Wednesday, April 13, 2005

bau 5: press release, part II. artist info

Donald Alter
was born in New York City, attended the High School of Music and Art,

where he learned of Black Mountain College, the prestigious and

innovative school of the arts which spawned the careers of many

leaders in the contemporary art movement.

At Black Mountain College, Don Alter studied painting under the

direction of Josef Albers, Warren Jennerjahn and Joseph Fiore and

textile design with Anni Albers and Trude Guermonprez.

After continuing his education at the Pratt Institute and the U.S. Army,

he became a well known and respected designer of textiles, founding

Design Logic Inc.

Don Alter has exhibited widely in the United States, and locally at

Garrison Art Center in Garrison, N Y, Collaborative Concepts in

Beacon, N Y, Watermark Cargo Gallery in Kingston, N Y,

Albert Shahanian Gallery in Poughkeepsie, N Y,

#2 Round Street Art Gallery in Piermont, NY, and the Greystone

Art Gallery in Middletown, NY.

He lives and works in Newburgh, NY.

Jim Tyack on Don Alter:

"The restless activity on Don Alter's paintings engage the eye like a

traffic accident. From the depth of expression, in the mysterious

infinities of color and line, in shimmering light and evanescent shadow,

the artist emerges and his inner workings become manifest. His work

reflects the jazzy rhythms of New York juxtaposed against the staid

temperament of the suburbs and is infused with the isolated bohemia

of his Black Mountain roots. Once one looks past the surface, into the

abyss opened by Alter in these paintings, his entropic, elemental world

becomes breathable, satisfying, a sanctuary."

Donald Alter - contacts:

alterdonald@yahoo.com


Melissa Greaves
Solo Exhibitions - selection

2003 "Scenes Unseen" Painter's Gallery Cornwall, NY

2002 "Scenes Unseen" (S)(H)(O)(W) Gallery, New Windsor, NY

2001 "The Tree Series" Newburgh Free Library, Newburgh, NY

Group Shows - selection

2005 bau 5/...stages...

2003 Women Artists of the Hudson Valley, Cornwall, NY

1995 SVA Gallery, New York, NY

1995 The Lime Light, New York, NY

Achievements

1996 Published by American Photography Publishing

1995 Awarded full scholarship to attend Frog Hollow Studio, Manchester, VT

1994 Published in Idea Disk

Melissa Greaves on Scenes Unseen:

"Scenes Unseen is a project caught peripherally_ capturing those

universal moments where you think that you have seen something,

caught a glimpse and whipped heads around to try and catch it_ but

the moment is gone even before you had time to process it. I have

tracked these moments, hunted them like wild animals and these

images are what I have brought home in my bag of prey. I photograph

what others have tossed aside, people, and stuffed toys…the private,

candid moments of another that many avert their eyes from.

These are all the moments that are forgotten in the trek through the

mundane, daily routine.

There is a certain humor in the images beyond the initial darkness

presented. There are times when I raise the camera and people

notice me; they stop what they are doing, and the moment is lost.

Many times I don’t raise the camera - I take my stance as an old

western gun slinger, shooting from the hip with a freeze frame stop

motion gun, rushing to steal their moment, The result is often blurry,

but I think that the soft focus gives the images a fleeting feeling, as

if your driving by and just barely catch a glimpse.

The final images are uncropped, uncut, because I feel that the

background and what is going on around the subject is just as

important in telling the story as the subjects’ actions. You can’t

crop out the peripheral when you’re walking down the street, it’s

there and even when you turn your head to get away from a

certain image it creates another peripheral that you have to cope with.

Furthermore the background allows the viewer to see the subject’s

environment, what is going on around them and why they are reacting

or not reacting the way they are. Billboards, advertisements, people

walking by on the street all play a role in how the subject is viewed

and it is important to keep it in there even if it isn’t always visually

pleasing. However, I try to counteract any inundation of the existing area

by using black and white film and keeping the background in its

place as a prop.

Babies when they are first able to focus their eyes have an easier

time seeing in black and white because it is less confusing and

easier to focus on. I used black and white film in this series to cut

down on the visual overload. I want my viewer to see what is really

important, how life is filled with irony, and the world’s stage which

we walk through is a constant reminder that the lives we lead are

fragile and should never be taken for granted.

While looking at these photographs for the first time many people tell

me that they are very familiar, and I think that is because they are all

things that are right outside of our car and office window waiting for us to

take notice. Very often we don’t look at these scenes directly; we pass

them quietly wrapped up in the conundrum of daily existence. These images

are the background noise, the white noise of society with the volume turned

all the way up.

Melissa Greaves - contacts:

melissa.greaves@gmail.com

Claude van Lingen

was born in Vereeniging, a small steel-manufacturing town near

Johannesburg, South Africa in 1931. He studied at the

Johannesburg College of Art from 1949 to 1952, in Paris, France

under Henri Goetz at the Academie Notre Dames des Champs,

and gained a MFA at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn in 1980.

He taught high school from 1953 to 1964 and was appointed

Chairman of the Teacher Training Department at the

Johannesburg College of Art in 1965, and was Chairman of the

Fine Art Department at the same school from 1972 until 1978.

