Ted Carey‘s assemblages regard things as words. Recognizing matter as embedded with both personal and universal associations, his witty and economical arrangements serve as a poetry of gestures. A recent piece at Museum of Human Achievement exemplifies: suspended from a two-by-four, an inverted lawn chair and an umbrella of dry leaves dangle in absurd and counter-intuitive equilibrium. Each Carey installation is unique to its surroundings, riffing off the given architecture and the particularities of place. We are excited to see what Carey does with Northern-Southern’s front gallery.
Likewise, Virginia Fleck has free reign over the back gallery. Fleck is known for ebullient plastic bag mandalas and glittering installations of aluminum can tabs. She uses post-consumer materials as media of joyful defiance, unearthing the hidden beauty of disposable items that continually pass through our hands. Most recently at The Femme Abstract exhibition at EAST 2018, she showed a master-work: a cascade of hundreds of thousands of linked aluminum can tabs.
The ready-made is a tradition at least a century old. In recent decades the medium has matured into one open with possibility and edged with relevance. Human-made debris is the omnipresent material of our times. Fleck and Carey operate in a cultural sphere where re-use as art is no longer a novelty. Freed from shock, they arrange with nuance: Koi ponds of junk.
Virginia Fleck, installation viewTed Carey, “Paul revered”, 2019
ONGOING
Where is Here is a project to photograph at least one person of every age—newborn to the most senior—of the people who live, work, grew up in, are from, or frequent the thereabouts of East Austin around East 12th Street.
Where is Here is curated by Keyheira Keys with Phillip Niemeyer.
Photographers (a growing team): Tyeschea West, Arius Holifield, Hector Hernandez, Beartie Pearson, Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon, Ryan Junell
Special thanks to Miriam Conner.
DEC 15, 2018 – FEB 1, 2019
Jaime Zuverza & Transmountain
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Rachel Freeman
INSIDES is a complementary pair of domestic dream-rooms. Artist Jaime Zuverza and design duo Transmountain (Gil Moreno & Lindsey Culpepper) collaborate on furniture-art fusions in the front gallery. In the back, Rachel Freeman creates an all-over installation of artwork. Two rooms converse, each heightening the experience of the other. INSIDES is genre-ignoring—drawing, painting, woodwork, design, installation, curation all put to use. The work is sensual and precise, sturdy and protean.
Artist Walk-through
with Jaime Zuverza, Transmountain, and Rachel Freeman
Saturday, January 12, 4:00pm Download catalog (PDF)
Midnight Vanity by Transmountain, paintings by Jamie ZuverzaRachel Freeman, “Uttering Thistle”
An artist and home-builder Joseph Phillips thinks a lot about how people shape and replicate nature. His first solo show in six years,“‘SCAPES”, imagines built environments of absurd survival luxuries and compartmentalized dreams. The clean, exact gouaches have a sunny hardness and a canny sense of the dismal. The work is political, complex, and fantastic.
Shawn Camp’s EQUIVOCATION is an installation consisting of a wall painting, a video, a loop of sound, and a large back-lit painting in a room with subtly shifting light. The experience is a mediation on the cyclical nature of being and an abstraction of the way we perceive time and space.
Stella Alesi
Kel Brown
Cattywampus Press
Rachel Freeman
Robert Jackson Harrington
Adreon Henry
Matt Macomber
Ryan Sandison Montgomery
Phillip Niemeyer
Deb Norris
Gretchen Phillips
Mike Reddy
Beth Schindler
Elaine I-Ling Shen
Amanda Julia Steinback
Donya Stockton
Leslie Webb
Alyssa Taylor Wendt
Celebrate creative living at Northern–Southern with a group show of art, design, and other things that people make. Experimental and low-stakes, the show is a summer rejuvenation of purpose, an answer of why.
The catalog features a short interview with each contributor, asking why they make and why they made the thing that’s in the show.
Three acoustic robots emote music accompanied by found voice recordings and projections. Each of the robots mimics a human personality disorder: Cluster A (odd, eccentric), Cluster B (dramatic, emotional, erratic), and Cluster C (anxious, fearful). The robots “sing” round robin in a group therapy session.
