faculty Exhibition as a whole.
In Soave’s artist statement regarding his work, he cites that his prominent interest is using what he calls “a framework of small stories” to examine and enable “seemingly disparate images to create visual metaphors as counterparts to story telling rather than illustrations of particular stories.” The visual metaphors are illustrated in his piece and highlight the interconnectedness within that group of people. Rinaldo cites something similar in his statement, referring to the various “parallel networks” that are interconnected and intertwined through the creation of wine. Considering these similarities between the two pieces, I would like to then advance the claim that these traits of interconnectedness and ideas that overlap are representative of this exhibition in a macrocosmic sense. This is to say that visitors can come to the gallery and enjoy a presentation that features numerous pieces in a wide array of mediums and if they are further interested in these pieces, they can contact the artist directly since they are regular faculty members at The Ohio State University. This kind of accessibility allows the visitor to not only find connections between the pieces in the exhibit itself, but to also make connections for further education and enrichment.

David Hall, UAS Student Assistant

Katherine Crockett: Into the Red

The OSU Urban Arts Space is more than thrilled to have a work in progress by the acclaimed dancer Katherine Crockett. She began her dance training with Ballet Metropolitan in Columbus Ohio and is now a Principal Dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company. She most recently danced the role of Daisy played by Cate Blanchett in the upcoming feature film “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”.

Her submission to our gallery is titled “Into the Red”. The video begins with a shot of the moon being reflected onto a pool of calm water. The shot is overlaid with the sounds of soft music and even softer movements by Ms. Crockett. The flowing gestures and irregular camera angles provide a nice complement that entices the viewer to draw closer and be captured by the dance. A stark visual contrast is formed with the curvature of her vivid red dress being clashed against the black and white city night. The camera and movie transition into a new shot that begins to highlight more of the setting of the building she is on. This transition also begins to reflect itself in Ms. Crockett’s movements as her dance is no longer flowing and free against the night sky but constrained and depressive against the rigid concrete building. Throughout the movie you can’t help but feel a transformation in Ms. Crockett’s emotional and physical state that is defined by her movements and the images portrayed. The visualization of the images and movements alone warrant another viewing.

-Allen Wagner, UAS Student Assistant

Tom Beardslee

A few days ago the talented Tom Beardslee visited the OSU Urban Arts Space to perform. Tom, a lecturer and student at The Ohio State University, performed songs from a diverse range of music. In addition to playing guitar, Tom played a lap steel, which was actually the first electric instrument. Between songs he shared humorous anecdotes about song writing and using espn 2 as insperation, insights into the history of rock and roll, and even interpretations of bizarre lyrics such as “you don’t want to dust my broom mama, unless you want to end up in jail.” For more information about Tom Beardslee check him out on myspace.

-Chris Burton, UAS Student Assistant

Sid Chafetz: Speaking Out

Thursday, October 16th
5:30 to 7pm

Sid Chafetz has used his artwork as a platform to speak out about provocative, even uncomfortable, issues. He is also one of the most interesting people anyone is likely to meet, with deep insights and passionate opinions about politics, literature, history, art, and contemporary life. Join Ann Bremner, co-curator of this exhibition, and Bob Tauber, long-time Chafetz collaborator, for a wide-ranging conversation about their perspectives on Chafetz and his art currently on view. Chafetz will join them to answer questions at the end of conversation.


Sid Chafetz: Engaging the World is on display through October 25th.

This series is part of our after-work programing offered Thursday evenings. Before the conversation stop by Tip Top Kitchen & Cocktails and ask for the Urban Artists' Special: It's very special indeed and its only $3.

Image: Sid Chafetz, Requiem, 2003-2008
_______________________________________________________________________

Ann Bremner was the co-curator of the exhibition Chafetz Graphics: Satire and Homage in 1988 and editor of its accompanying catalogue, a comprehensive chronicle of the artist’s prints to that date. Now publications editor at Ohio State’s Wexner Center for the Arts, she is also co-curator of the Urban Art Space’s current Chafetz exhibition.

Bob Tauber, director of the Book Arts Lab and Logan Elm Press at The Ohio State University Libraries, has collaborated with Chafetz on countless book and broadsheet print projects since the 1970s. One of their recent endeavors is the monumental 7 Poets, a portfolio of seven portraits by Chafetz and text by James Battersby, which launched the reopening of the Logan Elm Press as part of the University Libraries in 2005.

WOSU video about the OSU Urban Arts Space

check it out on YouTube

Sid Chafetz : Engaging the World / September 16 – October 25, 2008

Sid Chafetz, La Vie en Rose, 1955

Reception: Friday, September 26, 5 –7pm

Sid Chafetz, professor emeritus, has commented on his world—from local and national political issues to timeless aspects of the human condition—throughout his artistic career. A survivor of the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, a two-time Fulbright Scholar, world traveler, and internationally exhibited artist, Chafetz is one of the living treasures of Columbus.

What to do? What to do? Downtown Columbus : August 29th and beyond

Tonight, Friday 29th

8pm: Ballet Met on the Scioto River. Come see Ballet Met dancers perform highlights from previous seasons in addition to excerpts from the 2008-09 season. Come early and watch the dancers warm up proir to the performance. At the Riverfront Amphitheater. 

