Reception: November 17, 2007, 7 ~ 9:30p

Dallas Contemporary announces its upcoming exhibition Open Doors Expansion, is viewable Saturday, November 10 through January 12, 2008. Open Doors Expansion features large-scale, site-specific installation works by Open Doors Collective, an Austin, Texas based group of artists. A members’ opening reception, to which the public is invited at a $10 entry, is set for Saturday, November 17, 2007, 7 ~ 9:30 pm.

Co-curated by Texas artists Hunter Cross, Terra Goolsby, and Jacob Villanueva, Open Doors Expansion comes to Dallas for its first showing as another dynamic project of the Open Doors Collective.

Six artists will showcase new large-scale, site-specific installations that are multi-sensory, spatial, material inventions: Nancy Brown [Dallas] graces the wall with delicate assemblages; Hunter Cross [Austin] constructs a two-story steel stairway covered in collected trophy statuettes; Terra Goolsby [Austin] builds an environment of suspended acrylic spheres and discs decorated with nail-polish; Eduardo Navarro [Buenos Aires] sets up a bank of fax machines to fill the gallery with daily transmitted drawings; Maximilian Toth [New Haven] draws a large mural in his signature style; and Jacob Villanueva [Austin] combines cellar doors and video projections challenging the viewer’s notion of space and locality.

Six large-scale installations

Terra Goolsby manipulates translucent spheres injected with nail polish and suspended in arcing organic shapes to create an environment whose beauty compels the viewer into its formal grasp. Goolsby exposes the organic qualities of her hand-picked and deftly manipulated synthetic materials.

Hunter Cross has collected once coveted, but now unwanted, trophies from all over the United States and Canada. These golden statuettes cover his 20-foot ascending Stairway. The mini figures set in contrast to the black painted steel hardware deal with contemporary American culture’s complicated relationship with competition. The strangely beautiful collection of discarded memories becomes an abstract representation of a population connected by competition and collaborating with contributions.

Nancy Brown uses thousands of tiny pins to create representations of the many poses of a wild fox. Brown’s visual language communicates the movement and mischievousness of the fox. In her previous works, Brown explored the symbolism of animals in Grimm’s fairy tales and the figurative possibilities of “wall-stickable” materials.

Eduardo Navarro will draw directly on his recent experiences within the international art world. Working from his studio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Navarro will transmit daily drawings to the gallery via a bank of 8 installed fax machines. In the tradition of deceased artist Felix Gonzales-Torres, these drawings will be available to visitors of the gallery for free. Navarro’s work is about building a relationship with space that involves exchange. Visitors who experience his work inevitably complete the work by choosing to leave or take the drawings, giving shape to his work.

Jacob Villanueva’s previous sculptural video work has been leading to this installation of three cellar-like constructions that contain high definition LCD screens. The screens will be populated with new videos during the exhibition’s run that will show residential and industrial sites important to Villanueva. The artist continually challenges himself to incorporate the latest video technologies into his process while at the same time keeping his installations accessible and austere.

Maximilian Toth’s paintings use multiple layers of meaning and symbolism to depict images from personal experiences, his friends’ stories, ancient mythology and gossip from his childhood town in Massachusetts. His images are raw, arresting and filled with the sinewy stress of excess, aggression and unfiltered loss. This mural of white lines on black ground is the largest work Toth has yet to complete, covering an entire wall of The Dallas Contemporary.

A history of installations

Site-specific installations have been an essential element in Dallas Contemporary’s exhibition history: including works in Building Blocks, Wall Power, Siting Sculpture, Constuctions & Architecture, and New Art in Austin: 22 to Watch. Mix! Artists such as Luz Maria Sanchez, Alejandro Almanza Pereda and Jose Krapp add spice to our site-specific history.

Showing concurrently with Open Doors Expansion are two exhibition series: in Hallworks, Sara Ishii presents paintings of faces emerging from poured paint, and in 3 D on Swiss, Jorge Misium creates an outdoor, site-specific piece of tensioned wire and bent shapes.

Dallas Contemporary publishes a color brochure to accompany each exhibition. The German art historian, independent curator and critic Till Richter is the guest essayist for Open Doors Expansion. Richter holds a Master’s degree from the Sorbonne, Paris and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in contemporary art history at the University of Texas at Austin.

tags: dallas, open-doors, exhibition, dallas, contemporary-art, site-specific, large-scale, art, sculpture, installation, austin, dallas, events, news

[Update: Oct. 31 2007 - I have stopped collecting trophies for this project and begun installing the work at The Dallas Contemporary. If you have not received a DHL waybill in the mail, then I will not be able to use your trophies inthis project and I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. To all those who have commented on this post, whom I have spoken with over the phone, via email, and in person I dearly thank you for your support of this project and for making it all possible through your generous trophy donations. I will update and post a comprehensive list of everyone once the project is completely installed.]

