Drawing in the moment: a "happening" at Artspace

Artspace
50 Orange St, New Haven, (203) 772-2709
Saturday "happening": Colleen Coleman: Ode to Walter Benjamin
May 5, 2012.

This past Saturday, as part of the opening reception for several shows, Artspace presented the first in a series of Saturday evening "happenings" slated for this month. Saturday's "happening" featured artist Colleen Coleman in a drawing performance "Ode to Walter Benjamin." Benjamin was a renowned 20th century German-Jewish cultural theorist. Among his well-known essays is "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," written in 1936.

Coleman's "endurance piece," as Artspace director Helen Kauder describes it, is part drawing, part dance. Holding a thick, dark slab of raw graphite in her hand—in both hands, depending on the gesture—she cranks swirls of kinetic circles on the long free-standing wall in the main gallery. Stopping for a moment, she offers her outstretched palms to the audience, black graphite glistening on coffee-colored skin.


Related to the dance aspect, the performance is almost musical, as well. In its rhythms, it resembles a free improvisation concert: flurries of noisy energy dissipating into pregnant quiet, only to build up again to another crescendo. This association is reinforced by the sound aspect of Coleman's effort, the whirring white noise of the graphite gliding against the wall, the occasional percussive SNAP! Of the graphite chunk striking the surface.

Circles. Circles within circles within circles and the long flowing lines from one end of the wall to the other, some drawn languidly as Coleman seeks to catch her breath, others applied in a graceful sprint the length of the wall, punctuated with a leap that registers as a black linear arc.


It's a high wire act. Do you end up with something that has an aesthetic integrity outside the performance of its creation? In a way, that's a bonus if it happens because this is gestural drawing as performance art, dance, creation in the moment, Pollock's "action paintings" taken out onto a stage.

For a short moment, Coleman settles into repeated figure-eight swirls, the infinity symbol, the infinite possibilities inherent in mark making, art-making, the musical rhythm flow. Conscious art—yes, thinking the whole time, in the moment—but also pushing beyond the conscious to the visceral physical, the ecstatic joy of graffitizing a white wall with scribbly black marks, that outside-of-consciousness pleasure. The highest curves chart the peak of Coleman's leap, jumping with hand extended, reaching for the stars.

I expect to take in 15 minutes or so of Coleman's performance, which was supposed to last up to two hours. But it is surprisingly compelling and I'm absorbed through to its conclusion, when Coleman reaches the limit of her athletic endurance 10 or 15 minutes beyond an hour.

Ryan Brennan show opens this evening at Real Art Ways in Hartford

Real Art Ways
56 Arbor St., Hartford, (860) 232-1006
Daxin Wu: Currency Portraits
Dec. 16, 2010—Feb. 13, 2011.
Opening reception and Creative Cocktail Hour on Thurs. Dec. 16, 6—8 p.m.

Press release

Close Your Eyes and Look As Far As You Can See, an exhibition by Ryan V. Brennan at Real Art Ways, invites viewers to become participants in the world in unexpected, whimsical and often humorous ways using collage, video and performance art. The exhibition will be on view through Feb. 13, 2011.

There will be an opening reception for the show on Thurs., Dec. 16, 2010 from 6—8 p.m. as part of Creative Cocktail Hour, Real Art Ways' monthly gathering for creative people. Creative Cocktail Hour is $10/$5 for Real Art Ways members.

The show's title work, Close Your Eyes and Look As Far As You Can See, is what Brennan calls a "cinemallage": a piece that serves as the set and viewing platform for a stop animation movie. In this work, a dreaming young man—embodied in a plastic toy astronaut—explores a vibrant utopian landscape. Told in the naive language of a fairytale, the story belies a deeper narrative of the quest for self-discovery.

The exhibition will also include Brennan's Living Exercises Project, a series of instructions designed to facilitate introspective, cathartic and enlightening experiences. Exercises include "Hold Hands with a Stranger" and "Ten-Minute Communal Solitude and Silence." The exhibition displays footage of people performing the exercises, and there will be bound books of instructions available at the opening.

Also in the Real Art Ways galleries, Olu Oguibe's Wall and Saya Woolfalk's Institute of Empathy are on display through March 20, 2011.

Ryan V. Brennan (b. Cincinnati, Ohio 1982) has exhibited in Chicago, New York City, Miami, Richmond and San Francisco as well as internationally in France. He has shown in Scope New York 10, Scope Miami 09, Scope Hamptons 07 and LA Art Fair 08/09. Ryan received the Jonathan Madrigano Fellowship for the Arts through the National Arts Club in 2010.

He also was the recipient of a full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center in 2006 and has been featured in a variety of publications including The New York Times, Beautiful/Decay LA, Daily Serving, The Sunday Paper, Atlanta, Biscayne Times Miami, and Savannah Morning News.

Artist Statement:

Cinemallage Series 2008-09

Cinemallage: pieces that are simultaneously the set and viewing platform for stop animation movies.

Housed within each collage is a video player displaying chapters of an imaginative tale of a young mans journey through a future utopian fantasy world where he learns how the power of imagination can make a change in the world around him. This story employs the naïve language of fairytale as a vehicle to engage several real issues in today's society evoking hope and community in a trying time of uncertain future.

Following the protagonist through this future utopian world we come across many characters who discuss various concerns we face today such as recession, credit and mortgage crisis, global warming, social inequality, and modern food production. The characters give insight into how they overcame such challenges and offer the power of imagination as a means for hope for a better future.

Living Exercises Project 2009-10

An ongoing performance project based on a series of instructions to be done sometimes privately or publicly, aimed to broaden one's perspective personally and socially. Recorded in the form of an instructional handmade book of exercises to be done along, with friends, family and strangers, the series facilitates introspective, cathartic and enlightening experiences. Included with the handmade books are DVDs documenting several recent performances described within the book.