Saturday August 30th

11am to 6pm: Last day to see our totally-hyped Ways of Knowing Water exhibition. I'll be here until 6 to offer you your own personal tour of the artwork.

After noon: The Shelf gallery is having a yard sale event. 

Walk away with affordable original artworks among other things. Dance Party included. Yo! Find it all at 57 E. Gay Street.

Thats all I guess. Sheesh.

August 27th: Tony Mendoza with Bob and Dog Adoption

Wednesday, August 27th

Photographer Tony Mendoza with Bob and Dog Adoption 11:30am - 1:30pm
Brown-bag lunch | Dog Days of August

Photographer Tony Mendoza with Bob

If you liked Ernie, you'll love Bob! Come meet Tony Mendoza, renowned photographer and author of Ernie: A Photographer's Memoir, as he reveals his new book about his dog, Bob. Get a sneak peak of images from Bob to be released early 2009. Not only will you get to see Tony's work but he'll give you insider tips on how to snap the best shots of your beloved pets. Guest appearance by Bob himself! Bob will be joined by his friends from the Franklin County Animal Shelter who are looking for "furever" home.

Special Dog Adoption Event

Round out our Dog Days of August with a dog event starring real dogs. You've seen them, you know them and you love them; now adopt one—or at least take a look! Join us for an adoption event and give a dog a "furever" home. Dogs available for adoption from the Franklin County Dog Shelter

The Uncanniness of Commodities: Ryan Agnew

Commodities are uncanny. So often we think of them as easily understood objects, as trivial, when in fact they are very complex and strange..."abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties." (Marx, Das Kapital)

Commodities are filled with the investments of our labor and design, becoming social things.

Marx takes this uncanny communion of objects even further with his ideas of Fetishism: “…the productions of the human brain appear as independent beings endowed with life, and entering into relation both with one another and the human race. So it is in the world of commodities with the products of men’s hands. This I call Fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labor, so soon as they are produced as commodities, and which is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities."

This framework of 'social objects' seems a worthy lens from where to view Ryan Agnew's work, Escalating Trousers, in our current exhibition, What Time is This Place.

Take the time to read (below) what Ryan has to say about this piece. Notice how easy it is to view these images as people traveling on the escalator ghost. Perhaps ghosts themselves. What happens when inanimate objects, pants, become the ghosts of people, the ghosts of soldiers and shoppers? How does this anthropomorphizing tie into the legacy of Lazarus and even the civil war? Can soldiers be commodities? If so they are humans that become objects that become uncannily human again.

What Ryan Agnew writes:
The American Civil War began ten years after Simon Lazarus opened a men's tailor shop on the dirt road that was High Street. At the end of the war, one of the first things soldiers wanted was to get out of their uniform. Each soldier went to Lazarus where he would be ushered into the basement to exchange his uniform for store clothes (leaving his uniform behind). One such customer entered the store with $400 in his uniform pocket. He received his new "duds" and left the store. A month later he returned, insisting that he had either lost his $400 or left it in his old clothes. Mr. Lazarus remembered the man. He took him down into the old clothes room and the man found everything except the trousers he had worn. Lazarus remembered then that when the man had changed clothes he threw his uniform trousers into the air, glad to be free of them. Looking up they saw the trousers caught on a nail in the ceiling. A hasty examination revealed $400 in the pocket. Time passed and the store continued as a family tradition. On Monday, August 17, 1909, the family opened a brand new six-story store on the northwest corner of High and Town Streets, just across the street from the old one. The new Lazarus featured the first department store escalator in the country. According to Charles Lazarus, however, "When the first escalator was installed, it evidently scared the daylights out of people. They had to take it out a year later." One Lazarus patron was so taken with the escalator, though, that he wrote a poem in its honor:

What's the crowd a pushin' and a shovin' over there?
Land! It's folks a ridin' up the escalator stair!
Ma's brought all the family in to take a little ride,
Cause they're simply goin' dippy
Bout that Escalator Glide!

This text is paraphrased from WOSU’s online archive of the Lazarus store,
at http://www.wosu.org/archive/lazarus/timeline.php.

Special thanks to Berry van Boekel, Jessica Brandl and Sergio Soave.

Andy Goldsworthy film at The Urban Art Space

Thursday August 21st
5:30 - Program Space
Screen Works | Ways of Knowing Water

Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time
(2001 - 90 mins.)

Renowned environmental sculptor, Andy Goldsworthy, works solely with the materials and elements of nature—wind, water, stones, ice, leaves—to produce art of exquisite beauty. Director Thomas Riedelsheimer follows Goldsworthy for more than a year as he collaborates with the “energy, breathlessness and uncertainty” of nature.

Cinema is a dangerous thing.

It transports us to places and times and events. Really, it gives us the illusion we are transported. Through its magic, its sensual audio and temptuous flashing, our bodies ignite; and open is the way for cinema to take us. We leave the screening room, or theater, activated and soothed. We leave with a stain in us and on us. We go places we never go. (And it has given me really high expectations for love-type stuff!)

