The Contemporary Art Purchasing Program Selections 2008-2009

An exhibition presenting the CAPP committee's purchases is up and running the Stamp Gallery on the 1st floor of the Stamp Student Union! The exhibition runs from August 31st-October 1st, 2009 with an opening reception on September 17th from 5-8pm. In addition to the 9 amazing works selected by the student committee, the exhibition features the committee's acquisition proposals and a short video displaying photographs from the program alongside audio commentary about the process from the students themselves.

Come out and support this great program by visiting the gallery!!

(The Almost-) FINAL LIST!

Just to keep our records here nice and tidy (and to at last satisfy our anxious and anticipatory audience), I'd like to go through our official decisions, though unfortunately only at near-completion.

Linn Meyers

Untitled ("Mandala"), 2009

India ink on Mylar

60 x 76 inches

For most of the year, we were entertaining the idea to commission a permanent, site-specific piece from Linn, seeing how captivating her work in the Art Gallery was. Unfortunately, reality wasn't as keen and we were told that the student union would have to be repainted every ten years.

However, our trip to G Fine Art revived our enthusiasm for Linn. We were extremely fortunate to have Linn come down to the gallery to meet us! Personal contact with the artist seemed to make her work even more desirable. We discussed with her everything from her process and interpretation to the practicality of public display. After viewing a wide collection of her work, we found that the large "Mandala" piece was best for us.

While the intricacy and size of the work are fascinating alone, we felt that Linn's work was a refreshing observation on the recalcitrant nature of artistic intention. Though the embodiment of a vision is never pure, Linn looks to celebrate this phenomenon, creating beautiful drawings without whollistic vision. Her pen is guided in the moment, yielding very human "slips" in the process of a line. As the lines pile, these areas of "slippage" become elegant ripples, adding a dramatically moving feel to a simple collection of strokes.

One of the greatest parts of this particular work, we felt, was its incredible size. The piece could easily be enjoyed from a distance (which is useful in a large public space such as the union) and from upclose (where "slippage" can be dissected and the human element is most apparent). Also, including a drawing (and such a fine drawing at that) will expand the collection in terms of media (the current collection only includes photographs and a painting). We think that this work will especially please a multidisciplinary audience.

Barbara Probst

Exposure #43: Barmsee, Bavaria, 08.18.06, 4:02 p.m., 2006

Ultrachrome ink on cotton paper

2 parts: 44 x 66 inches each

(I'm realizing that your faith in my descriptions is going to have to make up for the quality and size of these images...)

Barbara Probst has found a beautiful way to bring attention to the limitations of photography. All of her pieces in the Exposure series show two or more perspectives of a place at the exact same moment. Triggering her cameras at the same instance with a remote, Probst allows us to easily piece together the scene, recognizing common gestures or backgrounds. But the viewer in the process of this puzzle may be challenged by the varying implications of a single object or person from different perspectives. At a time when images bombard us as presentations of the truth, we are suddenly grappling with the biases of the individual pictures.

There is also a strong element of viewership within many of her works, featuring the camera from which another of the pictures was taken. While we may identify the source of each of these perspectives, we realize a larger interconnection with the addition of our own viewpoint, and perhaps the viewpoint of the person viewing the work beside us. While Probst may originally seem to discredit a single viewpoint, this vast connection of perspectives adds that each is important to come closer to understanding the truth.

We were again impressed with size-- each photograph was large enough to command attention on its own while also allowing for a careful comparison with the other. Exposure #43, out of a series of over 60, seemed to include several of the concepts that some others only highlighted individually. We were especially pleased by its readability, feeling that the greater audience of various backgrounds could easily extract meaning particular to their own experiences and concentrations.

Dulce Pinzón

ERNABE MENDEZ from the State of Guerrero works as a professional window cleaner in New York. He sends 500 dollars a month.

Mounted color photograph

Dulce Pinzón

MARIA LUISA ROMERO from the State of Puebla works in a Laundromat in Brooklyn New York.
She Sends 150 dollars a week.

