The week prior, eighteen Skowhegan 2006 alumni had traveled from Berlin,
New York, Los Angeles, and various locations in between to A-Z West, Zittel’s
testing grounds for “A-Z designs for living” since 2000. These
25 acres are located in the hypnotically beautiful but severe high desert
near Joshua Tree National Park. Isolated in this harsh environment, we
spent the week of May 14 –20th, 2007 working on and installing various
projects. The week culminated in Vision Request, a daylong exhibition
of individual projects and the twilight performance of our collective
effort, Play of Light and Shadows.
Andrea Zittel, a Skowhegan 2006 resident faculty member, initially invited
us to A-Z West after viewing the collaborative performance we staged during
that summer session. What began with a casual observation from fellow
participant Ben Kinsley on the stage-like quality of the lakeshore in
front of the dining hall eventually grew into the Skowhegan campus-wide
collaborative performance, A Sea-some Medley.
Structured as a play in three acts, A Sea-some Medley blended
four iconic maritime tales: Moby Dick, Titanic, The Odyssey and
Apocalypse Now; and the audience, composed of Lake Wesserunsett
community members, watched the play aboard boats anchored near the lake’s
shore. Working with the conventions of orchestral accompaniment and scripted
dialogue, and theatrical devices such as narration and Greek chorus, the
play began at twilight with the light-hearted and guileless ease of a
summer camp production. Using picnic tables as stage sets, oversized cardboard
props, and the rustic melodies of a jug band orchestra, the play mirrored
its idyllic setting. But as the electric blue of dusk slowly shifted to
black, the production also transformed into something much less arcadian.
In the third act, the principal character (played by the inimitable Daniel
Bozhkov, Skowhegan’s resident fresco instructor) attempted Homeric
revenge that sardonically swelled into a massive murder spree, killing
all on stage including the narrator and the orchestra. The jug band’s
music was replaced by the thundering sounds of helicopters as stage lights,
smoke machines, and an ensuing battle scene transformed the calm lakeside
into a war zone.
A Sea-some Medley was born of our Skowhegan experience and was
a medley, in fact, of our collective efforts and artistic interests. It
responded to the open and supportive setting with ingenuousness, but also
wrestled with darker internal and external issues with an alternating
mix of sobriety and arch humor. Many of the artists involved had never
participated in a collaborative performance and contributed their individual
voices in varying degrees of boldness. This type of playful experimentation
and risk-taking allowed for moments of artistic reevaluation and informed
many of the participant’s more introverted artistic activity.
Just as A Sea-some Medley drew inspiration from the environment
in which it was created, we conceived Vision Request as a new
environment within which participant artists could respond to the varied
histories and associations of the desert region and draw from the precedent
of A-Z West. The austere landscape of A-Z West is dotted with many of
Zittel’s projects including more than a dozen A-Z Wagon Stations,
compact and portable metal structures meant to “house possessions
and provide a membrane against the elements”, providing the dweller
with the freedom of adaptability. Each Wagon Station, save for an original
prototype, has been individually customized by another artist. Although
some of the customizations are less focused on functionality, many of
the units are employed on a quasi-regular basis. However, none of the
units were occupied during our visit and the effect was of a small and
recently deserted settlement. As we explored the land we discovered artworks
from the previous public projects that A-Z West has hosted, some more
hidden than others and in various states of composure. Our perception
of physical isolation was heightened by these remote installations, as
was the uncanny feeling of recent desertion. The almost post-apocalyptic
awareness of solitude served to strengthen our community and allowed our
group to reengage with one another with the enthusiasm and candid intimacy
that we had felt nine months previously. Zittel’s incredible generosity,
in not only hosting our event, but also in opening up her home and studio
fostered this creative reunion, and her advice and assistance helped guide
us through the week’s developments.
Our group’s cooperative efforts began in the event’s planning
stages and a collective journey was embedded in the physical traveling.
We arrived at the location ready to build, install, film, perform, photograph,
or respond in some as yet unknown way. Some worked on ideas to be completed
later, or as part of an ongoing body of work, and 14 individual projects
were included in the Vision Request exhibition.
Many artists highlighted the unsettled, extreme environment with pieces
that playfully attempted to beautify, improve, or develop the land; Elena
Bajo gardened with plastic flowers, tinfoil, mirrors, and string; Andrew
Ross built an anthropomorphic billboard; Katie Cretys created a sunscreen
application service station disguised as a miniature landscape, and Montana
Torrey installed a fluorescent orange portable painting that served a
duel purpose as a safety barrier against possible rock slides. Also incorporating
portability, Sarrita Hunn and Mark Taber interjected bold black linear
sculptures on specific installation sites, influencing the viewer’s
perception and awareness of the surrounding space. Using the landscape
as a foil, Adam Shecter projected his jewel-toned animation loop, Motion
Study For Monster, on a natural rock screen with a battery-powered
Super-8 projector. Both Katja Mater and Take Etani created pieces that
required group participation with the environment. Mater’s long-exposure
photographs transformed a group of fluorescent-clad dancers into a hallucinatory
wash of color, in effect painting on the horizon, while Etani served tea
and snacks to all who journeyed to his Hard Rock Tea House high
in the hills.
Other artists worked more directly with historic, symbolic, and cultural
associations of the land. Yvonne Lung spent three long days laying miniature
rail tracks made of unfired porcelain to reenact the 1860's construction
of the Transcontinental Railroad with Porcelain? Not A Chinaman’s
Chance. Lung’s pointed reference to the Chinese role in the
actualization of Manifest Destiny was double-sided, as the ceramic medium
was intended to break apart and be consumed by the desert. Jennifer Dudley’s
two side-by-side unmarked graves, A Burying Place for All Strangers,
invoked the unrecorded history of the Pioneering West and the tall-tales
and legends that were fabricated as a result. Colleen Asper responded
to more cinematic desert associations with Remains, a graphic
and oddly seductive staging of fake blood and gore worthy of any cult
horror film.
Afternoon visitors to Vision Request hiked deep into the rocky
gorge behind the A-Z West compound to view works installed along the way.
The return path led back to a natural rock-walled amphitheater that served
as a stage for the evening’s collaborative performance, Play
of Light and Shadows, which capitalized on the ritual associated
with just such a pilgrimage.
Using séance as a point of departure, participants of Play
of Light and Shadows ‘conjured’ various spirits using
traditional and modified shadow puppet techniques. Teams of puppeteers,
each armed with a flashlight and a stack of recognizable and abstract
cardboard shapes, began shadow plays in regular intervals. These plays-within-a-play
were each contained within a single beam of light, each climbing higher
than the next until the entire rock wall was illuminated with ghostly
animation.
While A Sea-some Medley and Vision Request were created
by the same core group of people, the similarities do not lay in theme
or subject matter. Instead, the similarities lay in the context in which
they were created. We came together- more than just geographically removed
from our accustomed art practices- as a temporary community in which the
individual was supported and the collaborative explored. This license
to take risks, experiment, play, and redefine boundaries was a freedom
we allowed ourselves within the generous environment of Skowhegan. The
artists who participated in Vision Request were seeking another
space that would allow that same freedom, and they found it in the middle
of the high desert.
Documentation of Vision Request can be found at www.visionrequest.com
Skowhegan
School of Painting and Sculpture Newsletter Fall
2007 |
