Monday, July 29, 2013

Look in to the "Void" with Radio Sebastian - Opening August 3rd!



What: Radio Sebastian: You, Me, and the Void
When: Saturday, August 3rd – Sunday, September 1st, 2013
Reception:
Thursday, August 8th, 6-8pm; Artist Talk at 7pm, FREE
Where: Target Gallery, Torpedo Factory Art Center, 105 N. Union Street, Alexandria, VA
www.torpedofactory.org/target

“Radio Sebastian looks into the subject of the “Void” and creates a new way of expressing and presenting it to the viewer…they are a true testament to the quality of Washington DC artists.”  - Samantha May, Juror, and Gallery Director of Hillyer Art Space

Description: Target Gallery presents You, Me, and the Void, a solo exhibition by Radio Sebastian, a collaborative between Corwin Levi and Yumiko Blackwell. The exhibition will include a site-specific installation, a series of mixed-media collages, and an interactive video piece. Join us for a reception on Thursday, August 8th from 6-8pm to meet the artists and hear them speak about their work.
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(Alexandria, VA) The Torpedo Factory Art Center’s Target Gallery presents You, Me, and the Void, a solo exhibition by DC-based artists Radio Sebastian, which opens on August 3rd and runs through September 1st, 2013. Each year the Target Gallery hosts “Open Exhibition,” an open call for proposals for a solo exhibition. Three arts experts from the DC-area made up this year’s jury panel; Samantha May, Director of Hillyer Art Space, Foon Sham, noted sculptor and professor, and Morgan Hungerford West, founder and writer of the arts and lifestyle blog Pandahead. They reviewed close to 50 proposals individually, and then gathered for a group review of their top ten selections before naming Radio Sebastian the 2013 winners.

Radio Sebastian is a husband and wife collaborative between artists Corwin Levi and Yumi Blackwell. The title for the exhibition, You, Me, and the Void, comes from the artists’ examination of “the void," which they state in their proposal, has always existed. Yves Klein famously leapt into it. Anish Kapoor noted "the void is not silent" and described it as "that very first moment of creativity where everything is possible and nothing has actually happened."

To Radio Sebastian, they do not see “the void” as containing nothing, rather “a space where everything is possible and has already happened, but we most often access only sparks of creation and must work out the actual creating ourselves. It is the space in which everyone's creativity and power exist and from which we can glimpse moments of what is possible.”

The exhibition will consist of the manifestation of Corwin's void, a selection of poets' voids, and a selection of people at large's voids. Corwin's void is based in the word shine and the six-sided symbol he equates with it. He sees this word and this symbol as representing everything that an individual is capable of achieving and his void is full of them, for everyone. They will include in the show drawings of networks of this symbol, both abstractly and on top of photographs. The centerpiece of the exhibition will be a site-specific installation where they will write public domain poems on pieces of paper, tie them into floating bundles, and hang them from the ceiling with fishing line over stacks of poetry books and a tape drawing on the floor.

In addition, they will include video pieces where they have asked, and videotaped, many people saying the word "shine" for as long as they can, their personal shine, and their descriptions of the Void--and have edited these together. They will also encourage Target Gallery viewers to submit video clips (via email) for inclusion in their future exhibitions and to add to the videos in the gallery as the show progresses.

The entire exhibition will be online beginning August 3rd at www.torpedofactory.org/target.

Juror Information:
Samantha May
is the Gallery Director of Hillyer Art Space, a non-profit D.C. art gallery dedicated to assisting local and international artists make their entrance, or re-entrance in to the DC art scene.  At Hillyer Art Space she oversees all exhibiting artists, mounts the monthly gallery exhibits, and chairs the Artists' Advisory Committee made up of well-established local artists; with Emeritus members including: Bill Christenberry, Sam Gilliam, and Manon Cleary. While at Hillyer Art Space she has simultaneously worked on her Master's Degree in Art History from American University, where her thesis on John Singer Sargent is now under review.
 
Sculptor Foon Sham received a BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts, and a MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. He is professor of Art at the University of Maryland, College Park. He has had 30 solo exhibitions in the Washington Metropolitan region and in New York, Ohio, Delaware, New Mexico, Canada, Norway, Mexico, Australia and most recently in Hong Kong. His work have been included group exhibitions at Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. His public collections include the Nayatad Sculpture Park in Hungary, United World College in Norway, Universidid De Palermo in Argentina, the MacQuarie University in Sydney, Australia, the Sculpture Park at OMI International Arts Center in Ghent, New York, the Museum of Contemporary Arts of Yucatan, Merida, Mexico, the large scale sculpture at the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metrorail Station, the Convention Center in Washington DC and recently the Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong. He has also received many awards including a Residency Grant from the National Endowment of the Arts, and the Franz and Virginia Bader Fund from Washington DC and Strauss Fellowship from Fairfax County, Virginia. In Washington, DC he is represented by Project 4.

Morgan Hungerford West
writes art and lifestyle blog Panda Head, and works in the realms of art direction and art production in Washington, DC. Her installations have been featured at the French Embassy and the Textile Museum; her line of handmade, vintage lace teepees have garnered mention in the New York Times, and are currently sold exclusively, and on a made-to-order basis, by BHLDN, the wedding branch of Anthropologie. Her various projects have been featured on Refinery29, Apartment Therapy, and LuckyMag.com, as well as in the Washington Post, Washingtonian Magazine, and Nylon Magazine.

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