Barbara Kreft, Blue Bidis, Oil, 2002
the universe
no words dot by dot breath by breath


Patrick Holbrook, Secret of the Boys Room, Inkjet, 2004
Georgia
Despite my current identification with and advocacy
for the underdog, I was semi-'popular' in middle
school. I did some mean things in those days, which I
don't like to admit and hate myself for. Through
bittersweet humor, 'Secret of the Boys Room' explores
these memories, karma, and the sickening construction
of white, middle-class masculinity.


Adam Holloway, Ghery Mandala, 2003
Colorado

Perhaps I am not the best person to represent Colorado with a statement about its art. Until recently, visual art hasn’t been one of the first things that came to mind when thinking of my favorite aspects about this fair city, in this majestic state where I presently reside. But that is changing…Denver has a growing number of “eclectic alternative” art spaces. During the three-and-a-half years that I have lived here, I have witnessed the transformation and improvement of the local arts landscape. I can now use most, if not all fingers on one hand to count art venues in Denver that are showing interesting visual art: www.theconstruct.org, www.pirateart.org, www.corenewartspace.com, www.andenken.com. To show work in most of the art spaces here, one has to submit slides and apply for membership onto the “stable” of artists represented by the gallery. Rarely, some of the galleries will have an open call-for-entries for a group show featuring non-members. When I’ve got new work to show, I try to get into these group exhibitions. It has taken a while for me to feel rooted in this place. Becoming involved with the “arts community” is a slow, and somewhat reluctant process. I have relegated myself to the fringe of this community. In combination with my seemingly involuntary tendency toward detachment from most things and people, I also struggle with ambivalence about the art “scene”. My relative lack of involvement is something that I have an increasing desire to change, and I have recently begun to make more of an effort to connect with other artists, and to seek more ways to participate.

B. Kelley, Modern Day Shepherd, Acrylic, 2004
GOD works through many places and many people. He is working through me
here in Minneapolis.





David Enblom, Display, Inkjet, 2004
Oklahoma

Here is 'my' statement:
"When one undergoes the examination of the outside
world, one also pronounces one’s own sentence. In
fact, one’s choice is "round trip." From the demands
of the shop windows, from the inevitable response to
shop windows, my choice is determined. No obstinacy,
ad absurdum, of hiding the coition through a glass
pane with one or many objects of the glass window. The
penalty consists in cutting the pane and in feeling
regret as soon as the possession is consummated."

Marcel Duchamp, The White Box:notes on the Large Glass
Neuilly 1913



Mary Bowman, Unauthorized Vegetables, Oil, 2003


Bram Renko, Lachesis II, mixed media, 2003
New York
On memory and reproduction, and the systemic attributes of the
terminal.


Caroline Karlen, Bush Balls, mixed media, 2004
Texas

Well here it is. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out the way I’d planned. This was supposed to be a noose entitled “Bush’s Balls” (native ball moss from Texas- 322 executions and going strong). But the noose form kept breaking.


Clea Felien, Untitled, Mixed Media, 2004
New York

Having lived in Brooklyn for 7 years, I consider it my home away from home. I grew up in a real way timing the trains going into Manhattan so I wouldn’t be late (3 1/2 minutes for each stop on the D & Q line the F, N & R were longer). I would walk across the Guanis canal (a green sludge body of what used to be water) to my job in Red Hook. Early in the morning in the summer the air is permeated with a dusty sour smell, the aroma of car exhaust, industry, garbage, and humanity. Sidewalks and streets crack and bulge from the 8+ million people moving across them. You can see history just by looking at where the concrete of the curb meets the tar of the street. The streets are fluid and like wrinkles on an old persons face. Brooklyn is a beautiful, colorful, noisy, aromatic place. All of your senses are stimulated in Brooklyn.

Kelly Clark, Untitled, Mixed Media, 2004
the state of kansas

Before moving here, my knowledge of Kansas’ people, places,
and history was limited to L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz,
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, and the rock band of the same name.
However, in the last year-- the length of my stay so far—I
Have developed my own view of the state. It seems to me-- and I say all of this as a complete outsider—that Kansas is a state in flux.
My little town of Lawrence, for instance, has cosmopolitan
pretensions, wishing itself a satellite of New York City. Drive two
hours in any direction though and one will find a landscape and a
people comfortably, stubbornly, adhering to midwestern traditions.
The horsemen in this little drawing exhibit a similar
confusion. Their forms blurred, their identities obscure, they move in all directions, following a star. Once a homogenous pack, these modern
riders are now a sketchy, diverse group. They, like my current home,
are undergoing changes.



