Upcoming site-specific commission for the Nymans House, owned by the National Trust, in Sussex, England  (South of London).
‘The Grand Tour Fan,’ pictured here, appropriates from the original c. 18th century Grand Tour Fan on display in the Messel-Rosse fan collection at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, UK.

The Messel-Rosse family lived at Nymans House in the 19/20th centuries and were avid decorative arts collectors.
This fan inserts intentionally banal public places from contemporary Sussex life into the historical framework — substituting scenes of Italian ruins with those of Gatwick Airport (just 20 miles from Nymans House).

This is one of three fans that will eventually be placed on site for the ‘Unravelling the National Trust’ exhibition set to open May – November 2012.

Photo credit: Sussie Ahlberg

Special thanks to Noah Kirby, Doh Young Kim, Allison Gorman, and Jaidyn Seo for their assistance in digital file building and physical construction.

Untitled (Missouri Coverlet Abstraction 1850s to 2010)

The screens are the first commissioned works through the airport’s new Public Art and Culture Program.

Permanently on view in Concourse A, Gate 4.

The Milkmaid's Lot, 22" x 30", gouache and silver, 2012

‘Bear the Sway,’ a solo exhibition of new works on paper from The Lost Colony Project at South Seattle Community College  in Seattle, Washington.

January 11 – February 17, 2012

Bear the Sway, a new body of work by Lauren Adams, relates to the artist’s recent investigations into the ‘Lost Colony’ and Elizabethan colonialism.  This series of works on paper is inspired by the watercolors of John White from the 1580’s, which feature native Algonquins and Secotans (located then in present-day North Carolina) performing rituals, planting crops, preparing food, and displaying their clothing, and also the formal portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and the explorers and voyagers (Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, etc.) who formed her colonial advisorship.

Bear the Sway is an exploratory series of paintings and drawings on paper and panel that lift, excise, and appropriate the found figures and clothing forms from the historical documents. The result is another facet of The Lost Colony Project, which visually collages the abstracted elements, creating charged absurdities that reflect the legacy of historical inequity in a contemporary visual language.

The basic tenet of this project is to resolve an understanding of the historical situations at work, and to interrogate the narratives and images, searching for a clearer display of the colonial power dynamics. Bear the Sway is also about the history of imagery as a site for political displays of power, which the artist utilizes as a directive when making her own imagery and objects. Seeking to transform the ‘given history’ into a new narrative, one that hopefully provides further agency to the appropriated narratives. In the The Lost Colony Project, the artist is exploring the relationship between costume, class, and social power.

By Sea II, a new project by R. Brooke Priddy in collaboration with Lauren Adams for the ‘Out of Fashion’ exhibition at the South Eastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC.

Adams designed the pattern for the floating figure, based upon the 19^th century Great Hunt Wallpaper found in the historic Hanes Home at SECCA. The pattern was silk-screened onto spandex in Asheville, NC.

November 3, 2011 – March 10, 2012

All My Possessions for a Moment of Time, paint, 2011, 35' x 15'

All My Possessions for a Moment of Time revives a portrait painting of Queen Elizabeth I, entitled THE ARMADA PORTRAIT (three original versions from the 1500’s, most notably by George Gower), which documents in an allegorical and symbolic context one of the most well-known stories from the Elizabethan Era.  Nestled within the appropriated lace collar of Queen Elizabeth, the silhouettes of Algonquins (as presented in Theodore de Bry and Thomas Hariots “A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia “, 1588) stretch into another kind of lace-like pattern, forming an all-over impression that reads quite differently to the viewer depending upon their distance from the painting.  Drawing upon strategies of pattern and ornament, and the malleable possibilities of form and shape, this piece is part of an ongoing inquiry in an exploratory series of paintings and drawings that lift, excise, and appropriate the found figures and clothing forms from the historical documents, hopefully creating charged absurdities that reflect the legacy of historical inequity in a contemporary visual language.

The title is inspired by a poem written by Queen Elizabeth I.