Cluster A and C, installation viewCluster A, installation viewCluster BCluster C
Matthew Steinke is a composer, animator, inventor, and artist. An Austin native, he came of age playing in post-punk bands in the DIY scene of Olympia, Washington. Over the past two decades, Steinke’s robotic installations and performances have been presented in museums, galleries, and festivals across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. In Austin again, he built and has performed with an ensemble of new and robotic instruments, OCTANT. He was a finalist for the 2016 ArtPrize. His concert/multimedia performance NO PLACE was a stand out of the 2017 Fusebox festival.
MAR 24 – MAY 5
2018
The first solo show for New York-based painter, and former Austinite, Michelle Marchesseault. She filled the gallery with paintings (serial rainbows, gestural abstractions, perfect imperfections) and flowers.
Michelle Marchesseault, “A lady came out”, 2017, acrylic oil plasterinstallation viewMichelle Marchesseault, “Clicks”, 2017, acrylic oilinstallation view
JAN–MAR 2018
Dev Harlan
Laura Lit
New York based Dev Harlan negotiates the conceptual spaces between digital ephemera and inert mineral. Here he projects tightly controlled, geometric pattern onto replicas of natural rocks..
Laura Lit has an adept hand at realist figurative painting. In this series, the only reference she uses is what is seen when eyes are closed, letting the subconscious influence shape and form. Download catalog (PDF)
Angel Oloshove
Anne Austin Pearce
Chris Bakay
Clarke Curtis
Forlane 6
Gabriel Dawe
Jessica McClendon
Uncover, unveil, undress, expose. OVERNEATH is a collection of layered mysteries: underwater installations, fossilized t-shirts, alien eggs, boxes of squished color, self-deconstructing portraits, and paintings of phantasmagoria. These artists use texture to delineate form and conflate exterior and interior space.
OVERNEATH opened with a reception, Friday, December 8, 2018, 7–10 pm, and closed after visiting hours, Saturday, January 6, 2018, 3–6:30pm.
Gabriel Dawe (boxes), Chris Bakay (shirts)Angel Oloshove (sculptures left and right), Jessica McClendon (mixed media painting in center)Forlane 6 StudioAnne Austin Pearce
ART AND DESIGN ON THE GO
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport
Adam Palmer
Adreon Denson Henry
Amanda Julia Steinback
Brad Tucker
Dan Lam
David R Head Jr
Donya Stockton
LAND
Lisa Choinacky
Mason McFee
Mike Reddy
Phillip Niemeyer
Ron Geibel
photographed by Bill McCullough
Installed across the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, CARRY ONS was a show of contemporary Texas art and design. In small cases lining the concourse, were displays of art/design objects small enough to be toted under a seat or in an overhead compartment. In some instances, the objects could themselves be considered luggage (sacks, baskets, skateboards). Posters accompany the objects as advertisements for non-commercial, often oblique, thoughts.
Brad TuckerMason McFeeDonya StocktonAmanda Julia Steinback
In two large display cases on opposite sides of the concourse, Mike Reddy and Lisa Choinacky installed twenty-plus feet long drawings on the experience of travel. Mike Reddy’s Between Gates is a warm observation of the commuter crowd. Lisa Choinacky’s Air Routes is a set of ten connected ink drawings, visualizations of human-scale jet streams.
Mike Reddy, Between GatesLisa Choinacky, Air Routes
Before the closing, Bill McCullough photographed the show focusing not on the art as much as the travelers who stopped to look.
RonGeibel, Lick photo by Bill McCulloughMike Reddy, Between Gates photo by Bill McCulloughLisa Choinacky, Air Routes photo by Bill McCullough
CARRY ONS was curated by Phillip Niemeyer & Rachel Freeman with Audrey Molloy of ABIA. Design and Installation by Phillip Niemeyer, Cory Hurless (ABIA), Audrey Molloy, Allie Mattson and Ethan Lee Odness.
JUL 2016
Shawn Camp
Lisa Choinacky
Jeffrey Dell
Rachel Freeman
David R Head Jr
Adreon Denson Henry
Rebecca Whitehurst & Candice Schnurr
Leslie Sisson
Phillip Niemeyer
In a celebratory anything goes spirit, friends of N-S hung art over the course of a night for an impromptu final show at the 1800 Koenig Lane space.
