CURRENT EXHIBITION:

IMPRESS(ed)

March 17 - April 16, 2011


PAST EXHIBITIONS:

Claudia DeMonte
January 21 – February 19, 2011

Early Works (video)

Aug. 27 - Sept. 17, 2010

David Schild, Being Content with Uncertainty

Sept. 24 - Oct. 23, 2010

Ann Mansolino

Thresholds

Nov. 5 - Dec. 4, 2010

Bring Me A Lion:
An Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art

March 19 - April 16, 2010
Curated by Jeffrey Hughes and Dana Turkovic

Jaishri Abichandani

Dhruvi Acharya

Rina Banerjee

Chitra Ganesh

Tushar Joag

Jitish Kallat

Reena Saini Kallat

Bari Kumar

Yamini Nayar

Rakhi Peswani

The competing forces of tradition and modernity, indigence and diasporas, village economies and international capitalism are primary discourses in contemporary Indian culture. Bring me a Lion seeks to investigate some of these multiple dualities mirrored in the recent art of India. The emblem of the Republic of India is based on Ashoka’s Lion Capital (c. 250 BCE), presently in the Sarnath Museum. Placed atop a pillar to commemorate the Buddha’s first sermon, the capital displays four apposing majestic Asiatic Lions. The lions signify the great Emperor Ashoka and also Gautama, the lion of the Sakya clan - a combining of militarist might and the Buddha’s peaceful message of the Middle Way. Stories of both the grandeur and foibles of lions appear repeatedly in the Hitopadesha and other Sanskritic texts. The powerful Narasimha, the half-man/half-lion avatara of Vishnu, symbolizes the dual nature of times, places and the omnipresence of the sacred. The lion is therefore a fitting metaphor for the many sides of contemporary Indian art and culture. JH

We are indebted to the Arthur and Helen Baer Charitable Foundation for its major financial support for this exhibition. Our thanks also go to the Missouri Arts Council, and the Regional Arts Commission for their generous support.

Re(SOUND)
February 5 - March 5, 2010
Curated by Dana Turkovic and Adam Watkins

Opening Reception: Friday, February 5, 6pm-8pm

Martin Atkins
Maria Blondeel
Keith Bueckendorf
Loren Chasse

Seth Cluett
Mark Early

Robert Goetz

Helena Gough

Joe Gilmore

Eric Hall
John Hardecke
Thomas Harris
Daniel Hockenson
Patrick Hunt

Emilie LeBel

Jay Lizo
Ed Osborn
Andrea Polli
Tony Renner

Steve Roden

Jodi Rose
Patrick Savage

Micah Silver
Nicolas Wiese
Thank You Earth For This World
-Bo Chung
-Chris Compton
-Dan Hayhurst
-Magdalena Jitrik
-Alexander Khodchenko
-Arthur Lager
-David Roberto
-Sterling Roswell
-Sky Sunlight Saxon
-Stanton Warren
-Adam Watkins

The Hunt Gallery is pleased to present Re(sound), an exhibition that explores the sonic medium by compiling a long list of current musings by sound artists from around the world. Re(sound) hopes to build physically on the concept of the periphery, using one sensory input, and providing an alternative metaphor for demonstrating that the idea of an art center has now become more like an invisible node, connected by infinite tentacles by digital networks, thereby displaying the borderless qualities of the sonic medium. As sound flows through space it has the ability to navigate geographically, placing and displacing, bouncing in all directions and always occupying more than one position. Over the past century, this art form has emerged by extracting from the worlds of visual art and music. Sound art’s foundation can be traced to the innovative work of Italian Futurism, Dadaism, and of composer and artist John Cage, as it gradually began to mature into a movement, artists further explored the interactive possibilities of sound and in turn created entirely new modes of experience and engagement. This cross-pollination has inspired some of the most important art being produced today, including work by Janet Cardiff, Rodney Graham and Christian Marclay, among many others. In his book Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art, author Brandon LaBelle beautifully illustrates the purpose of this complex medium: “Sound is intrinsically relational: it emanates, propagates, communicates, vibrates, and agitates; it leaves a body and enters others; it binds and unhinges, harmonizes and traumatizes; it sends the body moving, the mind dreaming, the air oscillating. It seemingly eludes definition, while having a profound effect.” In this exhibition, we hope to reveal these unique properties that sound imparts as an artistic medium, and its relational abilities as a creative practice. Because sound can be both borderless and site-specific and imply immediate involvement upon its reception, the physical construction of the exhibition is a reflection of its universal and relational qualities. Presenting the work as a weather vane of sorts, using St. Louis as the central axis, listening stations will be installed marking the North, South, East and West, a compilation of sound works spanning the globe from artists working locally and in Berlin to Los Angeles to Sydney to Toronto. Ultimately extending the notion of sound’s current location as multiple and expansive, the intention is to play on the structure and diverse nature of sound by setting up an environment where the “visitor” is asked to enter the space and simply listen.