See the video of the live on-air interview with Lauren here: WXII Television Interview

Chinoiserie

Chinoiserie (Domestic Tableau) explores the latent anti-union attitude in the American South (As of 2003, only 3.1 percent of North Carolina’s workers were members of unions, the lowest representation in the United States), despite the very real and positive influence that labor advocates and unions brought to the working and middle classes in the 20th century. This artwork also celebrates the people (many of whom were women) who were the torches of social justice in textile mills, and tells the other side of the story when exploring the pastoral southern landscape, imagining ‘what could have been’ in America but what also ‘might can be’ in the Asian social justice movement.

Inspired by visual culture of the Great Hunt wallpaper in the historic Hanes Home at SECCA, Chinoiserie (which literally means “Chinese thing”) was popularized concurrently in the West with toile and other exotic figurative patterns. Imagining what these Chinoiserie patterns would look like, infused with American textile worker history, this is a visual reminder of the positive effects that ordinary worker’s protests have had on the landscape of labor, politics, economics, and social equality (and also a reaction to the recent Occupy Wall Street protests). The purpose of Chinoiserie (Domestic Tableau) is to explore the linked histories of American and Asian factory labor, and to question what lessons we have learned as the United States has moved into a post-industrial capitalist economy and Asian countries struggle with the politics of industrial factory labor.

I am particularly interested in the American attitudes about this shift of production to Asian countries – attitudes that are often ill-informed about the policies of our own government, which is unduly influenced by corporations and capitalist ideologies,to provide increasingly cheaper goods to the American public, despite the resulting vacuum of job opportunities in the United States and it’s effect on the national economic ecosystem. This also plays into American fears (xenophobic, to be truthful) that the rise of the ‘Asian Tiger’ will bring about the collapse of the American empire.

It is well-known that human rights violations in Asia are a threat to freedom and justice worldwide. Worker’s protests in China are shut down with a ferocity equaling early labor disputes in the United States. And it’s primarily cheap Chinese sweatshop workers who fill the shelves of discount stores in the United States (such as the millions of American flags for sale stamped with ‘MADE in CHINA’). As Jiang Xueqin writes in the February 2011 issue of The Diplomat, “Because the American family each ‘owes’ an average of more than $10,000 to China, this co-dependency is a perverse economic situation as well: if either the Chinese migrant worker decides to stop making things or the American consumer decides to stop buying things, then the global economy risks collapsing. The relationship is thus unhappy, tense, and above all unstable.”

Chinoiserie (Domestic Tableau) also takes advantage of the desire for manufactured goods promoted within the capitalist system. The aesthetics of the installation participate in the centuries-long craze for exotic items, referencing the exchange of goods and culture in the colonial and post-colonial era. The project also visualizes the co-dependency between the United States and Asia, inextricably linked via global economies yet also vulnerable to one another’s histories. Here’s to hoping we are also united in the possibilities of the future.

Upcoming solo project at Conner Contemporary in Washington, D.C.

A *GOGO ART PROJECTS SPECIAL INSTALLATION
SEPTEMBER – OCTOBER, 2011

Opening September 10

My recent work has focused on the ‘Lost Colony’ of Elizabethan era colonialism, particularly the formal portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and the explorers and voyagers. The relationship between the costumes, clothing, and material culture of the Elizabethan era to the political and metaphorical outcomes of capitalism and colonialism provide rich artistic fodder in my practice.

I am inspired by the watercolors of John White from the 1580’s, which feature native Algonquins and Secotans (located then in present‐day North Carolina) performing rituals, planting crops, preparing food, and displaying their clothing, and also the Elizabethan privateers and colonists (Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, etc.) who formed her colonial advisorship. Within the Elizabethan portraits, by painters such as Nicholas Hilliard and Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder, what we see on display is an attentiveness to crafting a public persona, political agenda, and the attendant clues to specific aspects of propaganda in image‐making. The iconography of empire is visible in the globes, crowns, swords and coumns, and also, I would argue, within the patterns of the clothing itself. Contemporary fashion designers such as Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood have mined some of this very material in their recent collections.

