Lyco Curatorial Practice

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

National Juried Show: Impending Future (I.F.)

Lycoming College recently opened its second national juried show, Impending Future, at the college's downtown gallery on December 2nd.

Gallery address: 25 West Fourth Street, Williamsport, PA 17701

Exhibition dates: December 2nd, 2016 - February 18th, 2017

IMPENDING FUTURE (I.F)

Mission Statement

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” - Abraham Lincoln

The artworks exhibited in Impending Future (i.F.) touch on various aspects of change from the mundane to the monumental, reflecting the perceptions, visions, and, in some cases, the uneasiness of the featured artists. Their personal and unique visions open thoughtful dialogues that reinforce our uncertainties and concerns about the post-modern condition.

In creating User History, Coalfather Industries carried out an “ethnographic survey” of the contemporary human history as seen by machines of the post-human era. Their work addresses the current state and trends of society’s consumption, ultimately bringing to attention the envisioned yet highly probable demise. Factual and objective remarks, so far the limit of artificial intelligence’s capability, are brilliantly employed to provoke thoughts and realizations.

Abbey Hepner’s Caretaker Robots series, on the other hand, is concerned with how technological development may change human society. Her fictional white robot, a clear emblem of technological advancement, appears to accompany humans in daily-life situations. In one photograph of the series, the robot looks down at Hepner as she stays afloat in the swimming pool. This reminds us of our psychological need to care and be cared for, at the same time suggesting our growing dependency on technology. Nonetheless, the lack of human interaction (replaced instead by the human-technology relationship) by no means concludes whether technology will help or hurt us.

Coalfather Industries and Abbey Hepner are only two of over twenty artists selected from around the United States. These artists challenge our notion of the future by projecting imminent impacts of current technological, social, economic, and political changes. While some of the exhibited artworks have relatively negative outlooks compared to others, each of them constructs its own version of our world’s future. In reading i.F., it is vital to remember that no interpretation reflects the state of future, but mere imaginations of such. We should instead consider which current state or trend constitutes the artist's vision, and how the anticipated changes may motivate human behaviors in the present society.

Featured Artists

Abbey Hepner

Andrew Glenn

Anne Chesnut

Bart Vargas

Cassandra Klos

Clare Benson

Coalfather Industries

Cynthia Myron

Jimmy Capalbo

Curators

Emily Wickizer
Joseph Troxler
Joshua Evans
Jessica Tayson
Jonathan Rummel

Le Pham

Nam Do
Nicole Gerling

Zachary Michaels

Advisor

Seth Goodman

Exhibition Design

Curatorial statement

Promotional Materials


Designed by Josh Evans and Nicole Gerling

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Motives: A Curated Show by Josh Evans and Emily Wickizer

Here are a couple of images to document the set-up as well as the opening of our show, which took place on Wednesday, November 9th at the Lycoming College Campus Art Gallery. Our show was titled "Motives" and dealt with the motivation behind human action, questioning if there is necessarily always a defined motive behind the things people choose to do. The show included eight photographs by Penn College graduate Dallas Tyree, two paintings by Lycoming College student Mariah Deparasis, two paintings by Lyco student Jennifer Carter, and a video by Lyco senior Sophie Herzing.

Here is the promotional flyer sent out campus-wide by email:

Special thanks to Dallas, Mariah, Jennifer, and Sophie for allowing us to use their work, and thank you as well to all who attended the show.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Peek-A-Boo

PEEK-A-BOO

An Experience Curated by Jessica Tayson and Joe Troxler

BEFORE

(visiting artist's studios)

AS WE ARE SETTING UP

(filling out condition forms)

!!!THE OPENING!!!

(SO EXCITED)

Just a final note and thank you to everyone who has made this possible!

Monday, October 24, 2016

Lingers - by Jonathan Rummel and Nam Do

LINGERS

A curated show by Jonathan Rummel and Nam Do

October 19th - 21st, 2016

At Lycoming College Campus Gallery

Gallery talk on October 19, 2016, at 2:15pm

Curatorial Statement

There are instances when we experience fleeting images of inconsistency or anomaly in the surroundings. In more unfortunate cases, such illusions might deceive our minds and skew our perceptions to the point where we could no longer get a grip on reality. In essence, these all are mere fabrications of our imagination, which ultimately derive from the experiences of our past.

Addressing this idea, Lingers explores the use of transient imagery and ethereal twists in visual arts as a means of narrative, or clues as to the ingrained and sometimes hidden layers of meaning. In reading these incorporeal elements, the viewer shall gain a deeper insight on how they are shaped by personal experiences, visions, and emotions.

Featured Artwork

Artist and photographer Ralph Wilson drew his inspiration from The Yellow Wallpaper, an 1892 novel by American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in creating an extraordinary series of artwork with the same name. Wilson’s series consists of five black and white photographs that narrate the story of a woman who underwent a therapy called “rest cure,” which essentially employed under-stimulation. The yellow wall-paper depicts the woman imagining people behind the wallpaper and how her mental problem escalated as time went by.

From left to right:

A great many women - digital print on paper, 14 ¾” x 13 ½”

It was moonlight - digital print on paper, 15 ¼” x 12 ¾”

I suppose - digital print on paper, 14 ¾” x 10 ¾”

Out at last - digital print on paper, 13 ¼” x 13 ¼”

Right across my path - digital print on paper, 13 ¾” x 13 ½”

In 2010, Aaron Morgan Brown created the painting Armistice Day, in which a young girl was holding a doll with both arms, while on the window glass behind her were the reflection images of bombs suspended in mid-air. The paradoxical stillness in Armistice Day, as in many others of Brown’s work, reminds us of the nature of an armistice – a temporary suspension – and that under such circumstances, peace can be shattered at any moment.

Armistice Day - oil on panel, 12” x 8”

Tulu Bayar, a Turkish born American artist, chose to address the theme of identity in her series of mixed-media work, Invisible (2011). Featured in Lingers is the video taken directly from this series. It presents the Turkish marbling techniques and occasionally the revolving figure of a person, the two seemingly disjointed yet deeply interwoven. Combining traditional elements with a contemporary examination, Bayar opens up a dialogue on exoticism, Orientalism, and the western perceptions of the Islamic identity.

Invisible - High definition video, duration 3:38

The exhibition also features artwork by Emily Wickizer, a senior at Lycoming College. Her Underwater City (2015) deals with the idea of individual perspectives and how they are shaped by the surrounding environment, each person’s upbringing and past experiences. Another work by Wickizer, Two Ghosts (2014) examines identity, capturing the vaporous figures that represent two facets of a personality: the perception of the self, and the projection of the self.