Joan Bankemper

Last updated

Joan Bankemper is an American artist living and working in New York City. Her early 'social practice' or site specific garden/art installations blurred the boundaries of art and life. Bankemper is a 'situationist' and her ceramics are artifacts of a situation. [1] In a 1994 review by Roberta Smith of The New York Times, Smith wrote "Bankemper is a veteran creator of idiosyncratic gardens, often portable. She is especially adept at recycling broken crockery and flowerpots into fantastical planters that are homages to Gaudi and Simon Rodia." [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Joan Bankemper was born and raised in Covington, KY in 1959. She earned a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1982 and an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1985.

Art and racing

Prior to moving to NYC, Bankemper maintained a studio in Baltimore, Maryland for seven years, [3] while collaborating with Salvatore Scarpitta [4] as a member of the pit crew and documenting dirt track sprint car racing. She made videos and "videograms" about "art and racing" [5] exploring speed, competition and high risk: art and racing. [6] In 1985, Scarpitta pushed the boundaries of art by taking an 'art object', a race car, and making it functional by racing it in real time on a dirt track. [7] Scarpitta's repeating act of racing a car, exhibiting it in a museum or at Leo Castello Gallery, then immediately racing it again on a dirt track, qualify him as an early 'situationist'. [3] Bankemper was a founding member of the historic Scarpitta/Castelli race team. [3]

Bankemper's videos and videograms have been exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery, NY, The Museum of Contemparty Art, LA; The Detroit Institute of Arts; Marianne Boesky Gallery, [8] NYC and the Hirschhorn Museum, DC, [3] to name a few.

In 2015, Bankemper wrote her accounts of those racing years in A Good Run: 1983-1990, the book was published by Edgewise Press along with a limited edition portfolio: Scarpitta/Bankemper: 5 + 10. [9] This contains a collection of five videos by Scarpitta and Bankemper, Bankemper's book: A Good Run: 1983-1990 and ten "videograms" derived from the video Sal is Racer. Previews of the videos are posted on Vimeo: Sal is Racer, [10] Racer's Tattoo, [11] Potato Masher, [12] Message to Leo, [13] Crash. [14]

Work

Upon moving to NYC, Bankemper's gardening art began in Soho, an arts district in Manhattan, in 1993 when she undertook three public garden projects using the 'art and life' model of the Situationist movement. Bankemper created 'situations' in real time, challenging how art functioned. She did this by bringing the garden, or living elements, into the gallery and by bringing concepts of art to the environment. Through these gardens, she wanted to emphasize the healing potential of herbal medicine and the history of women practicing healing arts as herbalist. [15] Christine Temin wrote: "She believes growing things is good for you". [16]

While an artist in residence at Artpace, Kathryn Hixson said "Throughout her ongoing projects, blending nature and humanity, Bankemper's idealism continues to stretch the rules of what art can be, from a simple pot to a transformational experience of nature." [17]

Bankemper has committed her practice to the intersection of nature and culture in private and public realms. Through her community gardens, eco-activism and recycled sculptural objects, Bankemper has transformed abandoned lots, urban rooftops, overlooked historic sites, derelict parks and industrial sites into gardens that bring life to their own ecosystem with people, birds and animals that inhabit them. [18]

Ceramics

Out of her 'social practice', Bankemper makes ceramic 'artifacts'. Initially, the ceramic urns were produced for Brent Sikkema Gallery, NY, then Wooster Gardens, in response to the many friends who died of AIDS. Each pot was made of broken dishes and filled with medicinal plants. In one of her signature series, she only used discarded teacup handles and coffee mugs. Her new ceramic work utilities high-fired, handmade porcelain buttons attached to canvases, incorporating such so-called prosaic skills as sewing while also addressing the issue of how things get held together. [3] Bankemper's ceramic mosaics follow her love of nature. Working in the way a collagist might, she starts to dress the cloak of the vessel with her vocabulary of images, contemporary china, hand built objects, castings from molds. Bankemper creates an original tableau in ceramic. These are not simple pieces; they are complex tapestries of life. [19] David Cohen states, "the pristine kitsch of each piece is preserved while the juxtaposition with the accumulated fellows in an exuberant hierarchy amounts to a glorious sum greater than its individual parts." [20]

Black Meadow Barn

In 2008, Bankemper founded the Black Meadow Barn, [21] which is located on the banks of the Black Meadow Creek. It is a 150 year old farm, located in the Hudson Valley of New York. Bankemper says "the barn is a place where 'culture and horticulture meet'", [22] where sustainable farming is not only theorized but practiced. She continues to cultivate gardens, ceramics and 'conversations' at the Barn, often including visual artists, farmers and culinary experts. [23]

Exhibitions

Bankemper's site specific installations and gallery exhibitions include "A Medicinal Garden" with Creative Time, Inc., NYC 1995; [24] the "Dovetail Garden", [25] Charlotte, NC, 2001; "Joan Bankemper - A Gardner's Diary", 2000 at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA; [15] "Intoxication or the Echo of one Hand Clapping" 1993-94 at The New Museum, NY. [26] Bankemper had two solo exhibitions with Nancy Hoffman in 2007 and 2011; her objects are included in numerous private collections. Bankemper has exhibited environments and aspects of her social practice with Amy Lipton Fine Art. [27]

Awards

In 2010, Bankemper received the Gabi Award from the McColl Center for Visual Art, [18] she received the 'Judges Choice' award in 2004 in Charlotte, NC.

