The new center area of Detroit will be the site of a new event called Art X Detroit in April, labeled the "Kresge Arts Experience".
Here is a link to the official website. Not much content is posted yet, but check back often. I am currently working on an installation for MoCAD, that will combine a three-dimensional structure with paintings and drawings. Miroslav Cukovic posted these images of the Detroit Works exhibition in Maribor (December 8 - January 8). Here are a few images of the show and my contribution. The series is untitled, each work is 8.5" x 11" copy transfer, ink, pencil and watercolor on paper.
Opening December 8, 2010:
DETROIT WORKS, at Media Nox Gallery, in Maribor Slovenia. A show of ten Detroiters who would most likely not show together or alongside each other. Artists: Susan Goethel Campbell Faina Lerman George Rahme Hartmut Austen Lynne Avadenka Christina Galasso Jacklyn Brickman Todd Erickson Scott Hocking Mary Fortuna The show runs through January 8th 2011. It is the time of the year. Falling leafs, forced heat, Halloween, Thanksgiving and a bunch of application packages on the worktable. I am looking for a full time position sharing with students what I love.
A page Teaching has been temporarily added to my homepage. Last year I received a call from Eastern Michigan University Professor Michael Reedy who invited me to jury this year's edition of the Great Lakes Drawing Biennial. Yesterday I went to Eastern Michigan's University Art Gallery and - together with Greg Tom, the Art Departments Gallery Director - took an extended look at the works that will make the Great Lakes Drawing Biennial. I had previously selected the works based on digital images, that were send to me in a very fine documentation provided by Greg and his staff. It is going to be a show that will present drawings in a broad variety of formats, ideas and approaches. It's not a very coherent show (after all, its a biennial) with often large or very small works confined in a gallery that I previously thought was much larger... [UPDATE} Here is my Juror's Statement: For this edition of the Great Lakes Drawing Biennial, I attempted to select the most extraordinary range of possibilities in contemporary drawing: a mark, a sketch, a thought, a conviction, a mystery, an object, a space, a recording, a doodle, a reflection, a note, an accumulation. In that, I was guided by three thoughts: · A drawing could also be described as a picture, a print, an object, or something entirely unexpected without being just that. · To select a smaller number of participating artists in favor of a second or third work by each artist, if possible. · An unexpected subject matter, a bold contrast, a conviction in drawing as a primary art form. This exhibition makes a compelling case that the act of drawing is not only integral to our life, but that more and more artists find unique ways to redefine the discipline of drawing towards larger and more complex processes and forms of presentation. I would like to express my gratitude to Eastern Michigan University’s Art Department, namely Professor Michael Reedy, for inviting me to get involved with this iteration of the Great Lakes Drawing Biennial; and to Gallery Programs Director Greg Tom, whose organizational expertise and advice made the jury process a truly enjoyable task. Finally, many thanks to all the artists who shared with me their most interesting drawings that they feel an urgency to create, and that we can now enjoy in this exhibition.
The University Gallery is located in the EMU Student Center. For further information contact Greg Tom: gtom@emich.edu Phone: (734) 487-0465 ... I am happy to announce that I will be showing two paintings in a show that will highlight the trajectory of individual artists work within the past ten years and celebrate the insightful leadership of Dick Goody who established the OUAG as one of the premier contemporary art venues in the Detroit area.
Ten Years of Contemporary Art at the Oakland University Art Gallery: Director's Selection Dates: Sept. 11 - Oct. 17, 2010 Private View: Champagne and Hors d'oeuvres, Saturday, Sept. 11, 5-7 p.m. (ticket price: $60 single/$100 couple) Opening Public Reception: Saturday, Sept. 11, 7-9 p.m. (no charge) Featuring: Hartmut Austen Kristin Beaver Susan Goethel Campbell Hasan Elahi Denise Whitebread Fanning Ed Fraga Chido Johnson Dennis Michael Jones Rob Kangas Jane Lackey Jae Won Lee Eric Mesko Renata Palubinskas Sharon Que Senghor Reid Robert Schefman Christian Tedeschi Michael E. Smith James Stephens Peter Williams I announced I would discuss a painting once a month. July is almost over, at least it feels like that to me, and my attention is directed towards a few things that appear to deserve a higher priority. So I hope you don't mind if things are a bit slow here.
Like in the past summers, I am leading various painting courses for High School Visual Arts students at Interlochen Center for the Arts. While you wait, please check out the website and blog of my friend and colleague here Kip Deeds. I will be in a few shows this Autumn, here and in Europe. Details will be announced soon. ISRAEL, 1998, oil on canvas, 14 in x 10 in (35,5 x 24,4 cm) Photo: Tim Thayer Another painting that I recently scanned from an older slide. The painting was one of the last ones made in Berlin, in 1998. A photograph in a newspaper captured the moment that a motor biker, just being frontally hit by a car, went flying through the air in in such an elegant way that one might suspect it may have been choreographed. It is what Henri Cartier-Bresson would call "the Decisive Moment". Looking at the painting, I don't think you can see the biker (maybe there is a trace of him somewhere...) There is a sketch of a small car towards the bottom, otherwise it is various blues, browns with the painting knife horizontally applied to the canvas, suggesting a landscape. For me the decisive moment was when I canceled the image and created something else, that was much less photograph and so much more painting. According to the source, the biker was unharmed. Untitled (Two Kids), ca. 1998, watercolor and ink on paper, approx. 8 in x 11 in. A drawing I did over ten years ago. Two boys standing behind each other, the larger in the front, almost covering the smaller figure behind. My nephews. We were at the beach at the Ostsee (Baltic Sea) and stormy weather was arriving. I rediscovered this work last year in the basement of their sister, who thankfully allowed me to temporarily store a flat file full of works and many more canvasses that I left behind when I moved to the US. The boys are young men now and I will see them again soon. Always a good time. Hans Jürgen Diehl 14.3.1994, Öl/Leinwand, 215 x 214 cm, 1994 Courtesy www.hansjuergendiehl.de The other day on my random Internet excursions (who needs a Zoo?), I stumbled upon the homepage of my teacher Hans Jürgen Diehl at Hochschule der Künste (now called Universität der Künste) in Berlin. I have not spoken with him in over ten years, although I hear that he still spend considerable time every year in his place in New York City. Meanwhile, he's retired from teaching and apparently going strong. Check out his paintings. My favourites are the ones from the mid-late Nienties and I remember seeing some of them in person when visiting his studio in Berlin. Besides color, I appreciate that energetic, gestural look of those interwoven lines, which, as far as I recall, are layered silhouettes of photographic source images. However, the paintings are made in a much more methodical and laborious process, and for the most part very large (almost but never proper squares!). His most recent solo show at Campagne Première in Berlin just closed. |
AuthorHartmut Austen is a painter and educator currently based in the Boston area. Archives
February 2023
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