Sean Connaughty

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terraforming at Soo VAC

Sean Connaughty 2012 30x19x13" glass, water, hydraulic cement, porcelain, soil biota, plants, aquarium electronics

terraforming at Soo VAC | Media List

terraforming at Soo VAC
Sean Connaughty 2012 30x19x13" glass, water, hydraulic cement, porcelain, soil biota, plants, aquarium electronics

Statement

Sean Connaughty 2012 part of Untitled 9 exhibit juror Chris Larson

Reviews

SooVAC's latest show features art in crawl spaces, closets, and on walls

By Sheila Regan Fri., Nov. 9 2012 at 10:24 AM

http://blogs.citypages.com/dressingroom/IMG_20121107_154731.jpg

Work by Sean Connaughty

This Saturday, the Soo Visual Arts Center opens its "9th Annual Juried Exhibition." The show features an eclectic mix of photography, collage, video, drawings, and installation curated by University of Minnesota assistant professor Chris Larson. The work in "Untitled 9" can be seen in some curious spaces -- a broom closet, the crawl space behind walls, in the office -- and all of the pieces have a sense of camouflage and transformation.

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Work by Rachel Breen

"Through a quiet sense of natural wonder," writes Larson on SooVAC's website, "13 artists noiselessly manipulate, cut, dissect, blur, and disintegrate architecture, bodies, and the landscape. Murmuring." Indeed, while the art varies in genre and style, Larson has put together a collection of work that is shifting and hidden.

The most notable example is an installation by Leslie Kelman, on display in the crawl space between two walls. You can only see it if you peek your head in through the broom closet, or look in through a window on the side of the building. It's meant to be uncomfortable, says SooVAC executive director Carolyn Payne, and explores both an unusable domestic space and an unusable industrial space.

http://blogs.citypages.com/dressingroom/Matthew%20Yaeger.jpg

Work by Matthew Yaeger

There's also an installation by Sean Connaughty, built in a space that used to be a closet. A wall has been built over it, with a window that allows you to look into an aquarium. Inside the aquarium are concrete floats with plants inside of them. It's rather space agey, and like much of Connaughty's work, uses natural and living materials to create a world that is both alive and strange.

Then there's Rachel Breen's interesting piece of copper. It's covered up with black paper which has been torn and has holes poked all over it, creating a pattern. The copper shimmers through, glowing, a hidden source of light.

There are a couple of video pieces in the show, including a work by Timothy Barnes that includes footage of a window drape set to Kenny G music, and Sara Wichterman's video about humans and fire.

A number of pieces in the show deal with architectural forms. Matthew Yaeger's wall construction looks like a fort made of wood, paper, plastic, and other miscellaneous items. It's a kind of skyscraper made of random materials that look as if they could have been accidentally assembled that way. Matthew Winkler also has an architectural type of piece made of paper folded and cut in an intricate pattern that creates wonderful shadows on the wall. Noel Worden's photograph, and Jesse Drexler's M.C. Escher-like collage also deal with architecture and the idea of a thing not being exactly what it seems.

Other artists featured in the exhibit include mixed-media work by Mary Bergs, photography by Monica Howell and Joseph Kaercher, and Haley Prochnow's very interesting collage work.

IF YOU GO:

"Untitled 9: SooVAC's 9th Annual Juried Exhibition"
November 10 through December 30
There will be an opening reception from 6-9 p.m. Saturday, November 10
Soo Visual Arts Center
2638 Lyndale Ave. S., Minneapolis

Friday, November 9, 2012
Chris Larson Holds Our Hand, Tells Us We’ll Make it Through Another Winter
By Gregory J. Scott
http://www.minnesotamonthly.com/core/includes/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=/media/Blogs/Twin-Cities-Culture/November-2012/Chris-Larson-Holds-Our-Hand-Tells-Us-Well-Make-it-Through-Another-Winter/TCCultureVisualArts.jpg&w=200&q=100
Is it just us, or is the local art scene wrapping up the 2012 season with unusual bombast? In just the last week alone, we’ve seen David Byrne, of Talking Heads fame, swoop into Minneapolis with an epic John Cage impression, converting a warehouse into a wheezing, plinking, post-music fantasia. We’ve seen Madonna splatter a dude’s brains with a gunshot blast on the stage of the Xcel. And the Walker just welcomed MOMA’s Cindy Sherman retrospective with a blockbuster, come-as-you-aren’t party, replete with make-up artists and costume stylists.

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By Haley Prochnow, courtesy SooVAC

Fun stuff, for sure. But as we stare down another winter, we’ve got a hankering for something quieter, more meditational, maybe even melancholic—a little pathos for the ruminative slide into the darker months. Where can we get that?

Well, if you’re around this weekend, you can get it at Soo Visual Arts Center. The Uptown art space opens its ninth-annual juried show, and this year’s competition was judged by a big-name doozy of a local artist: the adored prairie-land poet Chris Larson.

We have loved pretty much everything this guy has ever done. Remember when he drenched a quaint rural cottage in thick sheets of ice? Or when he installed that strange tree house in the Walker Art Center, breaking hearts with sense memories tied to the scent of wood? Or how about when he arranged shotgun-blasted wood sculpture in the hoity-toity Chambers hotel? Larson is often referred to as our most quintessentially “Minnesotan” artist—which is maybe unfair and too limiting. But his work evokes a very place-specific introspection; his aesthetic is that of snow-muffled farmland sounds. And with the SooVAC show, we get to peek into his artist’s mind.

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By Jesse Draxler, courtesy SooVAC

So what did he pick? In his words, “murmuring” works from local artists that “noiselessly manipulate, cut, dissect, blur, and disintegrate architecture, bodies, and the landscape.” Sounds about right.

Stand-out names include collage man Jesse Draxler, whose architectural deconstructions seem to merge M C Esher with the opening sequence from The Twilight Zone, and Sean Connaughty, who’s known for his slightly alien “pods” made from earth materials. But on preview, we’re most impressed with delicate collages from Haley Prochnow. We’re most intrigued by the promise of hidden crawlspaces behind the gallery walls, installed by Leslie Kelman.

Check SooVAC’s website for a full listing of the artists. Or, better yet, swing in Saturday, November 10, for the opening. See you there.

Untitled 9, juried by Chris Larson
Opening reception Saturday, November 10, 6–9 p.m.
Soo Visual Arts Center, 2638 Lyndale Ave.S., Mpls.
soovac.org

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