The Central Utah Arts Center is pleased to announce the works of Allan Ludwig, Daniel Everett, Pooneh Maghezhe and Sky Steele.
Collected in this show, the works of Ludwig and Everett set out to disrupt ideas of control and logical progression, both in terms of their individual art production and the subsequent contextualization of their work. By consciously attempting to undermine expected outcomes, they seek to open paths to new, and previously inaccessible results.
Working across a range of media, Everett explores ontological concerns and the potential for meaning within neutral space. By basing artistic output on predetermined systems and technological defaults, Everett seeks to externalize the aesthetic choices of a scientific world within his work. His exploration of various landscapes seeks to give value to their very existence. His work gives contemplative value to these spaces through commemorating them in images, while admitting the alienating potential in contemporary, technology-flooded lifestyles. Graduating from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah with a BFA in photography in 2006 and from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009 with an MFA in Photography, Evrett is a Chicago original, represented by Scott Projects in Chicago, Illinois.
Working across a range of media, Everett explores ontological concerns and the potential for meaning within neutral space. By basing artistic output on predetermined systems and technological defaults, Everett seeks to externalize the aesthetic choices of a scientific world within his work. His exploration of various landscapes seeks to give value to their very existence. His work gives contemplative value to these spaces through commemorating them in images, while admitting the alienating potential in contemporary, technology-flooded lifestyles. Graduating from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah with a BFA in photography in 2006 and from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009 with an MFA in Photography, Evrett is a Chicago original, represented by Scott Projects in Chicago, Illinois.
Ludwig’s exploration of space stands to compliment Everett’s work. In his paintings, drawings, and sculptures, Allan Ludwig investigates a reciprocal corruption between geometric abstraction and fantasy. Each one is reliant on internally consistent structures. This juxtaposition is both a rejection and acceptance of illusionistic space, with a playful aesthetic informed by Greenbergian notions of flatness and depth. Ludwig graduated from Brigham Young University with a BFA in 2004, and an MFA in 2007 from Claremont Graduate University.
Pooneh Maghazehe and Skye Steele will collaborate to mythologize the life and work of Gerard Winstanley, the British 17th century proto-communist who appropriated public lands and planted crops to feed the hungry during famine. Simultaneously mystic fete and quotidian procedure, the colaboration will demonstrate the marriage of work and spirituality within Maghazehe’s and Steele’s imagined world. Participants operate a massive mechanical contraption to complete a simple agrarian task meanwhile sanctifying their labor with work songs in an invented lexicon of “astral phonetics.”
Occupying the CUAC mezzanine, the rafters above the gallery, and the exterior of the CCA Christiansen Cabin, the work creates an encompassing imaginative space within which the distinction between observer and participant is dissolved through collective effort toward coaxial visible and invisible outcomes. Skye Steele will be initiating a participatory event entitled, The Hot Holy Mess as a part of the collaboration. The event will draw an astral circle around the room within which performers and participants co-mingle in song singing, musical reflection, poetic interjection, and dancing. We celebrate love, lust, mortality, and the world about us in a participatory format not unlike the one used by the church you wish you'd grown up in.
Pooneh Maghazehe resides in Brooklyn, NY. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Visual Arts at Columbia University. Select exhibitions include the Beijing 798 Biennale, the Chelsea Art Museum, DePaul University Museum in Chicago, Asian Contemporary Art Week, Arario Gallery, and Leila Taghinia Milani Heller Gallery. Select publications include The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Art Asia Pacific Magazine, Art Map Magazine, The Washington Post, and 1 Magazine. In fall, 2011 Maghezhe will be an artist in residence at ZKM institute in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Skye Steele's pursuit of a global improvisational language on the violin has taken him from the backstreets of Istanbul to the mangroves of Brazil and back to Brooklyn. Steele received both his BFA in Jazz Performance and a BA in Fiction Writing in 2002 from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City. His unique sound has lead to work with figures as diverse as, Cyro Baptista, Willie Nelson, Rufus Wainwright, Vanessa Carlton, and Matt Wilson. The Skye Steele Quintet released its first CD, late bloomer, in 2008 to much critical acclaim. With additional performers: Mike Lavalle and Ben Cassorla
-Alicia Harris
