“Mixed Up!” Exhibition
TNC Gallery
This event has ended.
“Mixed Up!” is a happily disordered display of mixed media: painting, drawing, sculpture; words, images, words and images; small works, large works, funny and serious works; immediately obvious works and ponder-the-meaning works; hanging-from-the-ceiling works and nailed-to-the-wall works. The common denominator: artists mixing things up to make some sense of the mayhem.
“Things are always best seen when they are a trifle mixed up, a trifle disordered,” Nobel Laureate Camilo Jose Cela wrote. “The chilly administrative neatness of museums and filing cabinets and cemeteries is an inhuman, unnatural kind of order. It is, in a word, disorder.”
“Throughout history, the Apostles of Purity, who claim to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings,” Salman Rushdie said.
Mixed media isn't a 20th-century phenomenon, although in previous centuries artists were less experimental in choosing materials to use. For example, gold leaf was added to Medieval paintings. Leonardo mixed pastels with pen and ink. Degas combined pastels, charcoal and inks and, in some of his sculptures, cloth tutus.
Mixed media is work made with more than one material and/or work that combines materials and methods. Any materials can be used: words and images from magazines, fabric, smashed cars. Any methods can be employed: oil painting, printmaking, sculpting, piling dirt up in the desert.
A mixed media piece can be as simple as the use of two mediums or as complicated as Gem Aydogan’s work in this exhibit: a piece consisting of small sculptures and drawings within a larger sculpture that the viewer ducks into.
The critic Clement Greenberg suggests that using mixed media was a significant step in the development of modern art. He places the origin in the work of Braque and Picasso between 1911 and 1913, and identifies Braque's "Fruit Dish" (1912) as one of the first true mixed media works.
The evolution of mixed media continues with the constantly changing technology that has encouraged experimentation by contemporary artists who create video and digital pieces, and whole-gallery installations.
Thomas Edison, one of the early experimenters in the development of film, would be among the first to agree that art can be mixed up in any combination or in any way or with any materials the artist wishes. “Hell,” Edison said, “there are no rules here! We're trying to accomplish something.”
Peter J. Ketchum, Curator
Media
Schedule
from September 20, 2011 to October 26, 2011
A Festival of Performance artists will be held in the gallery from 2 to 5 on October 22 as part of the exhibit "mixed up!" However, not suitable for children or tea party adherents.
Opening Reception on 2011-09-20 from 18:00 to 21:00