Dan Kaneiss, Untitled, Mixed Media, 2004
Wisconsin

We view information and comprehend it today in different fashions. How
do aesthetic conventions address this language?



Sarah Peters, Starkweather’s Grave, Plaster, 2004
Nebraska

Starkweather’s Grave
Nebraska isn’t famous for all that much. We started Arbor Day, produced Willa Cather, and hosted the tragic life of Brandon Teena. Our college football team, the Cornhuskers, won at least two national championships and people come from all over the world to run the Lincoln Marathon. Nebraskans will tell you that Johnny Carson is from our state, but I don’t think anyone else knows that.
Growing up in Nebraska and learning about our state history made me feel like we contributed far less to the nation than important places like the 13 original colonies and the Alamo. Traversing The Oregon Trail in computer class gave me a new appreciation for the pioneers, but the goal was clearly to steer your covered wagon through Nebraska; not wind up there. Learning about Native American History could have been enlightening, but we were taught about the Plains People as though they were dead and gone, making field trips to the Nebraska State Historical Society to look at fake teepees and paintings of bison less than interesting.
When it came to boasting of famous things about my state, The Little House on the Prairie books and the majestic Capitol Building complete with vaulted polychrome tile ceilings, just didn’t stand up, especially to out-of-state cousins. Thus, I turned to the darker tails of Nebraska’s history to bolster my state pride: teenage mass murderers.
On June 25, 1959 twenty-one year old Charlie Starkweather was put to death in the electric chair at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. He was found guilty of murdering 11 people in five states during a killing spree that included a convenience store robbery, several stolen get-a-way cars, and a Bonnie and Clyde style romance with fourteen year old Caril Fugate—Charlie’s girlfriend and partner in crime. Starting in the capitol city of Lincoln with the murder of Caril’s parents and little sister, their spree continued for several days and ended with their capture in Wyoming.
I am not one of those people who is obsessed with serial killers, but I am interested in the mythology created around Starkweather and Fugate that lives on in our imaginations. For instance, rumor had it that locked in the basement of Irving Junior High School was a desk that belonged to Starkweather in which he had supposedly carved his name. Every year someone would skip out on gym and try to find it. Nothing ever turned up, but the story was passed down from generation to generation.
The most prominent and frequently sought out remnant of Starkweather is his grave. He is buried at Wyuka Cemetery, one of Lincoln’s oldest “places of rest.” Originally designed as a public park, this 80 acre space features curving brick roads, huge trees and statues of angels watching over tombstones. Locating Starkweather’s grave in this historical site is no easy task, and one that captures the hearts of teenagers sick with spring fever.
The hunt for Starkweather’s grave was an option on any given summer night: hang out at The Coffee House; go to a cheap movie at The Starship; try to find Starkweather’s grave. I got lost and subsequently locked into Wyuka for four hours when I went to find Charlie. When my friend and I finally stumbled across the grave, I was surprised to find such a simple tombstone. Nothing about it denoted his unique role in the history of crime, or the horrible that way he died. He was memorialized like every other dead person in the place who couldn’t afford a concrete seraphim to guard their soul. Looking at his grave you would never guess that this man’s life inspired four films and one Bruce Springsteen album.
Starkweather’s story is a wild and romanticized piece of our history. It is a unique anecdote used to impress visitors. It is a tale that reaches all the way to Hollywood. For a “fly-over state” that is indistinguishable to some from the rest of middle America, it is something that separates Nebraska’s corn fields from those of Kansas and the Dakotas. After all, the title track on Nebraska wasn’t written about some guy from Iowa.




Katinka Galanos, Help Me Obi Wan, Basswood, Audio 2003







Michael Marcos, Niagra, Inkjet, 2002
New York

"A raging torrent of emotion (and honeymooners) that nature cannot
control!"
On the border between two states of circumstance and existence.
Two countries.
Two states of mind and being.
Benign Canada and the Imperious United States of America.
Overlooked by the indifferent Tower.