Plunder, for Conner Contemporary in 2011, utilizes the courtyard space to exhibit several lines of fabric banners inspired by nautical textile forms. The flags feature decorative paintings appropriated from the clothing on Queen Elizabeth I in her many royal portraits. The paintings are made as works on paper, then digitally scanned and commercially printed with weather‐resistant inks onto fabric.  I am interested in how pirate culture was not only the rogue sailors and privateers who plundered other ships for transatlantic trade goods, but also the colonizers who ‘plundered’ North America with the queen’s blessing.  This title is meant to point directly at my critical and artistic view of the colonial era, as evinced in my own plundering of the queen’s decorative patterning.  Acting as subversive pirate flags, the project will come full circle when versions of the flags are installed in a port in Plymouth, England (where many Elizabethan ships set sail) and on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, where the Lost Colony was based. In Plunder, I have already begun to explore the relationship between costume, class, and economic power.

Saturday, September 17, 2011   2-4pm

At the Luminary Center for the Arts, a panel discussion on the process and practice of installation art featuring the artists who have shown in the Installation Space in the past year:

Lauren Frances Adams, Jill Downen, Lindsay Stouffer, John Early, Ann-Maree Walker, and Brett Williams.

Conversation Pieces
September 23, 2011

Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN

Eleven artists have been invited to participate in this first ever event as part of the 2011 Conference for Pre-Tenure Women:
Lauren Frances Adams, Victoria Bradbury, Alison Carey, Laura Drake, Leah Gauthier, Beate Geissler + Oliver Sann, Maura Jasper, Irena Knezevic,  Min Kim Park, Maura Schaffer, Christine Wuenschel, and Sigrid K. Zahner.

Download the catalogue here: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/vpa/etb/events/conversation_pieces.html

Curator: Shannon McMullen, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Visual and Performing Arts, College of Liberal Arts

http://austudiovisits.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/welcome-lauren-adams/

Lecture and talk show interview on Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Studio Visits is a weekly live lecture and talk show at Alfred University which brings artists and thinkers to the Holmes stage each Wednesday morning at 9 am. First, the guest presents their work in a lecture format and then intermission! When the audience returns, the stage is transformed into a talk show set. The sculpture graduate students (and sometimes others) act as interviewers and bring the guest back to the stage. The interviews use lively games, unusual questions, and surprise call-in guests to give the live audience a new perspective about the artist and their work!

Studio Visits is recorded live and the segments are available on this blog and on Vimeo.

http://alfredfoundations.com/category/studio-visit-show/

Studio Visits is a project of the Foundation and Sculpture Graduate Programs of the School of Art and Design at Alfred University. It’s headed by professors M. Michelle Illuminato and Brett Hunter. Alfred University is located in Alfred, New York (where it is very cold in the winter).

Frustra, after Whitney’s “Choice of Emblemes” from 1586, are a series of printed vinyl flags documented on Rodanthe near Cape Hatteras in 2011. The site is believed to be where the Lost Colonists migrated to with the Croatoan natives after they left Fort Raleigh in the 1580’s.

Temporary Art Review is a platform for contemporary art criticism that focuses on alternative spaces and critical exchange among disparate locales. Temporary is a national network, highlighting both practical and theoretical discourse through exhibition reviews, interviews, essays and features on artist-run spaces and projects.

Founded in 2011 by Sarrita Hunn and James McAnally, with regular contributors Lauren F. Adams, Mairie Heilich, Carol Anne McChrystal, Francesca Wilmott, editor Clara Van Zanten, and regional editor Sasha Delai.

HOUSE COAT is a site-specific installation that will take place in Spring 2011 in St. Louis, MO, and will involve the creation of a fitted spandex garment for a two-story, row-house organized by Cosign Projects and curated and assisted by Lauren Frances Adams. Andrea Carey of LA LA Land is helping Leeza Meksin organize the logistics of this public art installation, while the artist’s sister and filmmaker, Anya Meksin, will be video recording the installation process.

