Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 19, 2007|Volume 36, Number 7

Video-performance artist Traci Tullius created this series of images of a face being "kneaded." Tullius, who makes semi-autobiographical videos, is one of five artists who will create a work of art using one material of their choice.

In ‘Making Do,’ artists will create
with a specific limitation

Visitors to a demonstration/exhibit at the Yale School of Art will be able to observe the creative process unfolding as a group of artists figure out how to “make do” with a material of their choice, and then later see the artists’ achievements on display.

The demonstration/exhibition, titled “Making Do,” explores the creative process as much as it spotlights the object that has been made. The five young artists participating in the show will be limited to working with materials they have chosen beforehand. The artists can be observed in the act of creation Oct. 15-22, when visitors will also be able to ask questions about the process. The artists’ creations (sometimes a type of performance) will then be on display Oct. 24-Nov. 7.

The exhibition is curated by Robert Storr, dean of the School of Art, and Samuel Messer, associate dean. Storr, a leading curator and critic as well as an artist, sees the exhibition as exemplifying “neither a return to the purist traditional concept of ‘truth to materials’ nor to the purist modernist one of ‘less is more.’” What each artist produces in this exhibition, says the dean, “can be an art of ‘muchness’ or an ‘ultra povera art of extreme spareness; it can be lasting or totally ephemeral. In essence, though, it consists of anything the artist chooses to do while making do with a given material of his or her choice.”

Featured in “Making Do” are conceptual artist Matt Johnson, video-performance artist Traci Tullius, sculptor Kate Costello, photographer Demetrius Oliver and graphic artist Jorg Lehni.

Johnson describes his work as “the assemblage and manipulation of raw material … generally reclaimed from the urban/industrial environment” and in many respects bearing testimony to its “previous lives.”

Tullius makes semi-autobiographical videos reflecting her self-described “ongoing fascination with the absurd, the banal and the intensely personal.”

Costello is a widely exhibited artist who specializes in three-dimensional portraits (busts).

Oliver’s photographs have been exhibited in solo shows at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, Atlanta Contemporary, P.S. 1 MoMA and Inman Gallery, as well as in group exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem and Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Poland.

Lehni, a native of Lucerne, Switzerland, is an independent designer and engineer who explores the way people interact with technology in the software/art he creates. He collaborated with the engineer Uli Franke to create Hektor, a “Spray-paint Output Device” for laptop computers.

Johnson, Costello and Lehni can be visited as they work in studios in the School of Art’s Green Hall, 1156 Chapel St. Tullius will make videos at various sites in New Haven, and Oliver can be observed taking pictures of himself at the Duncan Hotel, 1151 Chapel St., in New Haven. The artists can be observed in the process of creation on weekdays between Oct. 15 and Oct. 22, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Their works will be on display weekdays between Oct. 24 and Nov. 7 in Green Hall, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

For more information about the exhibition, contact Samuel Messer at (203) 432-2606 or samuel.messer@yale.edu.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Gifts provide funding for financial aid at Yale Divinity School

Gift provides funding for financial aid at Yale School of Nursing

Garden honors scholar who sought to improve Japanese-U.S. relations

Newly renovated and renamed library reopens

Sustainability is on the menu at new Library Café

Yale to create ‘think tank’ for improving public health

Horwich appointed to Sterling Professorship

Stockholder honored for ‘extensive and ongoing’ artistic achievements

Color, ‘stuff’ and ‘moving through the world’ inspire artist

Leadership program for Indian government officials is launched

Laurie Santos is named a ‘Brilliant Ten’ scientist

New multimedia online journal will examine major . . .

The architecture of contemporary sacred spaces is the focus of events

Company will use Yale research to create treatments for eye disease

YSN’s new associate dean for scholarly affairs . . .

‘The Veiled Monologues’ offers a look at the lives of Muslim women

In ‘Making Do,’ artists will create with a specific limitation

‘Trouble in Mind,’ the Yale Rep’s next play, examines issues of race, identity

Life science technologies to be highlighted in Yale BioHaven series

Walpole Library also opens after renovations

Carolyn Mazure is recognized for her contributions to . . .

School of Music student wins top conducting awards

From the United Way: ‘A Story of Finding Peace’

Campus Notes