Bunch Alliance and Dissolve
Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
November 17, 2006 - January 14, 2007Participating artists: Richard Aldrich, Ei Arakawa c/o Grand Openings, Ronnie Bass, Iris Bernblum, Becket Bowes, Pablo Bronstein, Ann Craven, Anna Craycroft, David Dempewolf, Liz Deschenes, Nancy de Holl, Elise Ferguson, Morgan Fisher, Martha Friedman, Maaike Gottschal, Amy Granat, Stephen Hilger, Xylor Jane, Siobhan Liddell, Aleksandra Mir, Carter Mull, Heather Rowe, Paul Shambroom, Molly Smith, Mika Tajima, Erika Vogt, James Yamada.
(left) Mika Tajima, Echoplex, 2005, mirror Plexiglas, MDF, silkscreen, wood, lights, 5.1 speakers, dimensions variable, courtesy Galleri S.E., Oslo, Norway.
(right) Carter Mull, Ground (detail), 2006, office jet prints, aerosol paint, mylar, holographic film, unique photographs from an archive of 1800, each uniquely painted, 11 x 17 inches each, dimensions variable.
(left)Elise Ferguson; Brown with Room, 2005, urethane, plywood, grout, 8 x 6 x 8 feet.
(right) Nancy de Holl, Heirloom, 2005, Pigmented photograph, 27 x 34 inches.
(top) Arakawa/Koether/Sanders/Sundblad/Tcherepnin, Grand Openings, 2006, Performance, Tsunan High School.
(bottom) Paul Shambroom, Wadley, Georgia (population 2,468) City Council, August 13, 2001, (L to R): Izell Mack, Charles Lewis, Albert Samples (Mayor), Robert Reeves (City Attorney), 2001, Archival pigmented inkjet on canvas with varnish, 33 X 66 inches.
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Bunch Alliance and Dissolve is a three-part project consisting of an exhibition, a resource room, and a full-color 240-page publication. The project investigates the structural potentialities of a group exhibition, and the temporal nature of correlations that are drawn by third parties between artists' works. The exhibition is organized around several discreet conversations between artists working in different media, within which the artworks are arranged in focused, intuitive groupings. In opposition to a linear, narrative, or top-down curatorial framework, the conversations locate multiple centers of dialogue within the overall exhibition.
As with all Public-Holiday Projects' presentations, in addition to an exhibition and a publication, Bunch Alliance and Dissolve also includes a means of accessing the participating artists' intellectual and material working processes. At the Contemporary Arts Center, a fluid transition between the studio and the site of exhibition is achieved through a centralized resource room where viewers can engage with extensive source materials provided by the artists. These materials make visible the references, inspirations, and previous visualizations of the works on display, and provide insight into the participating artists practices.
A bunch alliance is an informal term that describes an affiliation, correlation, or relationship. The project's title underscores how artists are often brought together by group exhibitions because of themes or ideas unrecognized by the artist at the time of the work's inception. At moments in this project, the visual and cerebral connections between the works are startling and profound. However, these relationships are inherently ephemeral. After the run of a group show, the individual artists disperse to the territories of their own ideas, having perhaps been influenced by the work of their one-time neighbor, or perhaps not at all.
The Bunch Alliance and Dissolve publication is available for purchase at the following bookstores:
You can also download the entire publication at no charge at: www.publicholidayprojects.com/projectdownloads.html