Mounted color photograph

We also had the pleasure of meeting Dulce in her home and studio! She had some great stories with some of her images and expressed considerable appreciation for all of her "models". Being in the heart of the neighborhood where so many of her images were set made these works even more real, humorous, and honorable.

Each of the images in the Superheroes series features an Mexican immigrant in New York City working their service jobs in a popular superhero costume. The title of each includes the person's name, their Mexican hometown, their job, and how much money they send home to Mexico each week. While stark juxtaposition between the workplace and the costume can be quite humorous, the message driven by the titles causes us to marvel at their underappreciated efforts and reflect on the immigrant condition in America.

The works featured a wide range of costumes, but we felt that the message was more intense with costumes which revealed the immigrants' faces. In this way, the worker's nationality was highlighted and added to the celebration of their cause. With popular imagery of these superheroes planting the expectation for young, white faces in these costumes, the juxtaposition is carried deeper and the definition for "hero" is broadened further.

Positioned near the heart of another immigrant city, Dulce's work will speak to those facing this issue everyday. The Unversity of Maryland is a campus of diverse backgrounds, and its immigrant feature will surely be appreciated by many. On the surface, Dulce's works may draw more people into the collection with its popular imagery and initial levity. Mostly we hope that Dulce's work will challenge the intolerant attitudes that many parts of society have held toward the immigrant working class.

Jefferson Pinder

Five videos from the Juke series

Digital video

We were surprised to hear that an art professor at the University of Marlyand had representation at G Fine Art, where our interest for Linn Meyers, Barbara Probst, Chan Chao, and Iona Brown had already brought us. Jefferson Pinder's collection of videos was extremely interesting, but we felt particularly drawn to the Juke series, with each African American lipsyncing to a stereotypically "white" song which highlights a larger human condition. The "singing" is passionate, with each actor seeming to weave the songs into their own experiences and reactions, though its common conception as a "white" song would make the act seem ridiculous.

Each video was freshly unique. offering a wide range of narrative possbilities and cultural or personal reflections. Pinder proposes to relate each person and each song to a larger concept of human experience, challenging the myths hanging over both. Like Dulce's work, Pinder also offers an entertaining juxtaposition of opposites in a clever design. The videos employ moving pictures to capture the audience, and our media-driven community will surely take interest.

Click here for images

Annu Matthew

Two prints from the series An Indian from India

Archival digital prints

12 x 19 inches

(Due to a very intimidating copyright declaration on her website, I've decided just to link you to Annu Matthew's website...)

While we may not be able to officially claim her works under the umbrella of the Purchasing Program, we are proud to say the student union has brought two pieces of Annu Matthew's series An Indian from India to the University of Maryland.

In this series, Matthew sets side-by-side images of a Native American and an Indian (using herself as the model each time). Playing with the ambigous identity of "Indian" in America, she looks at original historic photographs and creates an Indian parallel, underlining a colonial apathy towards the distinction. These Western images mold the natives and their icons into seemingly unnatural depictions, relating to the awkwardness of the "Indian" ambiguity.

We are again interested in the challenge against a clumsy societal definition of identity and truth. Matthew adds a deep cultural perspective in regards to marks of identity. While she may make a point to distinguish the differences, the photographs side-by-side admit to the similarities of the native experience-- Native Americans with Americans and Indians with the British. Yet, as a modern Indian American posed in a historical photograph, Matthew must distinguish her own experiences from those of her heritage, and the heritage for which she is often mistaken.

The smaller works will prove to be the more intimate pieces in our collection, if simply for their style and size. Again, understanding the diversity of backgrounds at this university, we feel that the Matthew pieces will relate very personally to many groups and provoke a deeper understanding of their heritages and their significance in contemporary America.

Edward Burtynsky

Silver Lake Operations #3, Lake Leffroy, Western Australia, 2007

Digital chromogenic print

27 x 34 inches

I include Burtynsky here only to explain why we're not done yet... It seems that the gallery representing Burtynsky in New York has closed before we could carry out the purchase. We're left wondering whether we could purchase one of his works from one of his other galleries, however the distance between us and the others could indicate quite a lofty shipping rate. We're also unsure as to whether we should go back to our short list again and consider the works of Jane Hammond, Cheol Yu Kim, or Chan Chao.