The official opening will be on March 18, 2011 @ Cosign Projects.

http://www.cosignprojects.net

detail of 'The Rainbow Portrait' of Queen Elizabeth I, c1600, by Isaac Oliver

Solo project of site-specific painting at the Luminary Center for the Arts.

On Friday, February 4th from 6-9pm, Lauren Frances Adams will open The Nymph’s Reply, a painting-based installation that combines Elizabethan decorative tropes and John White’s watercolors of native Algonquin Indians as a vehicle for exploring American post-colonialism. An artist talk will be held on March 11.

Finding inspiration in Sir Walter Raleigh’s pastoral poem of the same title, the installation is simultaneously visually seductive and chaotic, its aesthetic approachability belying the pedantic critique embedded within the wall paintings. The appropriated references are rendered by hand in the large-scale paintings, creating a surreal juxtaposition of previously disparate elements united by the artist’s process. The result is a barrage of collaged forms confronting the viewer with a dense symbolic field of multiple historical timelines and references, in an attempt to make sense of conflicting colonial narratives.

Lauren Frances Adams currently teaches painting in the BFA program and the interdisciplinary MFA program at Washington University in St. Louis. She has exhibited at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; the Mint Museum of Craft and Design, Charlotte; the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; an ex-Turkish bathhouse in Belgrade, Serbia; Royal NoneSuch Gallery in Oakland, California, and CUE Art Foundation in Chelsea, New York. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and recently completed a residency at the Cite in Paris, France, July and August 2010. She is also a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Award. She has an upcoming solo project at Conner Contemporary in Washington, DC.

Lauren F Adams @ Sweet Jesus

Link to draft video of Sweet Jesus project from November, 2010.

Completed video coming Spring 2011.

Local Histories: The Ground We Walk On

an exhibition of over 50 artists from across the U.S. exploring Alfredo Jaar’s idea that

“place can not be global,” curated by artist elin o’Hara slavick + art historian Carol Magee,

Professors in the Art Department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

January 28 – April 29, 2011

OPENING RECEPTION: February 11, 5-9 pm

523 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 USA (formerly the Chapel Hill Museum)

Hours: Tuesday-Friday 2-7pm; Saturday 12-7pm; closed Sunday + Monday

Special Events:

Performances by Cathy McLaurin, Neill Prewitt and Lance Winn March 18, 7 pm

Mildred’s Lane Goes Elsewhere: a collaboration between artist J. Morgan Puett and Elsewhere, a living museum in Greensboro, North Carolina, a conversation, April 4, 7 pm

Exhibition and events are free and open to the public.

This inaugural exhibition at Chapel Hill’s new temporary art space at 523 E. Franklin Street addresses issues of histories and institutions of communities, family, place; commemorative responses; heroes; folklore and buried truths; traditions; memory/nostalgia; longing/loss; progress/development; the intersection of the local and global, and social, legal, political events as they pertain to, influence and construct local histories.

The exhibition includes: videos about UFOs in Puerto Rico, the artist Barbara Hepworth and maize-based culture; sculptures utilizing tobacco, chairs, plaster snakes and a model of Michael Jordan’s childhood home; site-responsive and specific installations with red clay, vinyl window drawings and paint collected from local home renovations; paintings of the Middle East and surreal funerals; drawings of plants along the U.S.-Mexico border; interactive performances with bread and thermal imaging; photographs using gems as the negatives and of small towns in Germany, places in China, painters in the Hudson River Valley; and much more.

