Where We Are: Tectonic Shifts and Dissolution of Boundaries
[Exploring the Tension and Transitions in Contemporary Visual Art Today] A National Juried Exhibition of Contemporary Art in all Media
Juror's Statement:
"A lot has changed in the art world over the last forty years. Perhaps most notable is the shift in how work is looked at and experienced, and in who is expected to look at it and experience it. The Conceptual art movement, which began in the 1960s, set out with the aim to shake things up. Over the past decade the world of contemporary art has experienced the rumblings of a tectonic shift. Its contours have been increasingly visible in major international art shows of the past five years. Today artists no longer only aim to produce a finished object. Many contemporary artists combine and work across disciplines in their queries about the meaning of art and its relationship to everyday life. The concept of working in a single medium has given way to artists working in several and oft combining them. As technology has become a significant part of emerging artists' lives, it comes as no surprise that electronics and media base work occupy an important part of today's art making. This exhibition aims to explore the potential of contemporary visual art that embraces the blurry lines being explored by artists who are currently breaking down boundaries and working between the tenets of two dimensional art practice, mixed media, digital and media art, and the physical world we move through."
Juror: Elaine A. King, PhD Art Historian, Critic and Curator
Elaine King is currently Professor of History of Art, Theory, and Museum Studies at Carnegie Mellon University. Her areas of focus include: History of art, (19th & 20th Century) Specialty post-World War II American art, American culture and photography & video, Cultural History & American Public Policy, as well as how technology is affecting shifts in social values, ethics and art, and art criticism criteria.
King served as the Executive Director and Curator of the Carnegie Mellon Art Gallery [1985-1991], and was the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, [1993-1995]. During her career as a curator, she has organized over 45 exhibitions, including a wide range of one-person exhibitions and catalogues. King has been awarded numerous grants from varied agencies including The National Endowment for the Arts (In 1989, 1988, 1985, 1983), The Warhol Foundation, Richard K. Mellon Foundation and The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. In 2001 she was a Senior Research Fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. As a freelance art critic, Elaine King has published reviews and articles for Sculpture, Art on Paper, Art Papers, ARTES MAGAZINE, ArtUS, Grapheion, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and The Washington Post. Elaine King's interview with Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, the collaborative artists collectively known as Allora & Calzadilla, who are representing the USA at the 2011 Venice Biennale, is in the June 2011 issue of Sculpture Magazine.
