"SCRAWL" opens Wednesday at Artspace in New Haven

Artspace
50 Orange St, New Haven, (203) 772-2709
SCRAWL
Feb. 9—Mar. 26, 2011
Opening reception: Wed., Feb. 9, 6:30 p.m.
Artspace Underground: Sat., Mar. 26, 9 p.m.—midnight

Press release

Artspace is pleased to announce SCRAWL, a seven week festival of site-specific drawing and related events. Beginning Feb. 9, 2011, 48 artists will work individually and in teams to transform the landscape of Artspace with simple materials and their own ingenuity.

SCRAWL kicks off on Feb. 9 with Sprint-to-SCRAWL. Beginning at 6:30 p.m., SCRAWLers will race down Crown Street to cross the starting line—a large ribbon in Artspace's front door on Orange Street—and commence drawing! Area musicians will provide a festive soundtrack and refreshments will be available. SCRAWL's major reception, with the work revealed in its entirety, will be at its end, Mar. 25, 2011, from 6—8 p.m.

Each participating artist or team of artists—all of them SCRAWLers—is assigned his or her own portion of wall or floor to work with, which will segue into other participants' space within the main gallery at 50 Orange Street. The SCRAWLers will create their pieces without being able to see what the artists next to them are doing, ultimately collaborating on one giant collective work.


Inspired by the Surrealist's exquisite corpse games, SCRAWL creates an exhibition in an experimental way with minimal means. We start with nothing but bare walls and some markers, which we give over to selected artists, without being able to control the exact outcome. Viewing the working process as it unfolds in real-time and exploring the experimental possibilities of large-scale drawing in a complex interior space are integral to SCRAWL's methodology.

The 48 participating artists were selected by Martha Lewis, SCRAWL's organizer, and include artists at various stages of their career, all unified in excellence of practice and a spirit of ingenuity. The SCRAWLers include:

• Cat Balco • Anna Broell Bresnick • Alexis Brown • Francis Cooke •
• The Futurists: Karen Dow with a team of 12 students from Educational Center for the Arts •
• Laura Gardner • Zachary Keeting • Ken Lovell (and his drawing robot!) • Andres Madariaga •
• Melissa Marks • Maegen McElderry • Tim Nikiforuk • Kerry O'Grady •
• The Sausage Crew: Larissa Hall, Mike Pitassi, & Michael Riley (AKA Queen Larita, MC Sausage, & Dr. BOX)
• Daniel Rios Rodriguez • James Rose • Jean Scott • Rashmi Talpade •
• Team Tele: Maria Lara-Whelpley, Sylvia Hierro, Laura Case, Eleanor Tamsky, and Susan Ferri
• Traffic Lights & Warning Stripes: Vito Bonnano and Justin Crosby •
• Laura Watt •

There will be a dedicated wallspace for the public to come in and draw, and a window space featuring rotating works from the various satellite projects related to SCRAWL. Among these satellite projects:

• PubSCRAWL: Beginning Feb. 15, Artspace's Ninth Square neighbor Firehouse 12 will host an informal “Stitch 'n' Bitch”-style meet up on Tuesday nights between 6—8 p.m. We'll gather to informally draw together, have a drink and record the vibe of the bar.

• Stretching & SCRAWLing: On Feb. 19 at 4 p.m., yoginis from Artspace's Ninth Square neighbor, Fresh Yoga will lead a class within the gallery, offering a challenging opportunity to capture participants as they shift from pose to pose. For artists with some figure drawing experience.

• SCRAWL-TV: Throughout the exhibition, a television in our main gallery screens stop-motion animated videos of drawings, submitted by artists from around the world!

• Corpse in the Mail: A viral mail-art project, in which participants create an
illustrated alphabet and exquisite corpse drawing through the post, while sharing their contributions online through social media sites. The resulting book will be returned to Artspace and displayed in the Crown Street window.

• Artspace Underground will take place in SCRAWL on Mar. 26, 2011. The Underground is an after-hours party bringing alternative music, experimental time-based art, and cutting-edge performances to the gallery space.

Additionally, we are happy to announce a partnership with the Yale Center for British Art: artist Rebecca Salter will execute a work on the Artspace gallery walls in collaboration with students from Coop High School for the Arts and Humanities. The process will be documented and turned into a stop-motion animated film, shown in conjunction with her exhibit Into the Light of Things at the Yale Center for British Art.

Throughout the festival, Artspace will be open to students to come observe the drawing unfold and take part in drawing activities. Interested school and community groups are welcome to contact Artspace to arrange a workshop or visit. An art therapy group from the Veterans Administration in West Haven, Connecticut, will be joining us, as well as student groups from area high schools.

SCRAWL is also being conducted in tandem with the Aldrich Museum's Draw On! Festival. Children visiting Artspace will have the opportunity to draw in a flip book that will be completed by their peers at the Aldrich Museum. On Sunday, Feb. 20, 2011, Artspace hosts one of two drawing workshops led by master artist James Esber, with the other workshop taking place at the Aldrich Museum in March. Esber has been called “an artist working at the top of his game” by The New York Times.

SCRAWL will be unveiled in its entirety at a closing reception on Mar. 25, 2011 where visitors will have the opportunity to discuss the work with the artists.