This exhibition represents a unique collaboration between the Town of Chapel Hill and the UNC Art Department and features current and former students and faculty of the department as well as others from the region and across the country.  The exhibiting artists were selected from among over 150 applications.  Participating Artists: Alexis Bravos, Lauren F. Adams, Sophia Allison, Dave Alsobrooks, Patricia Bellan-Gillen, Erik Benjamins, Joshua Bienko, Lynn Bregman Blass, Molly Brewer, Ian Brownlee, Ann Chwatsky, María DeGuzmán, Lee Delegard, Travis Donovan, Jordan Essoe, Ashley Florence, Matthew Garcia, Gail Goers, Heather Gordon, Michael Gurganus, Elizabeth Hull, Brett Hunter, Michelle Illuminato, Michael Itkoff, Andrew Ellis Johnson, Ann Pegelow Kaplan, Susan Alta Martin, Mario Marzan, Cathy McLaurin, Morgan Muhs, Shaw Osha, Lillian Outterbridge, Freddie Outterbridge, Allyson Packer, Jessica Almy-Pagán, John Douglas Powers, Neill Prewitt, Susanne Slavick, Leah Sobsey, Spectres of Liberty, Tracy Spencer, Cici Stevens, Mary Carter Taub, Julie Thomson, Montana Torrey, Paul Valadez, Jeff Waites, Michael Webster, Cathy Weiss, Amy White, Ripley Whiteside, Lance Winn, Denis Wood

http://www.facebook.com/LOCAL.HISTORIES.SHOW

http://localhistories.wordpress.com/

I have been awarded a commission at the St. Louis International Airport.  I will be traveling to Munich, Germany, to work with the Franz Mayer Company to create a triptych of glass screens for one of the airport concourses.

Full news story here.

I donated a piece to this inspiring project: Heal Dara G.

Online auction is Monday November 29th–Sunday December 5th at 12 noon.

Please bid.

Sweet Jesus

November 19, 2010 – November 20, 2010

Historic Lemp Brewery, St. Louis, MO

www.sweetjesusstl.com

Co-directed By: Lauren Frances Adams, Juan William Chavez, Jake  Peterson, & Kiersten Torrez

ST. LOUIS, MO: 19 Contemporary artists from across the United States will be participating in one of the largest independent art events in St. Louis history.  33,000 sq. ft. and four massive, unfinished sections of Historic Lemp Brewery will house this two day event.

Lemp Brewery will open its gates on Friday, November 19^th, at 7pm.  This two-day art exhibition features local and national installation, multimedia and performance artists. Sweet Jesus is organized by local cultural workers as a platform for focusing international attention to the unique resources and culture of the St. Louis independent art movement. Drawing its name from the found graffiti of former disenchanted youth that used the expansive brewery as an underground party mecca, Sweet Jesus attempts to recapture this energy in the form of a spontaneous 24 hour art happening.  Artwork will be installed on four sections and three floors of the raw industrial space that formerly housed the brewery’s ice house, storage, and processing facilities.

Artists in this group exhibition include: Lauren Frances Adams (St. Louis, MO), Beacon Projects (New York, NY), Juan William Chavez (St. Louis, MO), Coble/Riley Projects (Copenhagen, Denmark  and New York, NY), William Gass (St.  Louis), Sarrita Hunn (St. Louis), Gregg Louis (New York, NY), Tim Ridlen (New York, NY), Mike Schuh (Chicago, IL), Ryan Thayer (St. Louis, MO), Kiersten Torrez (St. Louis, MO). Video selections by guest curators Laura Fried (St. Louis, MO) and Matthew Thompson (Aspen, CO).

On November 19^th, there will be an opening party from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.  Performances by Beacon Projects scheduled at 7:30pm and 9:00pm will be broadcast live on the web.  Open hours on Saturday, November 20^thwill feature a discussion and walking tour with guest panel, inspirational sing-along, and mimosa toast from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Sweet Jesus, is organized by Lauren Frances Adams (Founder of Cosign Projects and Assistant Professor of Painting at Washington University), Juan William Chavez (Artist, Cultural Activist and Founder of Boots Contemporary Art Space), Jake Peterson (Assistant Curator of Cosign Projects and Lead Designer at Arsenal Studios), and Kiersten Torrez (Visitor Services Manager at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis). Guest curators include Laura Fried (Associate Curator at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis) and Matthew Thompson (Associate Curator at the Aspen Art Museum). The exhibition is on view Friday, November 19, 2010 7-10pm and Saturday, November 20, 2010 12pm-5pm. Admission is free.