Vito Galisto, Utah, Inkjet, 2002






Darrin Little, towards x, C-print, 2003
District of Columbia



As the world is in chaos, so the work seems to be. Paradoxically organized to be sure, like Israeli attack helicopters over the Gaza Strip, or al Qaeda terrorists in Madrid on March 11th, or as the U.S. Military will be tomorrow in N. Korea and Iran. Bush, Cheney, Kerry. Donald Judd and Ashley Bickerton meet the wise-ass Mike Kelley/Jason Rhoades American Idol Search. The Mall of America is a terrorist movie in four parts. Are Britney Spears' breasts real? "The American Museum of Iraqi Art." So much of the daily information we receive seems stained with apocalyptic imminence. The eternal ideal of a classic, heroic beauty cross-fades into the charred, burnt-out aftermath of a suicide bomber's jihad. Pull out your machete and hack your way through Fox News and The BBC World Report to arrive at The Minneapolis Institute of Art, the misery and confusion peal away like yesterday's soiled band-aid. Artists project their unconscious desires and desperate situations onto other people as a reflex to mass media's projections onto them. Photography facilitates this process: an easy tool, a common language. Like the 9mm round, ubiquitous. Meant after all for encoding, not decoding.













Alexa Horchowski, Untitled, Mixed Media, 1999
Missouri




Gregory Euclide, Emitting Pool, Mixed Media, 2002



Sean Smuda, Allegory of the Tree of Life, C-print, 2004




Luc Vandervelde, Young Mother’s Funeral, Oil, 2004
Boston/Belgium

The paintings of the project “Liknu” represent an assembly of collected images from my stay in Central Asia and North India. They reflect the people and the current society of those visited countries which have been intensively marked by the past. Liknu is a (re)search of the daily living problems and the vulnerability of other cultures.

Liknu treats for example the survival-pressure of a nation that has been dominated by the Soviets and where the people here lost there common sense and identity. Are their people the artificial creation of Stalin? In Oezbekistan any opposition is kept silent and the press is controlled by the government using as an excuse the fear of extremist Muslims taking over power.

In India, on the contrary, one is allowed to experience life in its roughest manifestations. Everyone is confronted with daily living problems in the harshest way and cannot avoid watching it. For thousand of years, generations upon generations have been born, lived and died here, leaving behind layers upon layers of stuff. Buildings, material objects, religious art, piles of garbage – all are mixed up and thrown upon the earth in one sweeping wave.

My paintings are based on pictures taken of those people, collected photos, objects and landscapes sometimes combined with symbolic motifs. Those motifs may have a religious significance and refer to the rich past.
Some of the people are intentionally portrayed in the past; especially the older generation who like to refer to the carefree past of the Communist period. The portraits are based on photos of their youth which I received from those people I met during my travels.



Ben Riesman, Silent Film 1, 1-minute 16mm film loop, 2004
Connecticut

Some friends and I once stole yard signs for a man named Hamzy running for the position of High Sheriff in Goshen, CT. He was sporting such a silly grin that we thought they’d make good souvenirs. On further inspection of our trophies, we saw that in fact these were recycled signs from an earlier campaign Mr. Hamzy must have had for the position of mayor. “High Sheriff” had been printed on a not-quite opaque sticker, and we rejoiced in this discovery. Hamzy’s status jumped up to near iconic that summer. My friend and I were at the county fair a few weeks later, and realized that Hamzy was there – he had a booth and was shaking hands. We stood in line, and told him we had his lawn signs and shook his hand, and eagerly accepted his offer of Hamzy balloons and tongue-depressors. Our hero. When does irony stop and true admiration begin?



Sean Connaughty, Highly Specific Residue, Inkjet, 2004
Georgia














Tonya Thornton, Once upon a Flower; plastic flowers, green garland, 2004
SnowFlowers, plastic flowers, knitting needles, fantasy snow, wood, 2002
Florida

Flamingo Gardens
Strange Beauty of Disney World
Winterless Christmas





Amy Kern, Container, Styrene, Mirror, 2003
Texas
The sculpture made of vacuum-formed styrene and mirror collapses ideas of vanity and violence, surface and philosophical resolve, and individual and social responsibility into an accessible and minimal form. My intention is for the piece’s first reading to be led by any personal combination of these ideas. The elements of the work’s architecture are simple for that purpose: the material indicates mass production; the gun implicates violence (whether self-inflicted or otherwise); and the mirror allows a means for self-identification (interchangeably in the context of vanity and self-awareness). The elements and ideas invariably play off each other and bore a black hole through the initial reception of the work. Thus, more reflection is beckoned from the viewer.