Leslie Sisson of the Moving Panoramas played an acoustic set. Rebecca Whitehurst and Candice Schnurr performed an 10-minute experimental dance piece once every hour of the reception.
Jeff Dell (print on left), Rebecca Whitehurst (performance), Adreon Denson Henry (picture at right)Rachel Freeman
Red Dots, shown for the first time at GOING OUT OF BUSINESS IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS, is an audience-participation piece on the economy of art-making. The dots, like the ones usually indicating a sale of art, are sold for a quarter. The purchaser may place the dot anywhere (on the composition target or not). The buyer becomes the maker, and the picture is made by its incremental sale. The value of the work is in an actual money in the locked red collection box, key thrown away.
Claude van Lingen placing a red dotJosephine Niemeyer placing a dot
Debra Broz
Erin Cunningham
Candace Hicks
William Hundley
Mark Menjivar
Meredith Miller & Deborah Poe
Joseph Noderer
Jessamyn Plotts
Becki Smith
Donya Stockton
Simon Walker
Jaime Zuzvera
The penultimate show at 1800 Koenig Lane, INVITATION gathered a collection of open intimacies and floating questions.
Paintings, design objects, installations, photographs, performances, graphics, sculptures, boxes, embroidered books, and poems await in a room where all are welcome, for free. Curated by Phillip Niemeyer & Rachel Freeman.
Jaime Zuzvera (painting on left), William Hundley (center photograph), Joseph Noderer (painting on right), Donya Stockton (baskets on mirrored base)Erin Cunningham A Little Lace, A Little Bling from Ladies Knuckles Series, 2015, copper, sterling silver, cubic zirconiaLeon Alesi (photographs on walls), Candace Hicks (embrodiered books on table)Mark Menjivar
APR 2016
PERFORMANCE AND DOCUMENTATION
Brad Tucker as Bad Trucker
Caroline Gormley
Jared Leibowich
Bridget Evarts
Lisa Choinacky
Benjamin Cissner
Matthew Steinke/Octant
Monika Rostvold
Rachel Freeman
Sarah Saltwick & Katy Taylor
Sean Ripple
Shafer Hall
Sol LeWitt Bootlegs
BLUE FLAMES and WARM ASHES were companion events. BLUE FLAMES was a day-long show of music, performance art, experimental theater, poetry, story-telling, and visual art as choreographed movement. Weeks later, WARM ASHES presented documentation and remains of the previous show.
A flame is a verb as a noun — the object (the plume of fire) is an action (burning, a rapid chemical change). The is is a does. Ashes are what flames leave behind.
At BLUE FLAMES, Lisa Choinacky drew and hung two large pieces. The video documentation and the pieces were shown at WARM ASHES. Artist Bridget Evarts spoke as Liza Minnelli at BLUE FLAMES. At WARM ASHES she made a encore appearance, signing 8×10 glossies photographed at the previous event. And so on… Poets’ readings were made into texts. Stages for performance became installations. Singers’ songs were played on an old tape recorder at the spot in the room where the tape was recorded.
Lisa Choinacky
Caroline GorelyBridget Evarts as LizaSean Ripple passenger Instructions for “This is Hardcore” – a performance for carMATTER is a one-actor play about an astronaut written by Sarah Saltwick and performed by Katy Taylor at BLUE FLAMES. For WARM ASHES, Taylor’s space suit costume was displayed floating weightless above the room.Sol LeWitt Bootlegs are instruction art pieces very loosely based on Sol LeWitt wall drawings and geared toward drafts-people of any skill level. Two were made during BLUE FLAMES.
FEB–MAR
2016
WE MAKE SPACES MAKE US
Adreon Henry
Alyson Fox
Articulture
Brad Tucker
Brooklyn Woods
Christine Gray
Dan Forbes
Dana McClure
4th Edition Design
Haley Ann Robinson
Igor Siddiqui
Ike Krumenacker
Irena Stanisic
Jaime Zuverza
Joseph Phillips
Leslie Webb
Madeline Gallucci
Michael Villarreal
Michael Yates
Mike Reddy
Petrified Design
Rachel Freeman
Sara Willadsen
Wayne Alan Brenner
Work about or for living in rooms. Designed and curated by Phillip Niemeyer & Rachel Freeman. Contributors included designers, architects, artists, and artisans.
