Artadia Boston 2007

Date: April 18- June 15, 2008
The Mills Gallery

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Inaugural Artadia Boston 2007 on View at Boston Center for the Arts Mills Gallery

Boston, MA –        The Boston Center for the Arts welcomes the exhibition Artadia Boston 2007 at the Mills Gallery on view from April 18 to June 15, 2008. The opening reception is April 18 from 6-8 pm. The exhibition features the works of ten Boston-based artists selected last year by distinguished curators from around the United States through Artadia’s rigorous jury process: Hannah Barrett, Gerry Bergstein, Xiaowei Chen, Jane Marsching, Helen Mirra, The National Bitter Melon Council, John Osorio-Buck, Vaughn Sills, Mary Ellen Strom, and Stephen Tourlentes. The awardees were drawn from a record applicant pool of nearly 700 Boston-based artists, and chosen by a nationally recognized jury comprised of Pieranna Cavalchini, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Michael Darling, Contemporary Curator at the Seattle Art Museum; and Rene de Guzman, now Senior Curator, Oakland Museum of California.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino acknowledged, "It is with great pleasure that Artadia and the City of Boston honor these fine artists who represent the best of Boston's creativity and talent.” Christopher Vroom, Artadia’s founder noted, “After several years of planning, we are thrilled to add such a vibrant community to Artadia’s growing network. By so doing, we hope to sustain and celebrate artistic practice that is so vital to our creative culture.”

Boston is the fourth city in Artadia’s national awards program. The organization also administers successful programs and awards in Houston, San Francisco and Chicago. Artadia has partnered with the Boston Center for the Arts, local foundations and private patrons of the arts who recognize the importance of unrestricted funding to visual artists at the local level. Boston partners include an Anonymous family foundation, the LEF Foundation, and the NLT Foundation.

 In the catalogue essay written by exhibition curator Laura Donaldson, she describes the exhibit’s vitality:  

“While there are themes and through lines to be found among the artists selected – social activism integrated into artistic practice, an interest in scientific research as source, collaboration and cross-disciplinary approaches, documentation, art historical reference, the natural world and how we relate to it- this group is notable for its diversity of aesthetics, viewpoints, and media.”

Hannah Barrett paints invented portraits based on collage. Her most recent work draws on photos and paintings of figures from the 19th century. This series focuses on the invention of unique and plausible characters that, through their faithful mimicking of the tonal atmosphere of the source images, suggest an alternative 19th century of hermaphrodites and drag kings.

Gerry Bergstein’s newest works combine painting and collage that reflect his wide range of influences, from Fra Angelico to R. Crumb. He states that these works “relate to my interest in art ideologies as a metaphor for wider ideological struggles, and to my life long love hate relationships with art and life.”

Xiaowei Chen’s intricately detailed black and white ink drawings explore themes of birth and re-birth, with man and nature complexly intertwined. There are elements of surrealism in the fantastical melting bodies, as well as references to traditional Chinese scroll paintings in the composition and structuring of the drawings.

Jane Marsching’s on-going project, Arctic Listening Post, draws upon scientific data from a wide array of arctic research to explore our human relationship to the impact of climate change both historically and into the future. Pulling additional content from various sources including the Internet, science fiction illustrations, and historical source material, she weaves the complexities of the "real" visions and representations of the North Pole and the Arctic with an artistic sense of imagination and "narrative wonder".

Helen Mirra creates conceptually driven works in a range of media, including sound, text, and sculpture. For Artadia Boston 2007 she will present a sound piece created specifically for The Cyclorama. In this large, open space, built at the end of the nineteenth century to showcase a mural depicting the Battle of Gettysburg, Mirra will perform on a small set of custom made drums.

The National Bitter Melon Council, an artist collective that includes Hiroko Kikuchi, Jeremy Chi-Ming Liu and Andi Sutton, creates interactive public events incorporating performance art and community development/activist practices. The NBMC employs the foreignness of the bitter melon vegetable and the concept of its flavor,  as an alternative basis for community and engagement. In addition to their work at the gallery, they will celebrate Goya Appreciation Day at the gallery in May.

John Osorio-Buck creates works taking on issues of urban housing, sustainability and self-reliance. The artist has built a number of temporary housing structures out of recycled and nontraditional materials, and has lived in them on the streets, in galleries and on the water. For this exhibition, he will build a kiosk in the gallery and a green house in the BCA garden to grow vegetables. Every Friday evening during the exhibition (except for the opening evening), he will make a communal soup in the kiosk with the vegetables he has grown, along with ingredients brought by gallery visitors.

Vaughn Sills’ series Places for the Spirit documents the gardens of African-Americans in the South.  Her photographs capture a distinctive aesthetic that has been shaped by geography, economics, and cultural and historical traditions, while acting as vibrant reminders of the value of preserving traditions and regional identity.

Mary Ellen Strom creates video installations and site-specific projects that integrate collaboration, performance, and art historical references. In this exhibition, Strom will show two works created with choreographer and artist Ann Carlson, along with non-artists. In one of these works her collaborators are four day laborers, and in the other it is four lawyers.

Stephen Tourlentes' on-going series of black and white photographs explores the sites and geography of the burgeoning prison industry in the United States. Shot at night and usually from a distance, the works present the prisons as glowing oases. Otherworldly and mysterious, the photos serve to bring to light what is often hidden in plain sight.

Artadia Public Programs
 

About Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue

Investment banker and art collector Christopher E. Vroom founded Artadia as the nonprofit The ArtCouncil in 1997, as a response to the demise of the National Endowment for the Arts’ artist fellowships. The first awards were distributed in San Francisco, where Vroom was living at the time. Chicago was added as a program city in 2001. In 2003, Artadia added Houston to its roster, and a Boston program was added in 2007. Once Artadia commits to a community, it returns every other year to run its awards programs and, on the off years, it co-sponsors a public program with a local institution. Started as an individual’s philanthropic endeavor, Artadia is expanding its base of support by recruiting art patrons from across the United States to join its National Advisory Council and Board. Artadia has been based in New York City since 2002.  

Artadia Awards are determined through a rigorous jury process that employs nationally prominent curators, artists, and critics to review applications open to all artists living and working in program communities. Artadia partners with local foundations and individuals in the host cities to raise funds that go directly to artists in that community. Artadia matches those contributions by providing the funds to administer the program. Once an artist receives an Artadia Award, he or she becomes part of a national network of support forever. Since its founding, Artadia has awarded over $2 million to more than 200 artists in its participating cities.

Over the next year, Artadia will also present events and programming in New York, Atlanta, and Miami. Upcoming programs are intended to not only demonstrate the tremendous creativity in partner communities, but also facilitate exchange and dialogue nationwide. A fully illustrated catalogue has been published for the show to commemorate the inaugural Artadia Awards in Boston.

In conjunction with the Artadia exhibition, there will be a series of public programs. For more information on these, please visit www.bcaonline.org.

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The Boston Center for the Arts is the not-for-profit performing and visual arts complex that supports working artists to create, perform and exhibit new works, builds new audiences, and connects art to community.

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