WORKS ON PAPER
DRAWN FROM THE COLLECTION
January 15 - 29, 2010

Opening Reception: Friday, January 15 6pm-8pm

The Hunt Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition Works on Paper: Drawn from the Webster University Art Collection. Consisting of art works pulled from the collection, the exhibition focuses on the numerous works on paper, including drawings and prints by well-known artists. The collection has grown in recent years with very generous gifts from local collectors and artists. Even though the University displays a large portion of these works around its many campuses, there are still beautiful and interesting works in storage and this particular exhibition allows for these wonderful pieces to be viewed within a lightly themed context. Works on Paper will feature almost thirty drawings and prints by many of the artists who have made their mark during the course of nineteenth- and twentieth-century art, from Susan Rothenberg, David Hockney, Red Grooms, Claes Oldenberg, Mary Cassat, Nicholas Africano, Philip Evergood, Salvador Dali, and Ford Beckman among others. This two-week exhibition hopes to focus on the many aspects of the practice of drawing, collage and printmaking, recognizing the fundamental stage that these mediums represent in an artist’s creative process. The core of this exhibition focuses on the human figure and includes a combination of fully realized works and preliminary studies related to painting, sculpture, and printmaking.

Asma Kazmi
November 13 - December 18, 2009


The Hunt Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by local artist Asma Kazmi. A performance artist and sculptor, she is not limited to any one media but maintains an approach of building an unrestrained community of objects, images, and bodies, all in a dialogue with each other. During a recent cultural research trip to New Delhi, India, Kazmi documented the inventions and contraptions that allow the handicapped and homeless people of city to walk, move or navigate for themselves. Kazmi was taken with the heroics, resourcefulness and creativity of these amazing people in their plight for self-reliance. Through a series of large photographs, each device is observed and photographed as a singular object, and set in the studio as if props for a family portrait, these inventions for mobility have a sentimental, yet isolated sculptural presence. Through separation from its owner/creator, the photographs provide the viewer a close examination and to imagine their utility. In addition, Kazmi continues her theme about the questions of one’s condition and “how they surface through exposure to perceptual and situational irregularities.” This personal understanding is an outcome of a work that creates room for the association of ideas and for the possibility of alternative interpretations. In the video, Kazmi is in conversation with the owner’s of these strangely beautiful apparatus. One sees only the talking head of her collaborators as they tell their story through a very animated and emotional dialogue. This approach continues on the subject of communication and what she hopes: “has the ability to generate an esthetic of socially shared meaning through open-ended and complex interactions among people.”

This exhibition made possible by generous support of the MissouriArts Council and the Regional Arts Commission.

Kazmi received a B.F.A. from the Massachusetts College of Art and an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In May 2007, she received the At the Edge: Innovative Art in Chicago Award. She has performed and exhibited in St. Louis, Boston, New York, Chicago and Puerto Rico and will be included in a forthcoming exhibition in Brussels, Belgium. She has been a part of the Boston Underground Film Festival, Balagan Film and Video Series, Women in Film and Video/New England. Asma Kazmi was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan.