Leslie Webb (screen)Joseph Phillips, CubetopiaMichael Yates (chair on left), Leslie Webb (end table), Michael Yates & Alyson Fox (chair on right), Igor Siddiqui (rug), Christine Gray (paintings/collages), Monique Capanelli at Articulture Designs (wall plants)Sara Willadsen (picture) over Phillip Niemeyer (wallpaper)Michael Villarreal (yellow broom), Dan Forbes (Oscar)4th Edition Design (lamp and chair), installation viewMike Reddy, Alandale, 2016, ink on paper
DEC 2015
NEW GIFT DESIGN
W. A. Brenner
Cuniform Press
Jené DeSpain
Colin Frazer
Tony Hall/Balls Pedals
David R. Head Jr.
Adreon Henry
Bas Mantel
Michelle Marchesseault
Monkey Town
Phillip Niemeyer
The Octopus Project
Palaxy Tracks & Paul Kremer
Mike Reddy
Simon Walker
& more
PRESENT is the gift shop as an installation. Semi-unique objects created by contemporary designers and artists in the last five years were available for sale.
David R Head Jr, silkscreen printThe Octopus Project
OCT 2015
Stella Alesi
Daniel Gray & Billi London-Gray
Taylor Holland
Brian Johnson
Germaine Keller
Dameon Lester
Claude Van Lingen
Ender Martos
Caitlin G McCollom
Andrew Murray
McKay Otto
Brad Tucker
ALMOST NOTHING was an exhibition of new Texas minimalism and conceptual things curated by Shawn Camp. The objects and images in the show embrace ontological ambiguity, toggling between being and other options.
Ender MartosTaylor HollandDameon LesterBrad TuckerStella AlesiClaude Van Lingen, 1000 Years, installation viewClaude Van Lingen discussing a white on white piece by Germaine Keller at the ALMOST NOTHING opening reception.
Adreon Denson Henry
David R Head Jr
Dax Norman
Karen Gelardi
Michelle Marchesseault
Mike Reddy
Phillip Niemeyer
Rachel Freeman
Sibelle Yuksek
TransMountain
Rhythm, repetition, and the feeling of summer feelings…
Karen Gelardi (banners on window at left), Mike Reddy (swimming pattern on wall), TransMountain (furniture design in foreground)David R Head Jr (left), Michelle Marchesseault sanded (center), Phillip Niemeyer (right)
FEB 2015
CONTEMPORARY WOMEN AND FANTASY
Blevin Blectum
Mindy Briggs
Lisa Crystal Carver
Lisa Choinacky
Jené DeSpain
Leah Haney
Robin Henry
Knoxy Knox
Michelle Marchesseault
Dana McClure
Tanya Newton John
Simona Prives
Rachel Stern
Rachel Staples
Alyssa Taylor Wendt
Susan Tureen
Jené DeSpain (jewelry), Rachel Staples (gown)Dana McClure (mixed media collages), Michelle Marchesseault (wallpaper)Tanya Newton-JohnLeslie Sisson performing in front of paintings by Leah Haney at the XANADU closing reception.
OCT–DEC 2014
THINGS TO BE LOOKED AT AND THROUGH
Adreon Denson Henry
Dan Forbes
David R Head Jr
Elana Adler
Hannah Cole
Jeana Baumgardner
Marsha Owett
Paul Kremer
Phillip Niemeyer
Shawn Camp
Vincent Venturella
Vincent Venturella (photograph mounted on window), Jeanna Braungardner (painting on wall on left)Adreon Denson HenryPhillip Niemeyer
A zine on the subject of eavesdrop was published to accompany the show. Nancy Kricorian, Ray Patrick Colgan, Kristen Meyers, Sherry Parnes, Chris Lyons, and Janet Thomae Higdon contributed.
Chris Lyons page one of “Private Eye” from the WINDOWS zine