Presentation of new solo installation, Pearlclutcher, at South Carolina State University, Orangburg.

Department of Visual & Performing Arts, South Carolina State University

I will be presenting at a panel entitled “PATTERN AND DECORATION FROM THE ROCOCO TO THE PRESENT” at the South Eastern College Art Conference in Richmond, Virginia on October 23, 2010.

SECAC is hosted this year at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).

Presentations include:

Vittorio Colaizzi, The Decorative Unconscious: Newman, Rothko, and Ledgerwood
Natasha Kurchanova, Who Is Afraid of Ornament?
Katherine Daniels, Cultivating Beauty
Lauren Frances Adams, (Not Safe for Home): Politics and Domestic Decoration
Ruth Bolduan, Rococo Pattern, Decorative Order, and Modern Oblivion

Cosign Projects kicks off the fall exhibition season with a new installation by California artist Carrie Hott.

View this new work on the external facade of my studio building in south city St. Louis at 2733 Arsenal Street.

Digital Vector Drawing for Pearlclutcher

Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts Faculty Exhibition at the Des Lee Gallery, October 1 – 23, 2010.

See press release here.

The opening reception will take place from 6-9p on Friday, October 1.

Gallery hours are from 1-6p on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and by appointment.
For more information, visit the Des Lee Gallery website.

I will be at the Cite Internationale des Arts for 2 months in July and August.

I Know What You Did Last Summer is a multimedia exhibition of diverse works created by an international group of artists who met one year ago at the summer artist residency Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in rural Maine. This July we reunite, transplanting our bodies, work, and ideas for five days to Brooklyn. With this exhibition we celebrate the creative exchange, transformation, experimentation, debate, and lack of self-restraint we experienced in the woods one year ago— as well as look to the future of the artistic community that continues to prosper. We combine our brains, talent, and guts in this ultimate collaboration, an exhibition of over fifty artists in a three-story former convent. I Know What You Did Last Summer presents work that is formal, theoretical, multicultural, multilingual, and raises relevant, contemporary questions. Don’t miss this opportunity to see this mass of fresh talent in one location this July.

Participating Artists
Lauren F. Adams • Eduardo Tomás Basualdo • Keren Benbenisty • Ashley Blalock • Katherine Bradford • Heather Bursch • Maria Buyondo • Krista Caballero • Nayari Castillo • Caleb Charland • Colby Claycomb • Mary Coble • Brandon Cox • Rachel Fainter • Amy Feldman • José Joaquin Figueroa • The Friendly Falcons • Rosalinda González • Jacob Gossett • Jane Fox Hipple • Cooper Holoweski • Janelle Iglesias • Nova Jiang • Art Johnson • Kyoung Eun Kang • Devin Kenny • Ji Eun Kim • Avi Krispin • Anna Kunz • Eva La Cour • Jenny Lee • Dan Levenson • Gregg Louis • Matthew Mazzotta • Nat Meade • Matthew Metzger • Irvin Morazan • Nyeema Morgan • Rosalind Murray • Tameka Norris • Brandon Norsted • Mie Olise • Ann Oren • Ester Partegàs • Renata Poljak • Rit Premnath • Jaye Rhee • Blithe Riley • Christopher Robbins • Jacolby Satterwhite • Paul Stoelting • Clarissa Tossin • Niels Vis • Richard T. Walker • Ian Warren • Brindalyn Webster • Letha Wilson • Gregory Witt • Jayoung Yoon • Theodoros Zafeiropoulos

I have several works in the Countertransference exhibition at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington opening May 28 – August 6, 2010.