He was examiner for all the art schools under the Department

of Higher Education South Africa on a number of occasions in

subjects such a Composition Painting, Portrait Painting,

Figure Painting and Drawing, as well as Anatomy and the

Theory and Methods of Teaching Art and Art Appreciation.

He was an instructor at the School of Visual Arts, New York

from 1982 to 1985.

In South Africa, Claude van Lingen wrote art criticism for a

daily newspaper for a number of years, and made appearances

on TV and radio talk shows.

In 1973 he was awarded the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Award

at the Art South Africa Today exhibition, judged by a curator from the

Tate Gallery, London and was included in the same show, judged by

Clement Greenberg, the following year. His work was shown in the

Sao Paulo Biennial in 1975.

He has shown in New York, and other venues in the US and Canada.

Currently Claude is writing a book on the creative process in art

based on the very successful course designed at the

Johannesburg College of Art and also taught at the SVA in New York.

Art and the Creative Process—Developing a Personal Vision and Generating Ideas

(working title) is aimed at young artists at the beginning of their careers,

and those artists wishing to develop new areas in which to work.

The book explains the principles of the creative process,

and demonstrates how they may be discerned in the work of

artists of note—both past and present. It then shows how

these principles were applied in art school situations with great success

—a number of students subsequently showing in situations such as

the Venice and Sao Paulo Biennials, in museums and galleries

in the US, Canada and Europe, and teaching in prestigious schools

such as Harvard University, the Maryland Institute, and Concordia University

in Montreal Canada.

The final chapters discuss how the reader may apply the principles

posited in the book to developing a personal vision, and generating

ideas, and gives hints on various aspects of being an artist and the

different venues and approaches to exhibiting work.

Claude van Lingen: statement: 1,000 Years From Now

Mental time and space have been the central concern of my work since 1978.

With this in mind, I have explored the theme 1,000 Years From Now

by employing both figurative and non-figurative means. A number of these

works incorporate broadcast TV sets or mirrors in paintings that track

and reflect the passing of time.

Since 1992, I have layered names from lists, as well as dates for one thousand years

into the future. Rather than indicating the passing of time in a linear fashion,

the denseness of paint or graphite/pencil in these works coalesces the past, present,

and future into an inextricable whole. This amalgam forms a matrix from which may

arise emotional, metaphoric, and associative responses in relation to experiencing—

and projecting thoughts about—the ever/never changing human condition and events

through time and space.

Claude van Lingen - contacts:

cvan@scholastic.com

Harald Plochberger

lived for almost fifty years in Vienna, Austria.

After graduating from the Academy of Applied Arts in 1971 he

was teaching art at high school for eight years.

Solo shows and group show participation since 1967.

Works are held by public and private collections in Austria, Germany,

Switzerland, Great Britain, South Africa, USA.

Harald Plochberger lives and works in Ossining/Beacon, NY since 1999/2003.

Founding member of beacon artist union - bau.

Harald Plochberger: statement

Integration of scientific and philosophical aspects is prominent in my

artistic concepts. Especially Ancient Greek civilization, science and mathematics

I feel attracted to. It is the strive for formulation, analysis and understanding

that makes us call Ancient Greece the cradle of our own civilization.

With my work I intend to visually explore the structures of language, mathematics

and aesthetics. Simplification, based on such found structures, determines my

artistic decisions. The ways computers work show many equivalents to the basics

of language and mathematics. I therefore appreciate creating drafts for my drawings,

paintings and objects on the computer, or I create them directly by utilizing specific

programs.

The ancient Greek myths, Greek poetry and tragedies provide thorough reflection

on the human condition. They often inspire my projects, as did the

Herakles theme and poetry by Sappho and Archilochos.

The physical part of my work is equally important to me. Feeling the material, fighting

obstinate problems in a building process, finding adequate solutions for my

demands - these are too essential stages in my creative process.

Carl van Brunt /press release (excerpt), September 2004 -

Harald Plochberger: You Make Me Hot at vanbrunt gallery, Beacon

"...that there is something new and intriguing going on becomes even

more apparent in the artist's multi-layered works in which ancient

Greek poetry is contrasted side by side with the artist's abstract

pictorial translations. In fact, Plochberger is engaged in the exploration

of the structure of language and mathematics and the newness of his work

is rooted in his fascination with Ancient Greek culture and civilization.

However, you do not need to be a scholar to appreciate the beauty

of the resulting images. Plochberger has succeeded in making art that can

be appreciated on many levels, not the least of which is the beauty of its

seductive surface."

D. Dominick Lombardi, New York Times, Westchester, September 2004 (excerpt):

"...the markings look somewhat like computer bar codes.

Archilochos' phrases - "against the wall fists on hips they leaned

in a fishnet of shadows" or "truth is born as lightning strikes" -

when linked to their geometric counterparts, put you right there, in the

momentarily quiet edges of a brutal conflict. Sappho's writings

- "sometimes she closed her eyes all night long" and "dawn with

small golden feet" - fall on the other end of the emotional spectrum,

where hearts and minds find pleasure and lust.

By creating shapes from the poetry, Mr. Plochberger heightens the

meaning of the words, an ultimate compliment to the poets."

Harald Plochberger - contacts:

haraldp@bestweb.net


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