I dream of a museum without curatorial comments.

This week I made my first trip to The Art Institute’s new Modern Wing with my mom and sisters. We had a lovely time there, and even got to eat in the new restaurant. I was quite pleased to see that the new Modern Wing, featured some much needed contemporary art, like Robert Gober, and Bruce Nauman, but I would have loved to see more (like the whole wing filled with contemporary art). The modern standards looked great as well, although much of the exhibit was the same work which was featured in galleries in the old building.

While wandering the galleries and looking at the work, I found those little curatorial tags to be particularly pesky. Not that they had changed at all: Artist Name, Nationality, Life Dates, Piece Dates, and a paragraph. That paragraph bothered me, like a person who keeps talking while you are trying to concentrate on a task. I found myself “feeling bad” if I didn’t read the paragraph, like I might be missing something, but then found the first two sentences to be so far from the experience of looking that I quit reading.

What would a museum be like without those paragraphs? What would it be like for the art to stand on its own? I dream of an exhibit where each work is free to stand on its own, free from the historical cannon, free from its family of work in another collection, free from the artist’s biography, free to be seen by an audience entrusted to have their own experience.

Orange Jelly on display • Enjoy your commute!

Orange Jelly is on display at Loyola University's Ralph Arnold Fine Arts Annex, 1134 W. Sheridan Rd., Chicago. It can be viewed from the street and in passing cars and is on display until August.

Orange Jelly is a an installation made from orange sweaters which have been transformed into a fungal invasion of the space. It is part of a series of works I've been making which use the form of fungi as a metaphor for liminal states of being. Fungi are liminal in that they commonly grow on dead things spanning the space between life and death and biologically they are more closely related to animals, but most people view them as plants.

I love exhibiting this peice in this gallery space because the space is liminal in that it acts as both a gallery and as public space.


View Ralph Arnold Fine Arts Annex in a larger map

Fluxliminal Closing Reception-Friday, March 20th, 5:30-7:30PM

Winter is over! Please join us for the closing reception of our show investingating transitional states using photography and sculpture, on the spring equinox, this Friday, March 20th, 5:30-7:30PM at Loyola University's Crown Center Gallery.

fluxliminal

Vesna Jovanovic and Renee Prisble Una present new work
investigating the changing world between states of being.

Feburary 27- March 20, 2009
Closing Reception: March 20, 5:30-7:30

Crown Center Gallery • 1001 West Loyola Avenue • Chicago, IL 60626 • 773-508-7510
Gallery Hours: 10am-7pm M-F, 12-4pm Sat & Sun and by appointment

Work in Progress- Orange Sweater Fungus, Mountain Stickers

I am making some new fungus forms using orange sweaters I buy at thrift stores. The colony is growing day by day. Vesna and I are trying to show together in the gallery space in the Art Annex at Loyola. We will both be showing work dealing with fungi and decay. I will include this piece and the ceramic works. Vesna will show really large photographs from a pinhole camera. We just need to set a date with the department.
These are my plasticine models for the next generation mountain stickers. “Mountain Stickers” will be an affordable installation art product that creates a collaboration between the collector and me, the artist. The work will be small scale, low relief mountain ranges that are easy to arrange and affix to the collector’s wall. The collector will have the option of leaving the material of the molded mountains exposed, or painting over them with their wall color to create a seamless installation. An exhibition label completes the piece and the collaboration.

I hope to have these ready for market and sale in a couple months.

Artxposium this weekend!

Hey Everybody! Its time for Artxposium, carnival like, festive, art exhibit in West Chicago. Its worth the drive! I am showing the second incarnation of The Prayer Wheel Project. Hope you can make it.

artXposium 2008

On its second edition this year, artXposium is a 3-day multimedia art experience with more than 80 participating artists. Local, national and international talent will come together from September 19th to the 21st to display a variety of art work ranging from traditional painting, sculpture, and photography to interactive, multimedia, and sound installations. This years event also include the inaugural month long international artist-in-residence program featuring Danish artist Gudrun Hasle at the West Chicago City Museum.

Showing and Selling at Mini Dutch

Thank you to everyone who came to the Mini Dutch show this past Saturday. I had such a great experience. It was really my first experience selling my work and I loved it. Not nearly so much for the money, which was nominal (prices from $1-$50), but because I saw my art making people happy and going to good homes! I learned so much from this show, lessons that will take years to manifest.