However, this was our choice. The eery, yet gorgeous, landscapes of Burtynsky had us hooked from the beginning. Featuring some areas that hardly seem earthly, he captures the sublime in such a way that causes his audience to be admiring and disgusted. His works show the consequences of human industry, and while they may seem beautiful, the viewer must question the value of this beauty and the impact it has on the beauty of environmental balance. Burtynsky, rather than interpreting the impact of consumerism on the earth, allows the images to speak silently. The ambivalence in their presentation makes the viewer decide their stance, only claiming to provide unmodified photographs.

The University of Maryland has a growing interest in the environment with a number of departments and student groups taking action. Bringing this image to the union could give them an icon for their cause as well as something of a passive campaign on its own. The quality of both his message and photography would be well supported on this campus.

But, for Burtynsky, we'll just have to wait and see...

All of our purchases will be displayed this fall in the Stamp Gallery at the University of Maryland Stamp Student Union!

Hogar Collection

Peter Fox

View of Delft (after Vermeer)
Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 168 inches, 2009
$40,000




Michelle Forsyth

"Fairview Cemetery, April 15, 1912", (#18 from the 100 Drawings Project),
2008.
Gouache and sequins on watercolor paper, 28 x 42 inches.
$6,500

This piece documents the flowers on gravesite holding Titanic victim 221,
located in Fairview Cemetery in Halifax, NS. Three Canadian ships were
involved in recovering the victims of the disaster. Of the 328 bodies
recovered, Fairview cemetery holds the largest number of victims from this
disaster. They are buried under unmarked graves identified only by numbers
that refer to the order in which they were found.




"Noronic Disaster, Toronto, Ontario, September 17, 1949", (Drawing #15 from
the 100 Drawings Project), 2008
Watercolor and gouache on Arches CP 156 lb. watercolor paper, 28 x 42
inches.
$6,500

On the morning of September 17, 1949, a small fire was discovered in a
locked linen closet aboard the passenger ship known as the S.S. Noronic.
Once unlocked in an attempt to fight the flames with a single fire
extinguisher, the fire raged out of control. It only took ten minutes for
the fire spread rapidly throughout the interior of the ship because the
woods in the ship were regularly treated with a lemon oil that was highly
flammable. During the incident most passengers were sleeping and roused to a
choking black smoke and packed corridors. Several of them escaped by jumping
into the frigid waters of the Toronto Harbor. Most of the bodies were burned
beyond recognition making identifying them difficult. This piece documents a
weeping willow tree reflected in the water on the pier where the accident
occurred. Nearby there is a plaque commemorating those who perished.





"Sayward Fire, Campbell River, BC, Canada, July 5, 1938", (#20 from the 100
Drawings Project), 2008
Watercolor, gouache and sequins on watercolor paper, 36 x 54 inches.
$7,200

On July 5, 1938 sparks from a yarding engine operating just north of
Campbell River on Vancouver Island started a fire in some felled trees.
Fifteen thousand firefighters worked to control the blaze yet it raged on
for 30 days, creating a black scar on the earth measuring 75,000 acres. A
massive replanting effort during which almost 800,000 Douglas Fir trees were
planted helped to regenerate the forest. Today the undulating topography of
the Sayward Forest is home to a variety of wildlife including Black-tailed
deer, Roosevelt elk, black bears, cougars and gray wolves, and is largely
covered with Douglas Fir, Western hemlock, Cedar and Sitka spruce. My
drawing documents a mattress left by the side of a lake where the fire
burned.




"November 10, 1979" (#2 from Ostinatos), 2007.
Paper, watercolor, casein, gouache, felt, beads and pins mounted on archival
panel, 26 x 39 inch image, 30 x 43 inch frame.
$6,500

At 11:53 pm on November 10, 1979, a train carrying styrene, toluene,
propane, caustic soda, and chlorine derailed when passing through
Mississauga, Ontario. An inadequately lubricated wheel bearing was the cause
of the accident causing friction that ignited sparks and eventually got so
hot that one pair of wheels fell off. The accident resulted in a huge
explosion and fireball that reached 1,500 meters into the sky. A cloud of
chlorine gas resulting from the accident caused the largest evacuation in
peacetime history until Hurricane Katrina at more than 200,000 people. With
the exception firefighters, who were exposed to the noxious fumes until the
crisis was under control, there were no deaths from the accident. This work
documents some flowering thistles at the site where the accident occurred.