In our current exhibition, What Time is This Place, Mark van Fleet explores this phenomenon with his work, "Somewhere."

"Somewhere" is a multi media installation that presents and documents a screening room that was used for a 60 hour movie marathon. In the room, there is comfortable seating, a screen, and a projector. Movies with "places" as titles were projected on the screen continuously for 3 days from July 7th through the 9th, 2008. 10 - 15 second clips of video footage were taken every 10 minutes to create a unique video montage of all of the projected films. This montage, which is both documentation of the movie marathon and a feature-length video work in its own right, is now projected onto the same screen which the original films were shown.

This work reminds me of the work of Pierre Huyghe who wrote, "Everything you look at, an object whatsoever, or image, has been thought about, selected and been subject to huge activity." Thus if cinema stains us so, where does this stain originate and where has it been? Cinema objectifies what it presents, but it seems to objectify us too. "Somewhere" collapses the event of a 3-day, 27-film movie marathon into 1 feature-length video experience, creating not only a discourse about place, document and narrative, but also about the collapse of the subject-object relationship.

-Eva Ball, exhibitions preparator and guide

Read what Mark van Fleet has written about the piece:
Screening rooms and theatres are “non places” in which extra periphery information is typically kept to a minimum in the service of transporting the viewer into the space (physical and psychological) of the film. The "Somewhere" of the video's title refers, of course, to the places as well as the times depicted in the screened films.

In cinema, Place can be a complex thing. It can be a background of stunning vistas in which most of the action takes place as in a family film like “Alaska” or an action film like “Sahara”. These are films where the location becomes almost like an extra that the characters must struggle with or against. It can be the remote or exotic locale that is reproduced on a soundstage in Hollywood ala “Macao” or “Casablanca”. A film may be an ode to the loved and familiar city as in Woody Allen’s “Manhattan”. The place may be the site of a fierce battle as in the film’s “Midway” and “Gallipoli”. Similarly, historic events in a city like Munich can inspire a film of the same title even if the events in the film do not take place very much in that southern German city. A film like “Woodstock” (the last film shown and the only documentary) captures that place in upstate New York’s iconic moment in cultural history. A film can also be absurdly named after a place for which it clearly bears no connection as in Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil”.

Time in the cinema is just as complicated. All films bear trace of the time in which they are made and they are all explorations of Time as an integral aspect of the medium. Many films take place in the “present time”, but as a film ages, we see the “present time” of those films differently. “Atlantic City” in 1981 is not the same Atlantic City of 2008. Likewise, just one interesting (and possibly depressing) thing about a film like “Nashville” from 1975 is knowing what we know about contemporary Country Music thirty years later.

Many films are “period pieces” that further problematize our experience of time. A film like the recent “Chicago” (based on a play first staged in the seventies) is supposed to take place in 1920’s Chicago during prohibition, but obviously, the film would not be the one it is even if it had been made in 1980, indebted as it is to music video influenced camera work, editing, and set design, as well fashion magazine sex appeal. Imagine how different the film would be had it been a 1950’s blockbuster! In this context, the question of “What Time is this Place?” becomes especially meaningful. “Chicago” (from 2002) feels as much like a product of its own time than the one it supposedly depicts.

I hoped that by organizing this Movie Marathon to reflect on the cinema’s relation to Place. I think that the resulting feature length montage it is a ruptured and strange meditation on that filmic idea.

The films were:
Alaska (1985) / Atlantic City (1981) / Barcelona (1994) / Brazil (1985) / Casablanca (1942) / Chicago (2002) /
Earth (1930) / Earth (1996) / Fargo (1996) / Hawaii (1966) / Istanbul (1957) / Kansas City (1996) /
Key Largo (1948) / Lake Placid (1999) / Macao (1952) / Manhatten (1979) / Montana (1950) /
Munich (2005) / Nashville (1975) / New York New York (1977) / Philadelphia (1993) / Pittsburgh (1942) / Sahara (1943) / San Francisco (1936) / Santa Fe (1951) / West of Zanzibar (1928) / Woodstock (1970)

I’d like to particularly thank Matt Bush for his devotion to this project. Matt was the only person who was present for the entire 60 hours of the marathon, and though he slept for about 5 hours (in the screening room!), he worked tirelessly and filmed a large portion of the montage. Andrew Graham helped us make it through both of the difficult late night/ early morning stretches and he also filmed significant portions of the resulting montage. Jen Burton spent a lot of time at the Marathon as well, and helped film in addition to other assistance she provided. Ryan Agnew gave great advice and also let me use his library card to secure many of the films we screened, as did Nathan Reynolds. Thanks to Berry Von Boekel and Eva Ball for all of their logistical help and to Sergio Soave, Elizabeth Gerdeman, and Kelly Stevelt-Kaser for their organizational assistance. I’d also like to thank the rest of the staff at the Urban Arts Space, the student assistants that helped put the exhibition together, and the other artists in the show for their encouragement and good humor.

-- Mark Van Fleet