A group exhibition will be held at UNCW called “Countertransference.” The opening reception is Friday, May 28 at the Cultural Arts Building from 5 – 7pm. Curated by Michael Webster , each of the ten artists involved address social issues ranging from the economic downturn to our interaction with the environment or local communities. Artists include Lauren Frances Adams, Dan Brawley, Anne Brennan, Mei Ling Cann, Jonathan Cobbs, Adam Jacono, Abby Spangel Perry, Dixon Stetler, Jim Tisnado, and Jan-Ru Wan. All the artists hail from, or work in, eastern North Carolina with a variety of materials and methods. The exhibit brings together early and mid-career artists, most of whom are faculty members or graduate students at colleges and universities across the state.

Details: The Art Gallery at the Cultural Arts Building is located at UNCW, 601 S. College Road. For further information, call 910-962-3440. The exhibition will be run through August 6, Monday through Thursday, from 12 to 4pm.

Allison Smith: Needle Work. With an essay by Wendy Vogel and interviews with Allison Smith and Lauren Adams. St. Louis: Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, 2010. 64 pp., soft. LCCN 2009942917. ISBN 978-0-936316-30-7. Distributed by University of Chicago Press.

Contemporary artist Allison Smith’s diverse creative practice critically engages with popular forms of historical reenactment through a variety of mediums, including sculpture, textiles, ceramics, and photography. Focusing on the handmade and performative aspects of “living history” and material culture, Smith restages, refigures, and replays the role of traditional crafts in large-scale installations that reconsider the construction of collective memory and identity.

For the core of Allison Smith: Needle Work, the artist created contemporary revisions of European and American gas masks dating from World War I and beyond. Conceiving these early, relatively simply made objects as remnants of an as-yet-unwritten history of needlework, Smith recreates and reenacts the notion of “authentic reproductions” using art supplies found at local fabric and craft retail stores. From there she explored a range of related masklike forms in which the ghoulish and the foolish, the horrific and the playful intertwine, drawing into question essential notions of camouflage and masquerade. The project also includes staged photographic portraits of the remade masks being worn, held, or positioned as props, and a set of silk parachutes printed with a pattern of research images the artist collected of early masks, further referencing the material culture of war.

This color illustrated exhibition catalog includes an essay by Wendy Vogel in which she considers Smith’s project in relation to key notions put forth by Peter Sloterdijk in his Terror from the Air. The volume also features interviews with the artist about her creative practice and with exhibition curator Lauren Adams, assistant professor of art at the Washington University Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

with the Washington University in St. Louis Committee on Women and Art.

Thursday, April 1 @ 8:00, Cupples II Room 220, Danforth Campus of WU

Bitter Harvest is a new installation at Cosign Projects in St. Louis, Missouri,  March 28 – May 11, 2010.

The three flags on display for Cosign Projects appropriates images published in popular media over the past several years, reinscribing this disturbing narrative. The result is a series of textile paintings overwhelmed by poppy flowers and human figures. The pattern evident in the flags, inspired by traditional wallpaper and ornament design, visually seduces the viewer while simultaneously assaulting them with hallucinatory images of poppy cultivation and its relationship to the international drug trade, the American military incursion in Afghanistan, and the cycle of economic underdevelopment in rural farm areas of the Golden Crescent.

To read a statement concerning the project and its relationship to my extra-artistic curatorial practice, click here.

March 10, 2010

3:30 pm and 6:30 pm

Art building on the San Jose State University campus

On Friday, March 5, at 5:00 pm, I will be hosting a curator-led tour of the Allison Smith show Needle Work at the Kemper Museum.  Sabine Eckmann, Director and Chief Curator, will lead a tour of the Sharon Lockhart exhibition, Lunch Break.

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
Washington University in St. Louis
Skinker & Forsyth Boulevards

St. Louis, MO 63130 (map)

Allison Smith, Untitled, from Needle Work, 2009. Inkjet print on exhibition paper, 22 x 16”. Courtesy of the artist.