Summer Fun! MAP goes to Artscape!

Artscape '09
Baltimore

July 17-19

Thank you to all our MAP supporters and newcomers for visiting MAP's tent at Artscape 09! Thank you also for participating in our interactive project. With a lot of polaroid film, tacks, a ball of red string, and Artscape visitors' assistance, MAP staff and volunteers successfully mapped out MAP's link to the local arts community!

To view the polaroids of our fans from Artscape please visit our Picasa Site

Artist Opportunity!

Baltimore Inner Harbor Festival

Aug 22 - 23

MAP will represent Chloe Watson at the Inner Harbor Art Festival.

Chloe Watson
Installation Room View
2007
Mixed
Variable

Attention MEMBERS of the Maryland State Arts Council Visual Artists' Registry!

Baltimore's first Inner Harbor Arts Festival, August 22-23, 2009.
Free display space and tent available for Seven (7) MAP - sponsored artists!
Don't Delay! First come, first served!!!

To apply, visit: artfestival.com/items/index/apply_artist
When you apply, please note that you've been referred by Maryland Art Place through the Maryland State Arts Council Visual Artists' Registry.

The 14Karat Cabaret:

NINETEEN23

Nineteen23 is a new monthly film series curated by Martin Johnson, MAP's previous participant in the 23rd Critics' Residency Program.

Nineteen23 is dedicated to the proposition that the cinema is not made for classification and copyright. This series aims to show contemporary and repertory work that crosses boundaries and genres in pursuit of a cinema free from preconditions and preconceptions. From avant-garde and scientific film to home movies and advertisements, Nineteen23 will represent the depth and breadth of the cinema.

@ 218 West Saratoga Street, Downtown Baltimore

Doors open at 9 pm
Show time at 9 pm

$6 at the door

Image from the film Nineteen23

Current Exhibition:

Convergence 09: Work by Recent MFA Graduates

Through Aug 29

Thurs, Aug 27: Closing Reception 6 pm

work by Katherine Mann >

Maryland Art Place presents Convergence 09, an exhibition of new work by recent Masters of Fine Art graduates from the Maryland Institute College of Art, The University of Maryland, College Park, Towson University, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The exhibiting artists are Alan Callander, Ellen Durkan, Michael Dax Iacovone, Susan Main, Katherine Mann, Robby Rackleff, Juan Rojo, and Leslie Shellow.

Following extensive studio visits, the Program Advisory Committee (PAC) of MAP selected artists who exemplify the most interesting and insightful work currently produced in Baltimore-area MFA programs. Convergence 09 features projects in experimental installation and video, corporeal sculpture, altered photographs, and wall-sized drawing and painting. MAP is pleased to bring the artists together for this important, community supporting exhibition.

Upcoming Exhibitions & Events:

7th Annual Curators' Incubator

Sept 15 - Oct 24, 2009

Thurs, Sept 24:
Reception 5 pm
Welcoming Cathy Byrd and Gallery Talk 6 pm
Sound Art Performance by John Berndt 7 pm

Thurs, Oct 8:
Soft Space - At the Intersection of Art and Architecture 6 pm

Thurs, Oct 22:
In Our Nature: An Interactive Ecosystem 6 pm

Sat, Oct 24:
Curating101: Cathy Byrd, Executive Director

work by Mike Muniak

Please join us for our first

RUSH HOUR: Art Beats Traffic

as MAP begins a series of Thursday events. Rush Hour: Art Beats Traffic is a chance to delay that commute! Stop by MAP on Thursdays this fall.

Aug. 27, 2009 - 5 to 8 pm
Sept 24, 2009 - 5 to 7 pm
Oct 8, 2009 - 5 to 7 pm
Oct 22, 2009 - 5 to 7 pm

All our events and programs are FREE and open to the public.

Curators and artists selected to participate in the 2009 Curators' Incubator Program include:

Curator Shelly Blake-Plock
Artists Bonnie Jones, Melissa Moore, and Mike Muniak

Curator Rachel Sitkin
Artists Kim Beck, Laura Cooperman, Michelle Hagewood, Alex Lukas, and Igor Pasternak

Curator Margaret Winslow
Artists Ronald Longsdorf, Janell Olah, and Stephen Ruszkowski

work by Kim Beck

work by Janell Olah

Save The Date:

Vanity Affair
Benefit and Gala Exhibition

Nov 5, 2009

Dean Alexander >

Your work centers on rediscovering the value of observation. How do you communicate to your viewers the importance of paying attention to the unnoticed?

Without our knowing, we edit sounds that are not important and we unconsciously tune out what we consider to be irrelevant information. I mean really, why should we be interested in the sounds of traffic, wind blowing, sirens, people chattering, birds chirping, footsteps making their way up the sidewalk, trains passing, clouds passing, trees barely moving, etc? I am interested in paying attention to these things - to these subtleties that make up our everyday.

I shoot video and sound of these specific moments where one may think nothing is happening. There is so much happening within each one of these 6-minute shots. One just has to take enough time to notice…to be patient and stop, look and listen. That’s the reward I guess…the noticing… then seeing and hearing all of the layers.