Grant Miller
October 9 - November 6, 2009

Opening Reception: Friday, October 9, 6pm-8pm

The Hunt Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Kansas City based artist Grant Miller. We live in a blitz of information and of overexposure: two-dimensions are replaced by three-dimensions, and absence appears larger than presence. For the past few years, Grant Miller’s aluminum and panel paintings have been engaged in a continuing dialogue with the structures and architecture of our advancing and increasingly transparent technological world. The dichotomy of Miller’s hard, slick-edged structures and his lush areas of liquid residue emphasize the battle between the organic and the artificial. Miller builds up layers through a combination of accumulation, which act as mimicry on the current theme of technology and information. In these new, large-scale paintings, Miller continues his complex abstract language. Applied to the panel is an infinite overlay and energetic fields of frames, armatures and architectural structures seen from multiple perspectives that provide varying entry points. The work specifically molds and shapes this architecture and uses it as the basis for invented constructions existing in the space between the abstract and the representational. Drips and large gestures of paint play a more prominent role in this new body of work, flattening space in some areas while on another plane create depth and confusion as the eye works through many linear obstacles. By employing a multiple-perspective technique, Miller restrains the viewer with a network of diagonal lines creating a pervasive energy that can be read as both virtual and actual spaces. The physical process of layering is used to echo the development of information and functions as a stage for visual saturation and the implication of excessiveness.

Watch the video of his lecture, click on the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/v/wU3v_7_xe4c&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0

This exhibition made possible by generous support of the Missouri Arts Council and the Regional Arts Commission.

Grant Miller is a graduate of the Washington University, St. Louis, MO with MFA in Printmaking and Drawing (2003). He studied Printmaking at the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO. In 2007 Miller’s work has been included in “More is More: Maximalist Tendencies in Painting” – group exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL and in New American Paintings, Book #71, 2007 Midwest Edition. He has been awarded residencies in Millay Colony of the Arts in Austerlitz, NY and Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris, France.










syllabus:video series
Qian Li
October 9 - November 6, 2009

"The video titled Epilogue is the life story of two humanized dots discovering love and hardship within today's society. The piece intends to evoke personal memories that are emotionally tied to the viewer's own experiences. The visuals are strongly influenced by traditional Chinese painting. The rising and falling life of the dots is synchronized with the music, with the intent they empower one another." -Qian Li

Qian Li was born and raised in China, where she was educated at The Central Academy of Arts and Design (now the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University) in Bejing, China. She earned her MFA in 2003 at UMass Dartmouth. Her video work was recently shown at MOCA Cleveland, Boston Cyber Art Festival, 12th International Video Festival Videomedeja in Serbia; Transhift08 in Tennessee; SIGGRAPH; "Kinetic Image" in Virginia; International Video Festival in Indonesia; and Electronic Language International Festival's in Brazil.

The Unobserved World
August 28, 2009
Screening: 6:32pm - 6:47pm
Reception: 6pm - 8pm

The Hunt Gallery is pleased to present, The Unobserved World, an exhibition where the gallery will function as a laboratory for an experiment that will ultimately bring together elements of documentation, performance, and video while pushing curatorial boundaries. The Unobserved World poses the age-old question to its potential audience: If a tree falls in a forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?

This philosophical riddle raises questions regarding observation and knowledge of reality. The skeptic might conclude that: “one can’t be certain of anything until it is perceived or that the tree doesn’t exist at all unless someone is looking at it.” This particular stance has inspired this project’s concept and symbolizes the ineffectiveness of perceived unheard opinions or thoughts or in this case, an unseen art exhibition. This idea also alludes to the writings of George Berkeley, whom in the 18th century developed the concept of subjective idealism, coining the phrase: “to be is to be perceived.” He continues with: "A truly unobserved event is one which realizes no effect on any other it therefore can have no legacy in the present or ongoing wider physical universe. It may then be recognized that the unobserved event was absolutely identical to an event which did not occur at all."

