Don't Bite the Pavement

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Don't Bite the Pavement is a series of contemporary art exhibitions showcasing installation art, expanded video, and experimental film, which toured the west coast of the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. [1] [2] [3]

Contemporary art art of the present time beginning with Pop Art and Conceptual Art

Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that continue the challenging of boundaries that was already well underway in the 20th century. Diverse and eclectic, contemporary art as a whole is distinguished by the very lack of a uniform, organising principle, ideology, or "-ism". Contemporary art is part of a cultural dialogue that concerns larger contextual frameworks such as personal and cultural identity, family, community, and nationality.

Installation art three-dimensional work of art, usually from various materials and larger than a sculpture. For the art genre, use Q212431.

Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that often are site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called public art, land art or intervention art; however, the boundaries between these terms overlap.

Experimental film, experimental cinema or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms and alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, particularly early ones, relate to arts in other disciplines: painting, dance, literature and poetry, or arise from research and development of new technical resources.

Contents

Biography

The Don't Bite the Pavement series began in 1999 in Olympia, Washington and eventually became a project of the organisation ArtRod. [4] Each installment was loosely focused around an idea or theme and showcased innovative work by artists from around the world within the field of video art, expanded media, microcinema, or installation art; providing a space for this work to be presented and creating dialogues between the site and the larger community. [5] [6] [7] [8] Around this time, artists and writers also began documenting and discussing this work in a reoccurring column likewise called Don't Bite the Pavement, which regularly featured interviews and articles in the journal Toby Room. [9] [10] [11]

Olympia, Washington State capital and city in Washington, United States

Olympia is the capital of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat of Thurston County. European settlers claimed the area in 1846, with the Treaty of Medicine Creek initiated in 1854, and the Treaty of Olympia initiated in January 1856.

ArtRod is a nonprofit arts organization located in Tacoma, Washington. It was founded in 1958 and went through several incarnations including Allied Arts and Artists Exchange. The mission of ArtRod is to facilitate art exhibition in nontraditional public arenas and grew out of a response to bring contemporary art forms from a traditional museum setting and directly into the community's path.

Video art type of art

Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. Video art can take many forms: recordings that are broadcast; installations viewed in galleries or museums; works streamed online, distributed as video tapes, or DVDs; and performances which may incorporate one or more television sets, video monitors, and projections, displaying live or recorded images and sounds.

With each installment of the video series, Don't Bite the Pavement sought to create exhibitions that "engaged and challenged the community", while providing space and resources where artists could exhibit new work and develop novel approaches and projects. [12] [13]

Reception

Artforum contributor Emily Hall wrote that the project was "pulling together some of the most challenging and interesting work happening around Seattle" adding: "Let that be a modest but powerful lesson to all the naysayers and whiners who complain that innovative work isn't happening here." [14]

<i>Artforum</i> magazine

Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.

Artist Lauren Steinhart characterized the project as:

"Each gathering of Don't Bite the Pavement was a chance for artists and viewers to gather, interact, and to show and discuss their work both completed and in-progress. In this way, DBtP became an integral and vital part of the arts community." [15]

Early events included work by artists Wynne Greenwood (Tracy + the Plastics), Denise Baggett (Smith), Jared Pappas-Kelley, Tim Sullivan, Anna Jordan Huff (Anna Oxygen), Cathy de la Cruz, Nathan Howdeshell (from the band the Gossip), April Levy, Michael Lent, Jason Gutz, Devon Damonte, Lauren Steinhart, Bryan Connolly, Bridget Irish, and has also included work by David Blandy and George Kuchar with the average screening consisting of pieces by emerging and established artists. [16]

Wynne Greenwood is a queer feminist performance artist who works in various media such as installation art, photography, filmmaking and music. One of her well known projects include the electropop and video project group, Tracy + the Plastics. Wynne works out of Seattle, Washington, and is an Instructor in the Department of Art and Art History at Seattle University.

Tracy + the Plastics is the name of the electropop and video project group from Olympia, Washington. The members include Nikki Romanos on keyboard, Cola on drums, and Tracy as the lead vocals. Although the name implied the group was made up of a lead singer and back up musicians, all three characters were performed by Wynne Greenwood, a lesbian feminist artist using video projection who calls herself a representative of the "lesbo for disco" generation.

Jared Pappas-Kelley American curator

Jared Pappas-Kelley is an American curator, researcher, and visual artist. He studied at The Evergreen State College, Goddard College and the European Graduate School where he served as Graduate Teaching Assistant for both Jean-Luc Nancy and Paul D. Miller while completing his PhD. Pappas-Kelley also studied with filmmakers Claire Denis and Barbara Hammer whom he cites as influences on his visual work. His doctoral thesis, supervised by Sylvère Lotringer, examines the inherent instability of art objects, investigating what he terms "the thing that is not a thing" through an examination of events such as the 2004 Momart warehouse fire and the objects stolen and subsequently lost or destroyed by art thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Much of his current research focuses on ideas of this instability of the art object and the intersection between practice and theory, examining art as a method for understanding the object’s coming together through its undoing. Developing these themes, he is currently organizing a group exhibition that he is co-curating with Natasha Chuk entitled Solvent Forms.

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References

  1. ↑ Graves, Jen (12 March 2004). "On Top of the Underground". The News Tribune.
  2. ↑ "History". Artrod Official. ArtRod. Archived from the original on 13 February 2015. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  3. ↑ "Don't Bite the Pavement". En Tarde-Garde. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  4. ↑ "History". Artrod Official. ArtRod. Archived from the original on 13 February 2015. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  5. ↑ Graves, Jen (12 March 2004). "On Top of the Underground". The News Tribune.
  6. ↑ "Toby Room Issues". ArtRod Official. Archived from the original on 13 February 2015. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  7. ↑ "Curatorial Projects". Pappas-Kelley. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  8. ↑ "Don't Bite the Pavement". ArtRod Official. Archived from the original on 13 February 2015. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  9. ↑ "Toby Room Issues". ArtRod Official. Archived from the original on 13 February 2015. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  10. ↑ Irish, Bridget. "Champion for the White Collar Worker". Film and Destroy. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  11. ↑ Renwick, Vanessa. "Rising Up". ODOKA. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  12. ↑ Kavage, Sarah (January 2005). "Creative Class: Yes, it is About the Artists: The Tacoma Story". The Next American City.
  13. ↑ Graves, Jen (12 March 2004). "On Top of the Underground". The News Tribune.
  14. ↑ Hall, Emily. "Toby Room". SLOG. The Stranger. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  15. ↑ "Don't Bite the Pavement". En Tarde-Garde. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  16. ↑ "Don't Bite the Pavement". ArtRod Official. Archived from the original on 13 February 2015. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
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