I shoot long shots of very specific moments. I am interested in a film technique called the long take because of the honesty it allows. I am not interested in editing or any post processing.

How do you select the sites for your work? In what way does the geography of each place influence what you hear when you’re recording?

I select sites for my work really just based on where I go. My current body of work was shot in Scottsville, Virginia; Asheville, North Carolina; and also here in Baltimore… so far. I chose these locations for no other reason than the fact that they are all just places that I have been this year --- since the end of January.

I feel that the city and the country are equally interesting. They both have these really wonderful audio tracks. I am interested in both landscapes. Though I am able to capture this stillness (the visual part) I am after a bit more successfully when I am shooting in the country.

On your blog (at www.juliebenoit.com), you describe that you like to put a story behind the location and placement of your headsets. Are the stories an extension of your work?

For a while, I was using a narrative or a story of sorts to go with the work. I found this narrative to be making the work too much about me. I discovered that by removing voice of "me," I was giving the work more of an epic voice… a collective voice…the voice of "we." The text you see in this work just puts these moments into a specific place and time, the rest is up to the viewer.

Please elaborate on how you use video and sound as a drawing.

I consider drawing to be a process and a document. I am interested in the idea of drawing as a verb. I consider these videos as records or documents of incidental moments that occur in my everyday. I am able to see them as drawings as they are records of specific moments. The videos are not the only way of seeing these specific moments, but they are one way of seeing them.

In each of your clips, the camera focuses on the headsets while the background is slightly blurred. Was it filmed that way to bring the headset to life?

I am currently recording the everyday with contact microphones (not headphones) that I have constructed out of these little things called piezo sensors. These hand-built microphones are an important element in the work. I am aware that the sound they gather is not clean and pristine, but I am okay with the sound that I am gathering. I am trying to remain as low tech as possible. What I am going for is the sound that exists in the places where it exists.

All of the shots are different… I like the chance factor that comes into play. I set up the microphones and my digital recorder. Once they are in place I place the video camera in front of the mics and begin recording. I record for 6 minutes. The sound in the video is actually the sound that these microphones are collecting. The mics in the video serve as markers for a specific moment or a specific place that I chose to record.

I didn’t intend for these mics to take on a life of their own but I see that it has kind of happened. I am okay with that. I guess you could say they are the objects that are re-presenting stories that already exist.

Artist bio.

Julie Benoit was born in Gambrills, Maryland in 1975 and currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland. She received her BFA from Towson University where she concentrated in art history and printmaking. After graduating college she started a dog walking business that currently operates in Baltimore City. She spends her days walking around Baltimore with handfuls of dogs. Through wandering about the city she has developed an interest in all of the small moments that surround her. Benoit has shown her work in galleries in Baltimore, DC, New York, Oregon, Los Angeles, and other cities. She also writes an occasional art review for local blogs and has in the past written for other local magazines. Benoit spends her time wandering about and paying attention to all of the tiny things that are overlooked.

We hope you enjoyed our Q&A, MAP's recent addition to our online newsletter. To let us know your thoughts, or to submit your own work for consideration, please contact Esther Kim at ekim@mdartplace.org.

Afternoon Feast
oil on canvas

MSAC Visual Artists' Registry

Are you an artist? Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC) Visual Artists' Registry is an important resource, available free of charge to artists in the Mid-Atlantic region. The Registry, which is housed and maintained by Maryland Art Place, includes profiles and images for over 2,800 artists in a searchable online database.

As a part of the MSAC online Registry, your profile will be accessible to curators, galleries, patrons of the arts, artists, and the general public.

The Registry works to showcase and promote area artists, leading many artists to make important professional contacts in order to sell and/or exhibit their work.

Questions about the Registry may be directed to Sofia Rutka, Registry Coordinator at registry@mdartplace.org or 410-962-8565.

Visit the MSAC Visual Artists' Online Registry

For All the Dogs We Ever Loved
oil on paper >

Amy Cheng

Amy's work is about pleasure, perhaps even joy. "Sensual, visual, and visceral pleasure is central to my work," she writes. In her oil paintings on canvas, vibrant colors, complex layered space, concave and convex forms, along with pattern and repetition, attention to detail, transparency, and shape-shifting conspire to evoke a quiet sense of joy.

Beyond this, Amy's work is about nature on a cellular level. She explains, "Any observer of the natural world will tell you that, both on the micro and the macro level, all of nature is based on pattern and repetition. I aim to evoke in the onlooker a state of attentive pleasure." Since she is inspired by natural phenomena, Amy hopes to return the viewer to the contemplation of nature with a rightful sense of awe.

http://www.amychengstudio.com

Lust/Caution
oil on canvas >

MSAC Resource Bulletin for visual artists

The Online Resource Bulletin lists hundreds of opportunities for artists and is available through MAP's web site. The Bulletin is updated regularly and includes calls for entry, funding opportunities, studio spaces, classes and workshops, jobs, and more.

If you have information that you wish to have included in the Resource Bulletin, please emailregistry@mdartplace.org. Subject : “Resource Bulletin Listing”

View the online Resource Bulletin