By way of limitation and documentation, The Unobserved World will either answer the commonsense answer as “yes, it did happen and there were a few people there to see it!” or prove the metaphysical answer as “no, because I didn’t go to the Hunt Gallery to witness the tree falling, so therefore it doesn’t exist!” This project also hopes to create a conceptual vibration by poking fun at the possibility of its unperceived existence; it is not the absence of “artwork,” the sound of a tree crashing to the ground or the taste of cold beer that should be considered, but rather the absence of awareness of objects and personal physical perception of these events.

Continuing on this theme, the Scottish philosopher David Hume introduced the idea of Causation and Inductive Inference, on this he wrote: “Causes and effects are discovered, not by reason but through experience, when we find that particular objects are constantly conjoined with one another…we realize that an (absolutely) inexperienced reasoner could be no reasoner at all.” With this in mind, the second part of The Unobserved World physically illustrates this idea. The film recorded during the course of the project will generate a new video using only the imagery from the viewers and their reaction to what they have witnessed, which is to specifically highlight the ephemeral nature of performance and event and the sound it makes through observation, participation and experience.

Video by Robert Goetz, Daniel McGrath and Sherman S. Sherman,
The Induction Problem/Tree Logic, 2009.

syllabus:video series










Alex Gene Morrison
August 28 - September 25, 2009

Karin Hodgin Jones
March 27 - April 17, 2009

The Cecille R. Hunt Gallery is pleased to present recent work by this year’s visiting artist Karin Hodgin Jones. Using a variety of media, such as motors, microcontrollers, wood, fabric, thread, solar panels and generators in her sculpture and installation work, Hodgin Jones focuses heavily on the feeble lines that connect the organic to the mechanical. Utilizing kinetics, she creates sprawling and odd installations, that both, tug, breathe and wave, all in an effort to mimic technology’s interference in our natural landscape and its altering relationship to the human body. Her interest lies in systems analysis, language translation and the role of machines in the human condition, the combination of these elements creates the context for meaning in her work. She states that: “the machine begins to stand in opposition to the body in competitive ways and casts a different light on its function.” Building on this idea, the philosopher, Martin Heidegger terms “standing reserve” as: “the relationship of the desires of humans to bring forth from the landscape energies to service the standardized grid of power.” As a point of reference for this new work, Hodgin Jones also believes as technology advances, the ways that we understand nature is inevitably altered. Interested especially in our continuation to form new and complex relationships with a variety of machines, this site-specific installation will utilize the luminosity of the gallery lighting system, to set her work in motion. Concerned with our disability to recognize the landscape for its contour, color, texture and vitality, her work intends to somehow distance the machine from the human body, but simultaneously make the elements that bind them more dependent and more visible.

Biography: Karin Hodgin Jones received her MFA from the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign in 2008 and her BFA is from the University of Utah. She has exhibited throughout the U.S. and has received funding and support for a variety of projects. Exhibitions venues include: a solo exhibition at: Lightwell Gallery, Oklahoma University, Norman, OK; Group shows at: I Space Gallery, Chicago, IL; Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL; Mass Gallery in Austin, TX; New Visions Gallery, Salt Lake City, UT; Gittins Gallery, Salt Lake City, UT. IN 2005 her work was featured as one of the 9 collections in the Ninth Letter Art and Literary Journal.

Fi Jae Lee
February 20 - March 20, 2009

The Cecille R. Hunt Gallery is pleased to present recent work by South Korean based artist Fi Jae Lee. Since participating in the reality show Art Star Season Two last year, in which film crews chronicled the life of MFA students from the Art Institute of Chicago, Fi Jae Lee has moved back to her native Seoul to concentrate on new sculpture. Using several stories like the Garden of the Eden, The Wine-Lake and Meat Forest of the Yin Dynasty, The Great Whore of the Apocalypse, as a point of reference, Lee uses sculpture to give physical incarnation to what she describes as “the unbreakable and fundamental energy, which established and maintains the world–our selfish desires.” Her creative quest is to share her realization that people rarely attain this knowledge because of “the skin”, which wraps and hides their desire. Using soft materials, collage, performance and installation, Lee enters a strange realm that references both religion and mysticism. Through stuffed grotesque, surrealistic creatures perched on office furniture and pools of red wine as centerpiece to mad celebration, she actively invites the viewer inside her world of strange ritual and an embodiment of her personal belief systems. Seen in its entirety, the work also represents human desire, she asks viewers to “shed their skin” in order to not only witness the barbarous orgy, but to take an active role in realization and transformation. Her sculpture and performance will help move toward an understanding of the fundamental idea behind her work in which she feels that as human beings we cannot be absorbed in the true energy of the universe because of the obstacles of love and fear received from the body.