Artist in residence awards include:

She received grants from the Council on the Environment, NYC and The George Sugarman Foundation, Novato, CA, 2001. [30]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacqueline de Jong</span> Dutch painter, sculptor and graphic artist

Jacqueline de Jong is a Dutch painter, sculptor and graphic artist. She was born in the Dutch town of Hengelo to Jewish parents. Faced with the German invasion, they went into hiding. After an abortive escape attempt to England, her father Hans remained in Amsterdam while her mother and she made for Switzerland, accompanied by the Dutch painter Max van Dam. At the border they were captured by the French police, but just as they were about to be deported to the Drancy internment camp, they were rescued by the resistance, who helped them over the border. When they returned to the Netherlands following the war, Jacqueline could not speak Dutch. From 1947 on she went to school in Hengelo and Enschede.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum</span> Art museum in Boston, MA, US (opened 1903)

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. It was founded by Isabella Stewart Gardner, whose will called for her art collection to be permanently exhibited "for the education and enjoyment of the public forever."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mona Hatoum</span> British-Palestinian multimedia and installation artist

Mona Hatoum is a British-Palestinian multimedia and installation artist who lives in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kelly Richardson</span>

Kelly Richardson is a Canadian artist working with digital technologies to create hyper-real landscapes.

Toshiko Takaezu was an American ceramic artist, painter, sculptor, and educator who was known for her rounded, closed forms that viewed ceramics as a fine art and more than a functional vessel. She is of Japanese descent and from Pepeeko, Hawaii.

Mary Frank is an English visual artist who works as a sculptor, painter, printmaker, draftswoman, and illustrator.

Ambreen Butt is a Boston-based Pakistani American artist best known for her drawings, paintings, prints, and collages, and has been recognized for her labor intensive, painted self-portraits that portray feminist and political ideas through traditional Persian art. She now resides in Dallas, TX.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Artpace</span> Non-profit contemporary art gallery in Texas, United States

Artpace is a non-profit contemporary art foundation located in downtown San Antonio, Texas that is free and open to the public. Founded by artist, collector, and philanthropist Linda Pace, Artpace opened its doors in 1995, and focuses on nurturing the creative and artistic processes of both established and emerging artists. Fostering opportunities for dialogue and social interactions between artists and community members of all ages has always been central to the various programs at Artpace.

Salvatore Scarpitta was an American artist best known for his sculptural studies of motion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perle Fine</span> American artist (1905–1988)

Perle Fine (1905–1988) was an American Abstract expressionist painter. Fine's work was most known by its combination of fluid and brushy rendering of the materials and the use of biomorphic forms encased and intertwined with irregular geometric shapes.

Jungil Hong also known as Jung-li Hong is a Korean-American artist based in Providence, Rhode Island. She is best known for her psychedelic, cartoon-inspired silkscreen poster art and paintings. More recently she has expanded into textiles.

Valerie Jaudon is an American painter commonly associated with various Postminimal practices – the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s, site-specific public art, and new tendencies in abstraction.

Joyce J. Scott is an African-American artist, sculptor, quilter, performance artist, installation artist, print-maker, lecturer and educator. Named a MacArthur Fellow in 2016, and a Smithsonian Visionary Artist in 2019, Scott is best known for her figurative sculptures and jewelry using free form, off-loom beadweaving techniques, similar to a peyote stitch. Each piece is often constructed using thousands of glass seed beads or pony beads, and sometimes other found objects or materials such as glass, quilting and leather. In 2018, she was hailed for working in new medium — a mixture of soil, clay, straw, and cement — for a sculpture meant to disintegrate and return to the earth. Scott is influenced by a variety of diverse cultures, including Native American and African traditions, Mexican, Czech, and Russian beadwork, illustration and comic books, and pop culture.

Yoshimi Futamura is a Japanese ceramic artist who has worked and lived in France since 1986. She was born in 1959, in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture.

Ana Prvacki is a conceptual performance and installation artist who has exhibited internationally. She is known for exploring social interactions in her work and using music to express core ideas such as eroticism.

Devon Dikeou is an American artist, publisher, and art collector. Dikeou’s practice investigates the "in-between" — subtle interactions between artist, art object, viewer, space, and context.

McColl Center is an artist residency and contemporary art space located at 721 North Tryon Street in Charlotte, North Carolina. Residencies last from two months to eleven months and are available to visual artists as well as creative people in other disciplines. The mission of McColl Center is to encourage collaboration and interaction between artists and the community at large in an immersive atmosphere.

