“At the origin of painting and sculpture there lies a mummy complex. The religion of ancient Egypt, aimed against death, saw survival as dependent on the continued existence of the corporeal body.”
-- Andre Bazin, The Ontology of the Photographic Image
The imbuing of meaning in an artwork is parallel to the imbuing of memory in objects. Art is fundamentally linked to mortality and our relationship with time. These elements affect and complicate the value of objects.
Stephen Eakin mines and removes objects from personal history and familial narrative, subsequently placing them in a setting that redefines them as precious relics, art objects, or both. This action posits the politics of memory, history, and our identities after we are gone. Eakin experiments with an object’s context (or lack thereof) in an effort to seek where the object’s voice meets the voice of its viewer, if at all.
Link:
http://www.artcurrents.org/
Address:
AC Institute
547 W. 27 St. #610
New York, New York 10001
United States of America
Holly Crawford is cross media artist, behavioral scientist, economist and art historian. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Essex in Art History and Theory, B.A and M.A. in Economics and M.S. in Behavioral Science from UCLA. From 2004-2006, she was a non-clinical Fellow at NYU Medical School Psychoanalytic Center. Her art and poetry (www.art-poetry.info) give new meanings and draws categories themselves into question through transformative juxtapositions. Her projects include: Offerings (Ars Electronica, (.net Participant); Open Adoption, The Road, Hyphens, Voice Over, Found Punctuation (video) Tate Modern 2007, My I have your autograph? (unofficial, Basel Miami Art Fair 2007), Critical Conversations in a Limo, NY 2006 (VIP project, Armory), 2007 in Melbourne (MIAF) & San Francisco (The LAB & Sesnon Gallery UCSC), Sound Art Limo, NY and Melbourne 2007, Flatland Limo, NYC 2008. Many projects are ongoing, site specific and participatory. Publications: Artistic Bedfellows, ed., 2008, Attached to the Mouse, 2006 and catalogue essay, “Disney and Pop” in Once Upon a Time Walt Disney Studio; Artistic Bedfellows, edited, 2008. Some projects are created and curated through AC (Art Currents) which she created and directs, www.artcurrents.org She taught art at UCLA and SVA. She was born in California and now lives in New York City.
marc garrett