"May 3, 1887" (#7 from Ostinatos), 2008
156 lb. Arches CP watercolor paper, Color-Aid paper, 90 lb. Arches HP
watercolor paper, Hahnemuhle photo ink jet paper, felt, gouache, sequins,
and thread, 28 x 42 inches.
$6,500

Shortly before 6 pm on May 3, 1887, two explosions rocked the No. 1
Esplanade Mine, located just north of downtown Nanaimo, BC. The resulting
fire and the carbon monoxide it produced resulted in the deaths of 147
miners and one rescuer. Near the entrance to the site is a memorial plaque
listing the names of the miners that died in the accident. Of the dead
listed are 53 Chinese immigrant workers known to the employers only by the
numbers that were assigned to them. This piece depicts a tree with red
berries located near this memorial plaque.





"September 17, 1949" (#4 from Ostinatos), 2008.
Paper, gouache, felt, beads and pins mounted on archival panel, 26 x 39 inch
image, 30 x 43 inch frame.
$6,500

On the morning of September 17, 1949, a small fire was discovered in a
locked linen closet aboard the passenger ship known as the S.S. Noronic.
Once unlocked in an attempt to fight the flames with a single fire
extinguisher, the fire raged out of control. It only took ten minutes for
the fire spread rapidly throughout the interior of the ship because the
woods in the ship were regularly treated with a lemon oil that was highly
flammable. During the incident most passengers were sleeping and roused to a
choking black smoke and packed corridors. Several of them escaped by jumping
into the frigid waters of the Toronto Harbor. Most of the bodies were burned
beyond recognition making identifying them difficult. This piece documents
some day lilies on the pier where the accident occurred. Nearby there is a
plaque commemorating those who perished.




"November 7, 1940 (for Tubby)" (#6 from Ostinatos), 2008.
Color-Aid paper, 90 lb. Arches HP watercolor paper, Fabriano SP watercolor
paper, Hahnemuhle photo ink jet paper, felt, gouache, watercolor, sequins,
beads, dressmakers pins, 144 x 72 inches.
Price on request

Update

Hi Guys,

Sorry I haven't been posting this semester. This post includes everything I have talked about this semester.

Artist: Siebren Versteeg
Gallery: Max Protetch, 511 West 22nd St.
Notes: His work is all about technology and the overwealth/overwhelming amount of visual information that we are forced to digest everyday. It is a subject that is relevant to everyone, especially technologically savvy young people (most of you are more savvy than me). Unfortunately his touch screens are out of our price range at $42,000. His video screens which are connected to flicker online and display images are $18,000 but the gallery is willing to negotiate with us and they are really nice. His large prints (95 x 42 inches) are more digestable at $10,500.
Examples:




Artist: Wim Delvoye
Gallery: Sperone Westwater, 415 West 13 St.
Notes: Belgian artist. All his art is amusing. He is most famous for a contraption he created with scientists that replicates the human digestive system and makes one "stool" a day. He has also tatooed pigs and made pictures that of what look like mosaics but are actually lunch meat. I am interested in his photgraphs of quick personal notes on large mountains. I think it makes you reconsider your own importance in such a vast landscape that we are in. How important those notes seem when we write them and how insignificant they look when chiseled intoa mountain is something all people can connect to. Did I mention they're funny? (still working on prices)
Examples:



Artist: Michael Scoggins
Gallery: Freight and Volume, 542 West 24th St.
Notes: He painstakingly recreated versions of his childhood notebook pages on a monumental scale. They are all about 170 x 129 inches, sure to make an impact by scale alone. They are all $10,000. Most of them are amusing and would be interesting to all types of college age students. Perhaps we could get one of the tests that he has graded (usually he doesn't do so well).
Examples:





