"The Weekend Inventor" opens Thursday at Artspace

Artspace
50 Orange St, New Haven, (203) 772-2709
The Weekend Inventor
Sept. 17—Oct. 31, 2009
Public Opening: Thurs., Sept. 17, 6—8 p.m.

Press release

The Weekend Inventor is a group exhibition that explores the continuously evolving relationship between art, technology, and innovation. Inspired by the mathematical equations, diagrams, maps, and models used by engineers and inventors that attempt to give visual form to complex thought and problem-solving endeavors, the artists in this exhibition employ similar analytical and pictorial strategies, creating works of art that question or subvert notions of stability and utility long associated with technology. In their works, fragmented machine parts, devices, and plans are put to new, at times inventive and absurd, use.

Although these artists work in a variety of media ranging from painting and drawing to high-definition video and sculpture, their works have much in common. They share a formal concern for space and material, an interest in the experimental and nonsensical, and an entrepreneurial ethos that underscores the "do it yourself" attitude that has recently re-emerged in the 21st century. Like the hobbyist-inventor whose ceaseless tinkering is driven by an intense curiosity and a need to create, the artists in this exhibition are fueled by their own imaginations as they push the conceptual boundaries of utility through physical materials, expose the fragility of belief systems, and explore society's resistance to the notion of failure.

Artspace will produce an exhibition catalogue that contextualizes the work by these emerging artists, contributing new scholarship to the broader art historical debate around art and technology. Committed to fostering the careers of New Haven artists, Artspace will commission Martha Lewis to create a site-specific installation in the gallery that participates in these debates. Participating artists include: Nathan Carter, Molly Larkey, Martha Lewis, Billy Malone, Peter Sarkisian, Jeff Shore and Jon Fisher, and Jane South.