Jessica Snow is an American abstract artist, curator, and professor. Her paintings and drawings are distinguished by bright, vivid colors through a visual language that employs color, shape and texture to speak in conversation with the traditions of geometric abstraction, biomorphism, and color field painting. Her inspiration is fed by research into mid-century architecture, landscape design, 20th century art history and Asian art history. She lives and works in San Francisco, California, where she teaches painting, drawing and art appreciation at the University of San Francisco. Recently she researched Classical Chinese Gardens in Jiangsu province, and her recent ‘Master of the Nets’ series is based on this research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sana Musasama</span> American artist

Sana Musasama is an African-American ceramic and mixed-media artist based in New York City. Her artistic practice parallels her work as an educator and commitment to human rights causes especially the human trafficking of women. Her work has been recognized with numerous awards including an Anonymous Was a Woman Award in 2002, Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant in 2013, and was a Studio Museum in Harlem Artist-in-Residence in 1983–84. Musasama is an associate adjunct professor at Hunter College.

Adriana Corral is an American artist born in El Paso, Texas, who focuses on installation, performance, and sculpture. Her artwork often emphasizes themes of memory, contemporary human rights violations, and under-examined historical narratives. Corral completed her B.F.A. at the University of Texas at El Paso in 2008 and her M.F.A. at the University of Texas at Austin in 2013. Her work has been exhibited at the Betty Moody Gallery, Houston, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Texas, Blue Star Contemporary in San Antonio, Texas, the McNay Art Museum, and Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. She has received a series of awards recognizing her work including The Joan Mitchell Foundation Emerging Artist Grant, The MacDowell Colony Grant, and The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture Grant.

References

  1. ↑ "Nature Morte: Contemporary artists reinvigorate the Still-Life tradition". Thames & Hudson USA. Retrieved 2016-06-07.
  2. ↑ Smith, Roberta (4 August 1995). "ART REVIEW; Anchor and Balm For Restless Souls". New York Times. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Bankemper, Joan (2016). A Good Run: 1983-1990. New York, NY: Edgewise Press, Inc. pp. 33, 38, 115. ISBN   978-1-893207-35-6.
  4. ↑ Gualdoni, F (1985). Salvatore Scarpitta 1958-1985. Milan: Padiglione d'arte Contemporanea. p. 46.
  5. ↑ "Salvatore Scarpitta: Traveler Opening Night". THE HIRSHHORN INSIDER. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  6. ↑ Scarpitta, Salvatore (2005-01-01). Salvatore Scarpitta: catalogue raisonné (in Italian). Mazzotta. ISBN   9788820217419.
  7. ↑ diGenova, G (1990). I Rossori dell'arte. Parma: Galleria Nicoli. p. 68.
  8. ↑ "Marianne Boesky". www.marianneboeskygallery.com.
  9. ↑ "Multiples". Richard Milazzo.
  10. ↑ "Scarpitta / Bankemper: Sal is Racer Preview". Vimeo.
  11. ↑ "Scarpitta / Bankemper: Racer's Tattoo preview". Vimeo.
  12. ↑ "Scarpitta / Bankemper: Potato Masher Preview". Vimeo.
  13. ↑ "Scarpitta / Bankemper: Message to Leo preview". Vimeo.
  14. ↑ "Scarpitta / Bankemper: Crash preview". Vimeo.
  15. 1 2 3 www.tendercreative.com, TENDER -. "Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum : Bankemper, Joan". www.gardnermuseum.org. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  16. ↑ Temin, Christine (July 14, 2000). "HOW DOES THE GARDNER GROW? JOAN BANKEMPER'S FERTILE VISION GIVES RISE TO SENSUAL PAINTINGS AND FUNKY SCULPTURE". Boston Globe. Archived from the original on September 11, 2016.
  17. ↑ Hixson, Kathryn (1998). Joan Bankemper 98.2. San Antonio, TX: Art Pace.
  18. 1 2 "Artist Joan Bankemper Receives McColl Center Gabi Award". Wray Ward. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  19. ↑ Gallery, Matt Moores, Nancy Hoffman. "Joan Bankemper | Nancy Hoffman Gallery". www.nancyhoffmangallery.com. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  20. ↑ "Crockery Heaven - The New York Sun". www.nysun.com. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  21. ↑ "SmackMellon.org :: Foodshed". smackmellon.org. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  22. ↑ "Black Meadow Barn". JOAN BANKEMPER. Retrieved 2016-06-07.
  23. ↑ "Joan Bankemper". liptonarts.com. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  24. ↑ "Art in the Anchorage 12: Affirmative Actions: Artists at Work - Creative Time". Creative Time. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  25. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-01-03. Retrieved 2016-06-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  26. ↑ "New Museum - Digital Archive". archive.newmuseum.org. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  27. ↑ "LiptonArts -". www.liptonarts.com.
  28. ↑ "Joan Bankemper » Artpace". www.artpace.org. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  29. ↑ "Joan Bankemper | Artists In Residence | McColl Center for Art + Innovation". mccollcenter.org. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  30. ↑ "George Sugarman Foundation". www.georgesugarman.com. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.