Artist: Walead Beshty
Gallery: Wallspace, 619 West 27th St.
Notes: He believes that artistic production includes not just the artist but everone involved in making the product including critics. He makes sculptures out of color photopaper in a darkroom and exposes it to different light on in different parts of the sculpture and then unflods it. He also makes sculpture out of glass which he then sends via post mail and displays as they in whatever state they arrive. These works become modifed by circulation. I think both types are very interesting. I am still waiting on prices.
Examples:






Artist: Jane Hammond
Gallery: Galerie Lelong, 528 West 26th St.
Note: Composite of several found photgraphs online from anonymous photographers. She makes a negative from her photoshoped image and then prints in a darkroom. The result is a surreal other world. Her work comments on a number of issues including the illusion of photgraphy being reality, somputers and information, and the importance of context and juxtopositions in meaning, They are somewhat small at 11 x 14 inches but reasonably prced at $3,500.
Examples:





Artist: Steven Keene
Gallery: SKSK (his own store) 93 Guernsey St., Brooklyn
Notes: Has sold 170,000 paintings since 1991 for $3-$10 each. He makes each origional painting by hand. People order by quantity and he ships, you never know what your going to get. Can choose pieces in his store. Beleives art chould be as accessible as music and that each of his pieces are like a souvenier, parts of a whole. This would be a great way to portray art as accessible to the masses.
Examples:

Some old and some new...

Here is some information on artists I have brought up in our meetings, as well as a few new artists I would like to have considered. The first is an artists named Susanna Majuri, a young Finnish photographer who is represented by Galerie Adler (547 W. 27th) in Chelsea (http://www.galerieadler.com/). I was drawn to her work mainly due to the mystery of it. Most of her photographs are of figures (usually young women) whose faces are concealed, generally standing in or near water. I want to know what they are doing, why they are in the situations (predicaments, maybe?) they are in, what is the story being told by their actions. The colors used by the artist are concurrently vibrant and intensely sad. There is something hauntingly bleak about most of the photographs. Here are a few I found especially interesting...

Gro, 2008



Liv, 2008

Salme, 2007

Insulin, 2007.

Of Majuri, ChelseaArtGalleries.com wrote: In her photographs, Susanna Majuri captures short narrative scenes as though they were film stills of a story yet to be told. Her main characters, young women mostly, their faces hidden, give a distinct impression of being lost, seeking for something they would just no find, dissolved in profound loneliness, yet somehow determined or rather resigned to this beautifully sad fate of theirs. The surrounding nature acts as complementary character, working as an emotional conduit both familiar and antagonistic. The ever changing surface of the water, once smooth as a veil of silk, once rippled though by a secret storm raging underneath, provide scenes of oscillating atmosphere ranging from quiet solitude to immediate danger. The vivid coloring of Majuri’s works the harsh contrast between bright shades of red or blue against the soft earth tones of the background mirrors her innermost feelings: "I need color to exist. I need this person, the place, the water, this touch."

With this intimate confession, Susanna Majuri creates peculiar, bizarre or even surreal atmospheres and situations for her characters. Her images are charged with what might be, ambiguous in that the viewer can only imagine that which remains outside of the frame and give the impression that we only get parts of what must be a bigger story. Susanna Majuri suggests multiple psychological and symbolically charged scenarios: “I want to show that one can find fantastic from nearby. Fiction blends into our life. The imaginary is in fact actual.”

Majuri was recognized in the ArtNet database, yet no information was available on any works that had been sold.


Julee Holcombe, represented by Conner Contemporary Art (DC), composes interesting photographs and is influenced/inspired by the Old Masters, such as Pieter Breugel the Elder, Caravaggio, and Francisco de Zubaran, as well as John Singer Sargent and Grant Wood. I spoke about Holcombe's work last meeting. Several piece should be considered, including:

Babel at Night (2007)
Babel Revisited (2004)
Homo Bulla (2005)

http://www.connercontemporary.com/artists/julee-holcombe/?view=images.


