Three new shows open tonight at Real Art Ways' Creative Cocktail Hour

Real Art Ways
56 Arbor St., Hartford, (860) 232-1006
Wade Aaron: A Work in Progress
Robin Mandel: Present
LoVid: Rural Electrification
July 15—Sept. 12, 2010.
Opening reception: Thurs., July 15, 6—8 p.m. during Creative Cocktail Hour (Admission: $10/$5 for members)

Press release

Real Art Ways presents three solo exhibitions by Wade Aaron, Robin Mandel, and LoVid, opening on Thurs., July 15, 2010. The exhibitions each encourage viewer interaction with everyday experiences and objects in order to provoke reconsideration of the elements that frame our lives. The opening reception is on Thurs., July 15, 6—8 p.m., during Creative Cocktail Hour. Admission to the opening is $10/$5 for Real Art Ways members. After July 15, admission to the gallery is free for members and cinema patrons, and is otherwise a $3 suggested donation. The three exhibitions run through Sun., Sept. 12.

Aaron, Mandel, and LoVid are selectees from our annual open call for emerging artists, Step Up.

Wade Aaron's work encourages contemplation of the shifting relationship between experience and belief by projecting shadows of figures at work. As the figures build their own object their shadows are frozen, creating a work of overlapping form and function. The artist says, "In all of my work the largest part of my practice is composed of entirely of thinking: Thinking that catalyzes making. Fabrication that catalyzes further thinking."


Robin Mandel will install intricate mechanisms made from household objects to examine how such objects can embody our domestic yearnings. By simply flicking a switch, viewers can make common objects perform for them in ways that will appear to be, at the same time, both ordinary and extraordinary, calling to mind the comfortable absurdity of the domestic experience. Mandel received his Master's Degree in Fine Arts in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2005. Recent work includes an exhibition in progress at the FAWC Fellows Exhibition and Relative Strangers at the Freedman Gallery at Albright College.

LoVid's Rural Electrification will combine audience interaction with exposed electronics, conductive wires and live audiovisual feed to create a narrative of a retro-futuristic coexistence between biological and technological systems. Tactile audience participation will enable individuals to experience otherwise imperceptible connections in extreme collisions of the organic and artificial.


Step Up 2009 was made possible through the support of our members, the Alexander A. Goldfarb Memorial Trust, Howard and Sandy Fromson, Greater Hartford Arts' Council United Arts Campaign, Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, Travelers Foundation, Robinson and Nancy Grover, Gary E. West, National Endowment for the Arts, Lincoln Financial Group, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Nimoy Foundation, and the Ensworth Charitable Foundation.