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Couple’s love and love of art on display at American University Museum

Works of art on display.
Works of art on display.

WASHINGTON–An overly-confident, extroverted poet and a timid, war-torn artist found a similar passion for mystical literature that flourished into one artistic relationship. Ten years after the death of 80-year-old Jess Collins, an artist, an art exhibit opens that gives a closer and detailed look into their relationship in the early 1950s called “An Opening of the Field: Jess, Robert Duncan, & Their Circle.” This exhibit was open to all at the American University Museum at Katzen Arts Center on Wednesday. “We predominantly focus on international, political-oriented and local art,” said Lucy Crowley, a senior administrative and marketing assistant at the museum. This exhibit has made its way through the nation and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts. Collins and Robert Duncan, a poet, collaborated to make art based on postmodernism, a late-20th-century style in the arts representing the departure from modernism. Duncan commonly used high-colored crayons and Collins made collages and called them “pastes-ups.” The main themes of Collins’ artwork were chemistry, alchemy, the occult, and male beauty. However, their library had works of Greek myths, Victorian fairy tales and the tarot and Paracelsus, according to the New York Times. Their love for literature translated into their works, despite some different themes. Their artistic style may have been different, but they often showcased their relationship through their artwork. After meeting, they lived together in a house in San Francisco. This can be seen in Jess’ “The Enamord Mage, Translation #6” that’s based off of Duncan’s The Ballad of the Enamord Mage, a love poem about Collins. Their collaborative art changed the creative vision of the upcoming generation of writers and artists. “I had never seen so many materials used,” Genevieve Stegner-Freitag, 20-year-old art major, said about the artwork. To find out more about the Katzen Arts Center, call (202)-885-1300.

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Bader Fund grants opportunities to local artists

Jason Horowitz's "SpaghettiOs with Sliced Franks." Photo by Will Amari.
Jason Horowitz’s “SpaghettiOs with Sliced Franks.” Photo by Will Amari.

WASHINGTON–“The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund: Second Act” is spending the summer at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, continuing the work of its founders to reveal hidden talent in local artists.

Established in 2001 in accordance with Virginia Bader’s will, the Bader Fund provides a minimum of one grant annually to visual artists of at least age 40 living within a 150 mile radius of Washington, D.C. “Second Act” gives the public another look at the art produced by grantees over the past 13 years.

Maia Plesent, a gallery attendant, believes that the fund benefits artists’ development.

“The money goes towards the artists to expand their repertoire and explore new mediums,” Plesent said. “So I think it’s a great way to allow artists to learn and improve their art.”

The exhibit offers a variety of artwork, something that Plesent said makes it interesting.

“I enjoy how different everything is, there’s so many different mediums, so many different types of art in this exhibit,” Plesent said.

Rik Freeman is a narrative painter whose oil on canvas painting Samba na Praia is travelling with “Second Act.”  His art falls on the Bader Fund’s unique spectrum due to its ability to tell stories, a skill which Freeman picked up as a child in Athens, Georgia.

Yukiro Yamaguchi's "Energy," made of hand-cast resin and stainless steel wire. Photo by Melanie Pincus.
Yukiro Yamaguchi’s “Energy,” made of hand-cast resin and stainless steel wire. Photo by Melanie Pincus.

“I would ‘overhear’ grown folks’ conversations and feel their emotions, read a book, listen to music, and there’s a movie going on in my head,” Freeman wrote on his website. “This fueled my artistic style as a narrative painter.”

Stories like Freeman’s can be beneficial in applying for a Bader Fund grant, a process requiring artists to provide a detailed resume and a 1,000-word proposal outlining what receiving a grant would mean for their lives and work as an artist.  This process ensures that selected artists’ “ability to concentrate on their art would be enhanced by receiving a grant,” according to the Bader Fund’s website.

Olivia Whitener, 17, and a participant in a summer program at AU, was unaware of the “Second Act” exhibit at Katzen, but doesn’t think that the fund’s efforts to recognize older artists are necessarily optimum.

“These people should be established,” Whitener said.

However, she still appreciates some benefits of acknowledging a different age group.

“People often support younger artists,” Whitener said. “It’s encouraging people out of the norm.”

To find out more about the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, call 202-885-1300, or visit the museum at 4400 Massachusetts Ave. N.W.

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Messages hidden in metal

WASHINGTON—Splatters of paint, hardware formed in unconventional ways, a message hidden within metal.

These are what consist of BK Adams’ latest exhibit, Mynd Alive, on display this summer at the Katzen Arts Center on the campus of American University in Washington, D.C.

In his artist statement about his works, which are outside in the sculpture garden at Katzen, Adams says, “I present to you Mynd Alive Sculptural Exhibition. Each sculpture tells its own story as do WE…Enjoy.”

In a piece titled “Ladder Me,” Adams forms a chair and places it high on a pole, almost like it’s the grand prize.

A paint splatted chair sits high upon a pole in BK Adams’ sculpture, “Ladder Me.” Photo by Courtney Allen.

In Adams’ writing about “Ladder Me,” the overall message of the sculpture is that before you relax in life, more important things should get done first. Adams’ sculptures speak volumes of color, spirit and individuality.

A message of self-empowerment is displayed in Adams’ “Where Do I Belong.” Similar to “Ladder Me,” the sculpture is of a chair placed high on a stand.

Next to the picture of “Where Do I Belong” in a booklet of his work found at the Katzen Arts Center, Adams’ writes, “If U want 2 B a Teacher, Shoot 4 a PRINCIPAL. If U want 2 B a Lawyer, Shoot 4 a JUDGE. If u wanna B SOMEBODY, shoot 4 YOURSELF.”