An interesting gallery: Yvon Lambert Gallery (NYC) represents many artists and has a general focus of installation art. There were several interesting pieces on the site. However, we would have to see them in person in order to get a sense of what they are like (many of them are video installations with only stills on the website). It might be a place to visit.

Ralph Helmick and Stu Schechter, former artistic partners, create unique hanging installations but have since gone their separate ways. I really feel that we should have some sort of installation piece, especially for the large space either over the eating area at Stamp, or over the study space where we have our meetings. Prices were not available for their work, but examples of it follows:


Jurisprudence

Ralph Helmick is now working out of a studio in Massachusetts. I was unable to find any galleries that represent him in NY or elsewhere, but if this were something we were considering pursuing, we would contact him directly. It would have to be a site specific piece, which may or may not be out of our price range.

Fantastical Imaginings

Hi All--

I wanted to make you aware of an intriguing exhibit in Baltimore at the Maryland Art Place. The show is called "Fantastical Imaginings" The work is sort of along the lines of what you guys have been talking about. It reminded me a bit of Jon Pylypchuk:



There is an opening reception and gallery talk on Friday night (Talk at 7pm Reception at 8pm)
I wish I could go but I'll be out of town--but you guys should definitely venture out to Baltimore, it's really great!!

Here's the maryland art place website and link to the pdf of the postcard.

Barbara Probst update!

I got a lot more information about the works available by Barbara Probst at Murray Guy. They sent me a CD with several images and records of press, as well as the more current list of available works with their prices. I'll bring everything to the next meeting, but I thought I'd give you a quick preview! The ones I'm listing are what I think may be those closer to our preferable price (i.e. $11,000 or less), though almost all of her works are under our total budget (if we really want to splurge).

Exposure #60: Munich, Waisenhausstrasse 65, 08.26.08, 6:54 p.m.
2 parts 24 x 16 in. each and 1 part 24 x 43 in.
$10,000

Exposure #57: N.Y.C., 428 Broome Street, 06.05.08, 3:02 p.m.
2 parts 29 x 44 in. each
$10,500

Exposure #54: N.Y.C., 555 8th Avenue, 10.31.07, 1:31 p.m.
2 parts 36 x 36 in. each
$10,500

Exposure #52: Munich studio, 09.08.07, 3:01 p.m.
2 parts 36 x 36 in. each
$10,500

Exposure #48: Munich, Minerviusstrasse, 01.06.07, 3:17 p.m.
2 parts 36 x 36 in. each
$10,500

Exposure #47: N.Y.C., 555 8th Avenue, 10.11.07, 7:58 p.m.
2 parts 16 x 23 1/2 in. each
$6,000

Exposure #45: Munich, Landshuter Allee, 09.11.06, 3:17 p.m.
2 parts 16 x 24 in. each
$6,000

Exposure #41: N.Y.C., 545 8th Avenue, 03.23.06, 2:18 p.m.
2 parts 29 x 44 in. each
$10,500

Exposure #35: Munich studio, 07.29.05, 3:36 p.m.
2 parts 24 x 24 in. each
$8,000

Exposure #34a: N.Y.C., Central Park, Umpire Rock, 06.14.05, 6:34 p.m.
2 parts 36 x 24 in. each
$11,000

Exposure #32a: N.Y.C., 249 34th Street, 01.02.05, 5:17 p.m.
3 parts 24 x 16 in. each
$8,000

Exposure #24: N.Y.C., Brooklyn Bridge, 12.22.03, 12:16 p.m.
2 parts 30 1/2 x 20 1/2 in. each
$8,000

Exposure #17: N.Y.C., 498 7th Avenue, 12.10.02, 1:27 p.m.
2 parts 32 1/2 x 21 1/2 in. each
$8,000

Exposure #11: N.Y.C., Times Square, 04.04.02, 4:51 p.m.
2 parts 39 1/2 x 26 1/2 in. each
$10,000

Exposure #8b: Munich studio, 10.19.01, 5:18 p.m.
2 parts 16 x 23 1/2 in. each
$6,000

Exposure #8: Munich, Nederlingerstrasse, 10.11.01, 7:56 p.m.
2 parts 16 x 23 1/2 in. each
$6,000