Biography: Fi Jae Lee received her MFA in 2007 and her BFA in 2005 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her solo exhibitions include: Le Massacre de Jesus Egoïste, Aix-en-Provence France, 2007; Skin & Out, Caladan Gallery, Beverley MA, 2006; My Shrine, Base Space, Chicago, IL, 2006; A Person Searching for Eyes, a Nose and a Mouth, Gallery Batang Gol, Seoul, Korea, 2007. Her recent group exhibitions include: Scope Miami Art Fair, Miami FL, 2007; M. F. A. Exhibition, Gallery 2 and Project Space, Chicago, IL, 2007; Gallery 2 and Project Space, Chicago, IL, 2007; International Assemblage Artists Exhibition, Berlin, Germany, 2006; Birth of World, Caladan Gallery, Beverley MA, 2006; Wrestling with the New Science, Around the Coyote, Chicago IL, 2005; B. F. A Exhibition, Gallery 2 and Project Space, Chicago, IL, 2007; Art Bash, Gallery 2 and Project Space, Chicago, IL, 2005.

This exhibition made possible by generous support of the Missouri
Arts Council and the Regional Arts Commission.

Fi Jae Lee Catalog

Brigham Dimick
January 16 – February 13, 2009

The Cecille R. Hunt Gallery is pleased to present recent work by artist Brigham Dimick. Based in Edwardsville, Illinois, Dimick’s new work combines personal and collective narratives about imminent and occurring danger, both real and imagined. In his works on paper, he invents a context surrounding his body, playing on ideas of effacement and chance. The use of charcoal in the work draws a parallel between his subject matter and the physical material used to create, providing a record of the body. Dimick is also concerned with the tensions between intellectual and emotional responses to forceful disruptions, and the varieties of visual systems we employ to both measure and portray natural forces. Shifts in scale relationships are utilized to engender metaphoric interpretations. In his paintings, he employs arterial systems such as highways and branches to suggest collective culture and embody personal allegory. The works are responses to a personal experience of anaphylactic shock and serve as a creative outlet in order to explain his brush with mortality. Both compositionally and conceptually, he approaches the organization of these “branches” as a point toward the effects of anaphylaxis within the vascular system. Ultimately, the form of a human body and/or remains acts as a memorial site in order to create empathy for catastrophic events experienced both personally and collectively.


Biography: Brigham Dimick earned his MFA in 1991 in Painting at the School of Fine Arts, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. In 1985 he earned his BFA in Painting from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Elkins Park, PA. His selected recent solo exhibitions include: Brigham Dimick: Mortal Bodies, Jacoby Art Center, Alton, IL, 2008; Brigham Dimick: Waxworks/Drawings, University Art Gallery, The University of the South, Sewanee, TN, 2007; Confluences Invitational Exhibition, Center for the Arts, Lungwha University, Taipei, Taiwan R.O.C., 2005; Brigham Dimick: Constructions/Entropies, Catich Gallery, Galvin Fine Arts Center, St. Ambrose University, Davenport, IA, 2005. His selected recent group exhibitions include: Plane/Text, 1708 Gallery, Richmond, VA, 2007; In Our Own Backyard, Lancaster Museum of Art, Mainline Art Center, Erie Art Museum, Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art at Altoona, Sharadin Art Gallery, Kutztown University, 2004-05.

This exhibition made possible by generous support of the Missouri Arts Council and the Regional Arts Commission.

Brigham Dimick Brochure