A work by BK Adams on display at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center. Photo by Courtney Allen.

Adams, a Washington, D.C.-based artist born in 1972, is self taught. He takes experiences from earlier years to mold his artwork.

According to his biography, located on Adams’ website, “Adams considers himself a Thinker, foremost. It is important to the artist that all of his work has meaning—that it shares a story.”

His works are among six visiting exhibits at the museum this summer, according to Lucy Crowley, an administrative and marketing assistant at the museum.

To find more information about BK Adams, visit his website.

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Brink and Boundary: a multi-sensory experience

WASHINGTON—At first glance it appears to be any ordinary elevator. But it’s actually a work of art.

The ceiling of the elevator is covered with a photo of a plane in flight.

A similar story is told in the emergency stairwell. It appears to be nothing special, but it, too, is a work of art. Walking down the staircase, Alberto Gaitán’s media exhibition is heard but not seen.

Brink and Boundary is a unique artwork exhibition showing at the Katzen Arts Center on the campus of American University in Washington, D.C. All of the different pieces in the exhibition possess multisensory features that set them apart from more traditional forms of art.

Brink and Boundary also makes use of the Katzen Arts Center’s non-exhibition spaces–ones that are “overlooked and forgotten”–such as the emergency stairwell, the elevator, the entryway, and the barrier surrounding the main entrance.

Located within the entryway of the Katzen Arts Center is an auditory exhibition piece that invites visitors to link to a mobile app on their smartphones.

“You had the dream? You had the dream again?” said a voice from an app.

“Yes I dreamed I was choking and couldn’t breathe,” replied another voice.

Halsey Burgund’s piece entitled “Hotel Dreamy,” does not have a physical side but exists digitally in a smartphone application or in a touchscreen terminal, both of which are only able to be used within Katzen Arts Center.

“Hotel Dreamy” is an auditory piece of art that explores dreams and the ways people interpret their dreams.

Burgund’s piece has a unique form of interactivity. The piece allows users to contribute their dreams–using the smartphone application–and their own meanings behind them. Each visitor to the exhibition has the opportunity to help make the exhibit even more unique.

Away from the entryway and “Hotel Dreamy” is Adam Good’s piece “Untitled.”

Does text taken from a from another document and remixed still hold true meaning?
Does text taken from a from another document and remixed still hold true meaning?

“Honey this is your blood to take and make and take and make flow,” the words appear on blue stickers stuck to the

glass walls surrounding the main entrance of the Katzen Arts Center.

Using words that were taken from a scholarship piece by Felix Gonzales-Torres, Good explored whether or not context is essential to understanding words. If words are removed from their original context and arranged in a different way do they still retain their original meaning? This is a question Good tries to answer.

Moving inside the museum’s exhibit space, another artist had a different take on the multisensory exhibition.

Hasan Elahi chose to make use of one of Katzen’s elevators to present his piece entitled, “Sky.”

“Sky” makes up the entire ceiling of an elevator in the Katzen Arts Center, and presents the image of a plane in flight against a gray sky.

The empty sky leaves the viewer wondering about the fate of the flight and “turns the elevator into a mobile site for reflection and a charged form of sky-gazing,” according to the promotional brochure for the exhibit.

The last piece of art in Brinks and Boundary has its entrance on the third floor. In his piece, Gaitán presents a seemingly empty staircase with a loud-high-pitched-acoustic noise.

The audio exhibit called, “Untitled,” is a three-story staircase descending from the third-floor to the first.

As the listener enters the stairwell, they are immediately hit by the high-pitched ringing. This, combined with the echo of their footsteps, creates a sensory overload for the listener, forcing them into a state of hyper sensitivity.

This hyper sensitivity helps provide the viewer with a sense of meditative calm and lets them fully take in the exhibit.

For more information on the exhibits at the museum this summer, visit the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center’s website.

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Stand out pieces at the AU Museum at the Katzen Arts Center

WASHINGTON—Pieces of artwork at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center are all special in their own light but some may just have another dimension to them. Literally.

Two pieces of work by Hadieh Shafie especially stand out because they actually stand out.

Both pieces feature paper handwritten and printed with the word “love” or “passion” in Farsi. The first piece titled “26000” pages was created in 2011 and features colored paper rolled up to make circles of various different sizes, and colors from all across the color spectrum. The piece is part of Shafie’s Katab Series and is owned by Shafie.

The second piece stands out even more than the first. Handcrafted in 2014 the work named “Spike 6” is made out of both acrylic and paper and features the acrylic and paper in a seemingly random arrangement that pops forward toward the center of each circle.

When standing at just the right location, a few steps away from the piece, the work seems to drift closer to the viewer as they focus and stare into the many mesmerizing spikes.

“It feels like it is coming at you,” said Melanie Pincus, 15.

The work is in a private collection.

On the second floor of the building lies a piece of work by Jess, named “The Enamord Mage: Translation #6.”

In the work, a man looks at a book, but when further inspected the painting reveals that it may be more as this painting has been built up in unlikely places such as a glop of paint that intrudes toward the viewer between two books. The piece of art does not have a flat surface and instead is jagged and rough.

“When you back up it is normal but when you get closer it pops out at you,”  said Halle Jefferson, 16.

The two pieces by Shafie will be on display until Aug. 17 in The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund: Second Act exhibition at the Katzen Arts Center at American University in Washington D.C.  The painting by Jess will also be on display until Aug. 17 at the Katzen Arts Center. It is in the An Opening of the Field: Jess, Robert Duncan, & Their Circle exhibition.

For more information visit Katzen Art Center’s website.