Girl Fight

When I walked into the Hudson (Show)Room the other day i saw a woman stuck in what looked like a homemade wooden tunnel. She was breathing heavy and looked stressed out. It was Kate Gilmore. I thought, "Is there something on the other side of this homemade wooden tunnel?". She was struggling, it was hard to watch but i couldn't look away. She had built this homemade wooden tunnel too small and got herself stuck in it and filmed it for us to see. I was worried. It looked like she might not make it. It looked like she might give up. I began to cheer for her, go! go! come on! you can do it! you're almost there! stay focused! There was something at the end of that tunnel, glory. She made it out alive and i bet next the time she's squeezed so tight, she'll know she can make it through. It's easy to see her work as illustrations of unhealthy relationships and unhealthy patterns, but also she perseveres with might and endurance. With her videos she gives us hope and knowledge of our own capabilities not just to create unhealthy patterns and homemade wooden tunnels that are too small to crawl through, but to be strong and endure. The glory we have to get for ourselves.

Rose

Rose is a rose is a rose is a... complete bore. Was anyone else completely bored by my latest installation, Rose, which seemed to just fall flat despite it's well lit and groomed appearance as fine art. All the elements of earlier and more successful work were there, so why the failure? I have a hunch it was the separation of the video (on a pedestal) from it's origin (the print) and the mysterious inclusion of the original rose (on the floor). The whole was the sum of the parts, nothing more. If I have an opportunity to show this piece again in the future I will have just the print hanging on the wall with the rose video installed behind it. This will simplify the piece and bring all the elements together making a more enjoyable and coherent work of art. But that's so predictable and just a re-run of earlier work. That was my first thought, so i separated the elements and tried to obviously expose the process and get away from what's already been done. It may have been a failure but i see it as a step in the right direction.

Ray Johnson: Fool or For Real

Ray Johnson born in 1927 attended the experimental Black Mountain College in the late 40's where he studied painting. The college closed in 1957. In 1948 Johnson moved to New York and by 1954 he stopped painting and began creating collages. He is most well known for his founding of the New York School of Correspondance, a network of artists sending mail art to one another. He was also one of the first performance artists, in 1961 he began his Nothings, performances that seemed to have absolutely no rhyme or reason. Ray Johnson was and still remains an enigma. He is known as the most famous unknown artist. In 1968 Johnson disappeared to Long Island and refused to exhibit his work until his death in 1995. In the documentary, How to Draw a Bunny released in 2003, friends of Johnson remember him as some kind of guru, a mystical art shaman who's life and death was a work of art. I'm not sure if Ray Johnson was as he has been described or just fooled everyone with his puns and ciphers. Either way Ray Johnson, with his apathy toward the art world and it's benefits, is an inspiration and a reminder as to why we started making art in the first place.

Artist Statement Spring 2008

i don't want to separate course-work and art work and
art work and life.
new media attracts me becasue of it's nowness. this is
my time. our time.
this semester i would like to discover the balance
between art/life and technology using the now media of
internet, video, and anything electronic mixed with
the good old fashioned, down home medium of sculpture.

Michael Stoltz