Berlin exhibition, Accumulation #2

After four days in Berlin (which were mind-blowing, I'll detail those in another post) I met Ancz from KunstOffice and began to install the show. I had heard about this from a colleague from undergrad, Amze Emmons, who knew of them, and somehow we were about to work it out for when I was going to be there. So, the work was installed on Wednesday, the opening was on Friday, from which I left from immediately to fly back home.

The space itself was quite nice- right on the old border between east and west, on the edge of the Mitte area. Ancz and Peter, who opened and run the space, were able to get it from the people who own it very cheaply- the space was previously unused and run-down, so they were happy to let them clean up and use the space, which fir their criteria of having wall space and large windows, so the work could always be seen. They leave the lights on at night (see the bottom two photos) for this reason.

The installation itself went smoothly, though I was glad I had made (and brought) as much as I did. The walls had niches in them that made some pieces, like the case of red and yellow blobs, unworkable- I was okay with cutting some down, particularly the ones that were more all-over patterns like the New Orleand houses, but some couldn't be cut to fit, so they were left out. So with Ancz's help I figured out which ones should butt up against others, which would work best seen from the windows, etc. It took about fours hours, to sort, trim and hang everything, which didn't seem too bad but was kind of stressful- I would have liked to have done it alone, it was a little weird to have an audience to the decision making. Sort of like my thesis show at Indiana, having various people help me out, but I was also busy trying to direct them, but also having to make on-the-spot decisions about things I didn't count on happening.

The opening went okay, a small amount of people were able to make it, which wasn't bad, as their openings are usually on Saturdays and run late, and I had to leave at 7pm.

Dordrecht residency, week four

The final week, which to be honest took a long time to get there, was also good and productive- I felt I had plenty of work, so I could start working back into older things that I wasn't happy with, experimenting more and loosening up. Looking at it now I don't think I pushed it as far as I could, but work I can definitely build on- I am particularly interesting in working bigger, to having the large brush strokes and graphic elements, but overlaying this imagery in large compositions.

From here I was able to throw out some work and roll everything up into two tubes, with an improvised duct-tape handle and head out to Berlin to meet Michael and put up the show...

Dordrecht residency, week three

By the third week, I can say I was feeling a little less anxious, not too worried about getting enough work together to show, though I felt I needed to get as much done as I could, so as not to leave me short-handed. As I hadn't been to the space yet I couldn't predict how the show would go together, so I kept the idea of the paintings being pieces of film to be edited on sight as a theme. Some of the drawings were still coming from the sketchs worked up in Venice, while others came from things I was seeing in Holland, including trips to Antwerp, Brussels, Tilberg and Hoge Volve National Park. Obviously other images were coming from television, particular images from the flooding of New Orleans, which tied into concerns about accumulations and piles while feeding some new ideas in current (January 2006) work about ideas of homes and containers.