Action Stations

This work was produced in a collaboration exhibition with Mark Freeman as part of the peer reviewed funded Linden Center for Contemporary Arts Innovators program. The exhibition consisted of multiple works made indepentently by myself and Mark Freeman for display as a composite installation.The works, as part of the Linden Innovators program, realtes to the field of research into the role of gestural abastraction as it may be interpreted in contemporary times. It was exhibited in an exhibition with 4 other chosen artists, all of whom have a long history of being engaged in a dialogue, about how painterly and sculptural genres and concerns of the past mutate into conversations about their relevance and importance in examining the role of art in the contemporary world.
The works made sought to use commonplace objects, assemblage process' and sound to explore how the conceptual and existential concerns of the Abstract Exprssionists (AE) several decades ago may be relocated and reappraised in the complex mediated environment of 21st century. The CD soundtrack , which I am responsible for, used the sound of a bird aviary gradually being transformed in to the chatter of electonic machine noise.
A relevant exhibition internationally is Abstract Expressionism in the 21st Century which was curated by Helen Harrison, Director, Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center. This exhibition in Sept 2011 put together both historical and leadiing contemporary practioners of AE in order to explore the key questions Mark and I were addresing. "Action Stations" sought to add to this research question and body of knowledge.
1/ Is Abstract Expressionism more than merely an historical syle and how may its intrinsic existential values be re-presented in 3D and sonic forms now?
A catalogue essay, commisioned by the Center, wriiten by Miles Allison accompanied the exhibition. http://www.lindenarts.org/media/9137/innovators1catalogue2012.pdf