Shows, including "Pop and Op," opening this Friday at Artspace in New Haven

Artspace
50 Orange St, New Haven, (203) 772-2709
Artspace Summer Apprenticeship Program: Pop and Op
Dana Filibert: Cloud Form
Meghan Grubb: Aurora
Adam Brent: Thread
Crown Street Window Project: Luke Hanscom
Jul. 26—Sept. 7, 2013.
Opening: Fri., Jul. 26, 5—8 p.m.

Artspace Press release

Several new shows open this Friday at Artspace in New Haven, including Pop and Op, featuring work from the 13th Annual Summer Apprenticeship Program. The opening reception will occur from 5—8 p.m.

Pop and Op

Each year Artspace brings New Haven high school students into its galleries for three weeks to work as apprentices with a Master Artist. The 13th annual Summer Apprenticeship Program, with Master Artist Erika Van Natta, will offer Apprentices collaborative opportunities to work in video, photography, and performance. The show’s theme, Pop and Op, reinterprets traditional portraiture by incorporating unconventional materials, such as popsicles, mirrors, and Op art- inspired patterns. By exploring the various roles behind and in front of the camera, Apprentices will help Van Natta to create a series of videos and portraits, which focus on identity construction, visual phenomenon, and the temporality of youth, summer and melting ice cream. An experimental sound piece, entitled "Pop Music," will be created entirely out of hand made “balloon instruments” and performed live at the opening.

Cloud Form

Intrigued by the phenomenon where instilling a corporeal preciousness in objects prevails as an unconscious human need to shape ones identity, Dana Filibert presents her Cloud Form series. These formations utilize iconic animal imagery that maintains a hold on popular culture commodities as fetishized consumer objects and found objects related to the presentation of an idealized image.

Sculptor and installation artist Dana Filibert received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, and an MA and MFA. from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI. Her work invokes humor, creating sculpture that plays with contradictions of attraction and repulsion. Pieces consist primarily of painted sculpture formed using metal, carved foam, and found objects.

Aurora

The Aurora project specifically responds to aspects of the perceptual experience of the Aurora Borealis, as observed in rural northern Norway on the last day of the six-week long polar night in January 2013, and is part of research into the human experience of light in environments that witness extreme daylight conditions. Developing from practices in art, architecture and design, and research into perceptual psychology, optics, and the environment, Meghan Grubb's (Web) work explores questions about how a powerful and mysterious non-physical response may be stirred by the experience of physical space, and how this kind of experience may be translated to, described in, or provoked by a work of art.

Thread

Best described as a joint venture; Thread consists of three major works of the same size and shape. Along with accompanying sculptures Adam Brent will exhibit three versions of a braided rug, each utilizing a different artistic method, continuing his interest in domestic situations and iconography. The work will employ traditional hand braiding and sewing, 3D printing for plastic components, and the hand carving. At roughly 52 inches in diameter, each rug follows the same pattern—designed by the artist in CAD software. Brent’s collaboration with his father sits at the heart of this exhibition; his choice to both carve and print versions of the rug is as much about skill as it is about exhibiting the labor associated with maintaining the bonds that tie families together.

n his solo practice, Adam Brent creates sculptural installations that combine architectural and organic elements to explore issues of nature, reflection, interiors, and structure. He received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1995 and his MFA in sculpture from Parsons The New School For Design in 2001. His work has been exhibited at such notable museums, institutions, and galleries as The Islip Art Museum, The Bronx Museum for Contemporary Art, The Aldrich Museum For Contemporary Art, The New Museum’s Festival of Ideas, and the New York Public Library. His individual and collective work has received critical attention from the Village Voice, The NY Press, Art Critical, Architect Magazine, and the New York Times.

Crown Street Window Project: Luke Hanscom

The Crown Street Window Project invites artists to make street-facing installations along the Crown Street side of Artspace's gallery. Artists create unique works of art in dialogue with the street and the community, utilizing the visibility offered by this location. This summer, the window features the work of local artist Luke Hanscom.

Luke Hanscom grew up in Houston, TX until he moved to Santa Barbara, CA to attend the Brooks Institute of Photography in 2002. Hanscom left California for New York City in 2005, where he worked with leading industry photographers such as Richard Pierce, Peggy Sirota, and Annie Leibovitz. While currently living and working in the Westville Village of New Haven, Hanscom's fine art mixes multiple mediums while placing an emphasis on his strong photographic background and the use of both digital and analogue techniques.