Also Showing

Freddy Jouwayed: Forks in the Wave Function

Miami-based artist Freddy Jouwayed presents a site-specific installation of his labor-intensive drawings on paper as well as a multi-media component, a collaboration with Juan Maristany and Stephan Tugrul. Regarding this ongoing body of work, Jouwayed makes the following statement: A dot is made to appear on a surface. It is both a point of origin and of convergence. A dot bleeds through a surface to emerge behind the skin landing on another plane. Two more points now exist to react upon. One is an extension of the first, the other replication. Lines are added and reacted upon with other lines. Gestures begin to accumulate and forms then appear and multiply. From these forms, others come into existence, layering their meaning. More opportunities arise to contemplate. Surrender to a constant and meditative state of action and reaction to markings that accumulate, extracting layers and fragments of the mind then alluding to thoughts and manifestations of the state of being.
Image: Freddy Jouwayed, Sensesinfission, 2011, Pigment pen, marker, and acrylic on paper.

Artist/Exhibition Organizers Biographies Oliver Wasow and John D. Monteith are visual artists with extensive exhibition histories. They were introduced through and have communicated via Facebook since 2008, exchanging images and banter, before meeting for the first time in March 2010. They share an interest in culture that flies under the radar. Artist Oliver Wasow received a B.A. in media studies from Hunter College in New York City in 1982. He resides in Rhinebeck, NY -- participating in solo exhibitions in New York City and exhibiting both in the U.S. and internationally. He teaches at a number of art schools -- The Bard College, Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, The School of Visual Arts (SVA) Graduate Program in Photography and Related Media, SVAs Undergraduate Photography Program, and the Art Institute of Boston. His photographs are in a number of prominent collections worldwide and are included in the permanent collections of several museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. John D. Monteith is a self-taught painter based in Columbia, SC. He has had four solo exhibitions and his group shows include his inclusion in the current exhibition at George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY, titled The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the W.M. Hunt Collection (exhibition catalog), the Lyon Biennial curated by Harald Szeemann, and Art to Z during Art Basel Miami Beach 2010.

Book and prints available for sale

A hard-bound, 260page full-color book accompanying the exhibition is available for $20. The book includes hundreds of images selected by the artists, essays by John D. Monteith and Oliver Wasow, critics Jerry Saltz and Marvin Heiferman, and curator Jane Hart.

Giannina Coppiano Dwin: Nothing We Can Call Our Own

Giannina Coppiano Dwins work allows the interaction of time, expressing a desire to transform simple materials into symbols of lifes basic needs. It refers to intimate moments, little rituals, or metaphors that call into play formal aesthetics, nourishment, sensory experience, womens bodies, and the impermanence of the human condition. The sensuality of the materials is in direct contrast to the transient nature of everything. The work presents a sort of contemporary Vanitas, reflecting the inevitable passing of pleasure into earthly decay. The attention to detail and labor intensiveness of the work also contrasts with the transformation and destruction of the exhibition to be presented on the final day.
Image: Giannina Coppiano Dwin, Untitled (Bra) (detail), 2009, Sugar.

A pair of limited-edition 16 x 20 prints are also available: Men and Women, $125 each.

Artist Unknown / The Free World

Organized by John D. Monteith & Oliver Wasow October 29, 2011 January 29, 2012

For more information or to order, visit ArtAndCultureCenter.org

1650 Harrison Street Hollywood, FL 33020 954. 921. 3274 ArtAndCultureCenter.org

Artist Unkown / The Free World is made possible in part by a FAB! Knight New Work Award supported by Funding Arts Broward and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and through the support of Lou Anne and Mike Colodny. Hot Topics Discussion Series is funded in part by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, as part of its Knight Arts Challenge. The Art and Culture Center of Hollywood is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization supported in part by its members, admissions, private entities, the City of Hollywood, the Broward County Board of County Commissioners as recommended by the Broward Cultural Council; the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, the Florida Council on Arts and Culture; and the Kresge Foundation. We welcome donations from all members of the community who wish to support our work.

Presented by

Artist Unknown/The Free World is an exhibition of more than 17,000 photographic images that arose out of countless hours of online conversations between artists Oliver Wasow and John D.Monteith. No longer just the domain of thrift stores and estate sales, countless images of unknown origin are now available via the Internet. This has resulted in entire sub-cultures of people, including the artists, becoming involved in the collecting, trading, and transforming of digital material. This show reflects an emerging genre in contemporary visual culture and recognition that in a digital environment the artists practice is increasingly migrating from the confines of the studio to the image-rich landscape of the World Wide Web. Photography has traditionally been the most accessible and enduring visual medium for documenting ones personal aesthetic. The advent of social media sites such as Facebook has democratized photography even further. Artist Unknown/The Free World explores the nature of these developments, to look at the different kinds of images that are providing source material to artists and others. How people choose to represent themselves on social networking sites and chat rooms illuminates their self-image from spaces once considered private or intimate. This project explores the growing practice of utilizing found images (both analog and digital in origin) by artists, and in doing so presents an overview of our culture through the collective lens of these amateur photographers.

With the evolution of the Internet and social networking, ones avatars became ubiquitous as a means of self-representation and examination. The images in The Free World act as calling cards to an unknown audience consisting mainly of strangers. The mundane became photographys primary subject in the often day-to-day photographic recording of non-events. Whether a blatant expression of sexuality or just the documentation of an evenings boredom, it was as if those taking the photos were looking into a mirror while simultaneously granting tacit permission to anyone else viewing to join them in their mirror as well. Certainly the makers true intentions were known only to them. These pictures are not memories to be stored in bound albums or shoe boxes in closets. They exist more as a transient glimpse into a life desirous of communication, connection, expression and some degree of control. John D. Monteith

The images that make up Artist Unknown were all found on the Internet and taken in the twentieth century. At some point these pictures were separated from their original owners and reclaimed by others, who in turn chose to upload them to the Web. The several hundred pictures presented here were culled from over a hundred thousand images, uploaded by thousands of individuals who, one imagines, found them in thrift stores and yard sales or perhaps found them, as I have, on the Internet and simply reblogged them. With screen names like Superbomba and Sarcoptiform, the people sharing these pictures on the web participate in a kind of crowd sourced curatorial practice, creating an archive of analog images larger than anything a single individual or institution could ever hope to amass. Oliver Wasow

It took eight years for the 503 photographs in Edward Steichens 1955 MoMA extravaganza, The Family of Man, to travel to 37 countries and reach an estimated 10 million people, which was an unprecedented feat in its time. But to put those numbers into a more contemporary perspective, consider the 750 million people who upload and share an estimated 100 million photos on their Facebook pages every day, and another 4.5 million more photos added to Flickr accounts. The number of pictures made and the sheer scale of photo-sharing are reaching levels that challenge quantification and comprehension and that, in part, is what makes Artist Unknown/The Free World a nervy, often hilarious, and noble endeavor. Marvin Heiferman

The very notion of what a photograph has become is absolutely fluid; as are the definitions of artist. Not only do we see millions of photographs a day, almost none of them exist as actual objects, many werent meant as images at all, are screengrabs, web-cam streams, skype-snippets, YouTube postings, twitter pics, flickr files, online archives of every kind. The vast majority of these are created by those who do not identify as artists or whose definition of artist is very different than that of the art world. Jerry Saltz

All images: Anonymous, From Artist Unknown / The Free World