Jesse Petersen, Untitled, Oil, 2003
Stateless


Dr. Somneblex (Jesse Thibadoux), My Secret Life as a Ninja/the Rebel Past of Grizzly Adams, Inkjet, 2004
Iowa














Scott Penkava, Vomit, Mixed Media, 2004
Alaska

1. Salability is a lousy reason to make artistic decisions; most likely no one will buy the work anyway.
2. Humor and disgust attract attention.
3. Attention is not the same thing as thought.
4. Attention is often preferable to thought.
5. Universal beauty in the Kantian sense is a myth, and nothing more than an exaltation of the status quo.
6. Archivability is no reason not to use a medium; no one is going to buy this anyway.
7. Recognizability of something as being an art object, deliberately constructed for that purpose is not important.
8. Work being seen without the idea of it being art entering the audience’s mind is often preferable to other approaches.
9. Objects ought to be made only as well as the piece requires, excessive formal beauty often leads to the “Oooooohhhh!” factor, and work being stolen.
10. All you need is a thesis, argument in art weakens effect.
11. The audience is easily manipulated and often stupid, best to keep it simple.
12. If people think you are smarter than them, they will like you to your face, and hate you behind your back. If they think they are smarter than you, they will treat you with either disdain or pity. It is best to walk the line between intelligence and idiocy.
13. People‘s encouragement rarely teaches you anything about your work, criticism rarely garners productivity. It is best to provoke a lot of both.
14. Manifestos are really cool, but useless.
15. Truly cool things are useless; this is not a reversible maxim.



Steve Rife, Untitled, Mixed Media 2004
Louisiana

Curator (Visual Arts)

Parking Map
Terrorist Attack On Gallery! Feb 10 2004
Michon Weeks Closing Reception
Michon Weeks Closing reception
Spring Fever
Weather
Some PEACE
Longterm Survival
WhoKnows
OngoingOnDay2
OnGoingOn
Matthew Grover Opening
Matthew Grover- Untitled (lens flare), 2006, C-print, 9" x 14"
Wyatt McDill
POHOSHOW!
Life
POHOSHOW in Newly Redesigned Shoebox Gallery
Art of This n' That
Incident Statement, Schuermann Opening July 16th, 2005
5 Squad Opening
Untitled 2005
A Million Bucks A New Beginning
$1,000,000 meets the Astronauts
La Luz de Jesu
Xavier Tavera's "La Pasion"
Alair Wells' opening
blue
Frank III St Fightin' Man
In Here Music
Colin Roses
In Here Flier
HAMMERLICNKINSTALL
IN HERE ARTIST BIOS
Gallery Exterior
IN HERE
Tiffany Bolk Night Window
Each Sunday A Window Is Broken
Tiffany's Window
Trash
Happy Shoebox Halloween Election!
Urban Renewal
Biennial Wraparound
SoneInstall
Biennial Performances
Oeuvres Raisonne d'Exposition de Boite-Chausseur
Shoebox audience watches Mankwe Ndosi perform
Artists Statements for the Biennial
Body Cartography Performance
sociocorpomembraneousrelocation 2.7.04
What the Community Says
Alexa's window
Offering to Walter Mondale
SHOEBOX BIENNIAL JUNE 12TH, 2004!
Pie and coffee were served
Jenny's Window
X-Ray Alley (How it all started)
Imaginary Friends
Imaginary Friends
Imaginary Friends
Clouds
SEGRELICIOUS Opening
SEGRELICIOUS Opening
SEGRELICIOUS Opening
SEGRELICIOUS Opening
SEGRELICIOUS Opening
Minneosta Daily Review of Segrelicious
Shoebox Tour, Performances and Essay
ECLOGUE
Facelift for the Shoebox
Day of The Dead for Mark Loesch
Sachiko Performance at Elise Blue opening
What the Artists say about Segrelicious
Banksy Review
Martha Iserman at her opening
Aziz Osman tells of being in front of a firing squad
Tynan Kerr
Beautiful Deleuzers/Guattari Heroes Bios and Statements
Beautiful Deleuzers/Guattari Heroes Piece Descriptions
Beautiful Deleuzers Opening
Deleuzers... closer
Obamulator
Lite Brite Opening
Lite Brite Opening vid
David Everett
Mary Bergs' Art Matters
Chritopher Hauseman Opening
Shoebox By Night
Shoebox By Night
Ping Wang Window
Josh Ryther Review in ARP!
Vance Gellert Install 3.4.2010
Guns and Ammo
Jenny Installs
Vance Gellert Artist Talk 4.29.10
Shoebox 6.5 year anniversary Opening for Jenny Schmid
Artpolice Install