If you haven't seen it yet head on over, and no not ALL the good stuff is gone, but about 1/2 is.

Mini Dutch Gallery
3111 w. diversey first floor
chicago il, 60647
773.235.5687

open Sundays 11am-3pm or call/email for appointment

minidutchgallery [at] gmail [dot] com

"Leftovers" show opening at MiniDutch Sept. 13th

Dear Friends,

I am excited to present this new show of old stuff:

Leftovers
Opening Reception: September 13th, 7-10pm

MiniDutch another apartment gallery
3111 W. Diversey
Chicago, IL 60647
773.235.5687
http://www.minidutchgallery.org/

In this show I've made work from the materials that have been in my studio, in some cases for over 10 years. I've been carting these leftover and never used materials around think that someday I would make art with them. The materials vary from found objects, felt, latex, fake eyes, orange powders....

I returned to the source of art making practice for this exhibit. The curious, adventurous, anything goes making from my youth created these many delightful, often curious objects. This making process was fun and immediate, creating new pieces rapidly and severing what had become an emotional tie to the promises of all these materials.

To further sever the tie, the work is for sale, and very affordable prices range from $1 to $50. Some work is available for cash and carry.

The show closes October 12th with a materials exchange. Artists and makers are invited bring leftover materials to swap and socialize.

I hope you can make it to this show and the opening event!

-Renee

White Moment Opens Friday

Dear Friends,

My installation White Moment opens today, but the opening reception is on Friday from 6-9pm. On Wednesday I will be giving a gallery talk at 11am.

I am really excited about this exhibit, and I hope you can make it to the opening reception but if you can't, I hope you will go and see it while its up from June 9th-August 1, hours: 11-6 M-Th, 12-4 F.

The exhibit seems to express a culmination of investigations I've been pursuing in my studio on and off for more then six years. It features sculpture, video, site specific installation, archival digital prints, and a catalogue with an essay by Mary Ann Wincorkowski.

Read a review of the show in Yoga Chicago

Hope to see you there.









Please use this map to park at NEIU and find the gallery. The address of the university is 5500 N. St. Louis Ave, Chicago IL 60625. If you drive there, enter on Bryn Mawr, just west of Kimball and follow the access road south to Lot F. Park any where in Lot F during the night of the opening, or at the meters any other time. Enter the building from the north-east corner of the lot and find the gallery on your right.

Sentient, Studio, Press

Today was a fun day in the studio. Above is the new configuration of Sentient for the exhibit at Northeastern. Anna Poplawska will be writing about the work in Yoga Chicago. She writes about spirituality and art and has a monthly column in Yoga Chicago. She came to my studio today and I am pretty excited.

Reality Check

Art Advice is a helpful website I just started looking at.

Tucson Exhibits

Here are some pictures from my opening in Tucson.

I was in a juried encaustic show at Conrad Wilde Gallery, which is a really nice contemporary gallery, which mainly features encaustic work.
The opening was really well attended, there was about 200 people.
My mom, had an opening the same night. She makes encaustic work too!
Her triptych sold!

Transformation

Since the New Year, I have been making many positive changes to my life. But I think the source of all this change actually came not from my free will, but because I had to stop drinking to take Accutane. Its not as though drinking were some kind of issue, but when it was absent I noticed how much a filler it can be, much like the other things I've phased out

Reductions:

• Not Drinking
  
• Quiting TV
• phasing out myspace
• checking email less

Additions:

• Revamping my studio
• Working on exciting ideas for my new show
• reading more
• going to see more art, going to museums
• collaborating with friends
  
• Volunteering and taking classes at Shambhala
  
• Re-committing to my daily meditation practice and trying to work with lojong
  
• Keeping this blog and my accutane blog
  

Without the time filler activities, I've been able to add in so many more positive activities. One down side is that the Accutane makes me feel like a lethargic arthritic old lady, so I haven't been exercising at all, and it is driving me crazy. I am looking forward to May, when my skin transformation is complete, the accutane is over, and I can maintain my new life style, but with energy.

Gordon Matta-Clark

This past weekend, Michael and I went to see the Gordon Matta-Clark exhibit at the MCA. I was so happy to finally see the MCA hosting (almost) contemporary art, and an artist that I've admired for a long time. The exhibit is great, but since Matta-Clark's career was so short, there wasn't much there that I hadn't already seen or read about. I was really inspired by the table of books that was source material for and documentation of Matta-Clark's work. I took notes.