Work is steadily progressing on my trophy-covered stairway to be installed in November as part of the Open Doors Expansion exhibition at The Dallas Contemporary. With the help of many generous individuals and Texas’ thriftstore abundance, the trophy count has topped 1,500. However, I need more trophies.

If you or your family members have any old trophies boxed up in the garage and would like them to be re-used and digitally archived, please consider donating them to this project. If you know of any trophy-makers liquidating old stock or athletic organizations freeing up store-rooms, please don’t be afraid to contact me to arrange a pickup. I am willing to arrange shipping if neccessary.

Focused Re-Use

I feel that the process of collecting trophies is a key element of the work and began in earnest in mid-2005 as part of the develoment of Arch for Open Doors’ In Between. This work focuses on re-using these golden statuettes en-masse, each representative of a particular person at a particular moment in time.

In effect, each statuette represents a datapoint from someone’s competitive life and through their individual choices for co-operation, something larger is created. The distinct impulses for competition and co-operation are brought together. Further, the work’s construction and reliance on recycled material expresses well the concept of “small pieces loosely joined” and supports ideas of a more sustainable art practice that need not look like nature or feel like garbage.

Often, I hear trophy donors say that they wanted to free up space. Your donation of these trophies requires an implicit acknowledgement and acceptance of the shifting priorities in your life as new objects, priorities and memories lay claim to the importance once held for the trophies and competitions they represent.

Population Representation

Each trophy is to be photographed and archived online. This trophy archive is a mass of individual’s metadata, a representation of a participatory population and document of the changing styles in the last 50 years of American trophy-making. The work contributes to the digitally knowable identities of the individuals involved. In this way, the memories of the trophies are honored while their physicality becomes part of a larger more communal form.

Here are links to the online portions of the project, still very much in development. I look forward to everyone experiencing the installation in Dallas, TX in November 2007:

Trophy Collection, 2005-2007

• Arch
• Stairway (Maquette)
• Trophy Collection (Archive)
• Project’s Flickr Photos

tags: recycle, cooperation, competition, crowdsourcing, trophies, trophy, collection, trophycollection, archive, art, sculpture, installation, austin, dallas

Social Behavior and Organization Among Vertebrates presents societal forces such as reproduction, co-operation and competition with charismatic science.

Serving as a thorough introduction to evidence gathered by his zoologist buddies, William Etkin describes animal society as a structured web of interactions created by individuals co-operating and competing in response to species-held signals and intra-chemical reactions. The compact volume is filled with useful discussions for sorting the contradictory nature of the human animal.

My copy’s dust jacket is missing, its spine water-stained and its condition poor. Despite this, the sharp black letterforms left-aligned and embossed on its canvas cover caught my eye. Inside, the heady discussion of topics such as social rank, aggressive behavior and shifts in adrenal cortex weight are held together equally by justified paragraphs and illustrated vignettes. Each page rational, humble and optimistic by design.

For example, a male tern brings a fish to his “intended” mate. At this time the mate is perfectly capable of fishing for herself and this attention seems superfluous. After toying with the fish for a while the female may discard it. Clearly, hunger played no role here. Yet all along the shore in the spring, terns may be seen presenting pieces of fish to others and doing it, furthermore, with elaborate, precise, and formal ritualistic movements. p9 Social Behavior…

Collaborative production

Social Behavior and Organization Among Vertebrates was published in 1964 by the University of Chicago Press right before Morris Philipson became director in 1967. It remains a classic example of collaborative production with its prescient blend of anecdotal summary and rigorous observational data. Clocking in at 306 pages, these 6 scientists link mammalian behavior and reproduction to the social, chemical and global climate cycles. By working together, they create a book strengthened by the hard-binding of a well-regarded press but powered by the soft-binding of their personal friendships, shared interests and pooled resources. Each is given their own space to work within, therefore each is given responsibility to the whole. This co-operation gives their ideas the best chance at survival.

Further, these scientists were aware of beauty’s power to persuade and decided to take the presentation seriously. As much as we would like to believe that our decisions are based on rationality over emotion, we must concede that many decisions are outside our complete control. Put plainly, we want what we want when we want it. Therefore, the acceptance of ideas, just as the incorporation of gene mutations into a species population, depend on certain rituals of presentation.

Standardized courtship

FIG. 7.9 documents intricate courtship movements of surface-feeding ducks, frozen into distinct poses over time. Once documented, these movements can be observed in all members of the species from a particular locality. [Originally from K. Lorenz] It is this standardization, this signaling of intention, that unites a species. Animals raised in isolation, will not exhibit this learned behavior. I find it interesting that we can observe such clear standardization in other vertebrates and not corellate it to contemporary human society. Humans are products of their social structure and the opportunities available within that structure and continuously balance their dual nature to compete against and co-operate within their society.

Even Andy Warhol, noticed the standardizing aesthetic of photobooth picture strips and resulting allure of his birds posturing over time. Notice Edie Sedgwick’s turn of her face in the first and third strip from the left. These two poses are almost identical, and appear unconsciously copied. Further, Warhol’s portraits in drag were in fact copies of these poses, direct implementation of learned behavior.

Social Group or Aggregation

But surely, our socializing is more complex than knowing when a girl is flirting with you and when she has a crick in her neck. We can recognize signals, but to what end?

It is clear that our organizations are built on shared signals and insider vocabularies define group boundaries and knowledge of the group. But do all social groups require the same amount of commitment to be included?

“a flock of sheep is a social group, since it is maintained by the social responses of the animals to one another; but the massing of insects around a light at night is an aggregation, since it results from their common attraction to the light.” p24 Social Behavior…

I’m interested in this distinction especially when applied to human socialization. When considering Longhorn fans, a megachurch, rock band or austin art scene, which are aggregations and which are social groups? And since both aggregations and social groups exist within human society, how is each useful?

Art y fact

Social Behavior and Organization Among Vertebrates was clearly conceived as a cultural artifact, in the same class as other gestures created when scientists and artists share common interests. Etkin compiled the book in the late fifties during a time of sustained economic growth, returning soldiers and technological expansion, when science was too important to be left to the scientists. I imagine purchasing a copy after turning up a Stubborn Kind of Fellow 45 or on my way home from seeing 2001: A Space Oddyssey.

Experimental tests have supported the modern view that natural selection operating on the genetic system of higher organisms can effect rapid and delicate adaptation of these organisms to the changing demands on the environment. Dobzhansky 1951

Further, Etkin’s evolution-supporting edition refutes Creationism’s biblical estimate of a 6,000 year old Earth. This could lead you to believe that his book trashes religion, but instead his observations support notions that organized religion might actually serve civilization best as a potential stabilizer.

The human animal can be driven towards faith in all manner of situations. But, left unchecked this faith can develop into a challenge to our species’ survival when given control over government and the military. When any majority belief excludes humanity’s tech-assisted evolution from primates and our inherent and embraceable similarities to other mammals we are choosing to break with ancestors. We walk upright among the vertebrates, and we must teach this critical path.

With difficult, untaught content, the old guard scientists refactored their stories into simplest form, but none simpler, before presenting. Having bore the intellectually bankrupt permutations of a generation of social darwinists, these experimental archives were finally fit to print.

And print they did

Nothing reveals a deep-seeded Bauhaus love and serious fontnerd involvement more than essay titles such as The Evolution of Signaling Devices rigorously typeset in Paul Renner’s Futura. In this spirit and in the spirit of opposing those wrong-headed social darwinists, we should remember that Renner’s letterforms were produced in opposition to his participation in the German ranks. It is my faith, that Futura was produced in hope for the triumph of rationality and scientific balance.

“In Renner’s view, the taste for large volumes, which equated weight with prestige, betrayed a potential flaw in the German character: ‘the fatal desire for greatness,’ by which Hitler was also notoriously motivated.” Art of Typography

So, in a continued state of war, religious fervor and outright barbarism is it any wonder that Futura, the papadopoulous, and its inspired son, Neutraface, born from the architecture of Silicon Valley, now seem to show themselves everywhere: from bricks to billboards, and monograms to grammies? Our idealism and its aesthetic remain, as we seek to embed both in creations that outlive us.

Until they ran out

Social Behavior and Organization Among Vertebrates is available, although not directly. Here are a few used book resellers to try if interested and a few high resolution scans from my archive if your public library’s copy has gone missing.

• pp. ii, iii
• p. 1
• pp. 6, 7
• pp. 10, 11
• pp. 50, 51
• pp. 78, 79
• pp. 94, 95
• p. 194
• p. 195

tags: cooperation, competition, evolution, futura, science, social, behavior, typography, warhol, zoology, art, religion, books, science