ZIPSTIR - OPENING RECEPTION SEPTEMBER 24
ZipStir - n. Slang. 1. One who is aware of or in accordance with the latest artistic trends and tastes. 2. An artist who uses coffee stirrers or zip ties for sculpture and/or installation.
McColl Center for Visual Art is pleased to present ZipStir, site specific installations by Hong Seon Jang and Jonathan Brilliant in a dual exhibition that runs September 3, 2010 through January 8, 2011. Providing an experimental approach to contemporary art, both Jang and Brilliant guide the viewer through an innovative use of space using common manufactured materials that give these everyday goods new meaning. An opening reception will be held on September 24, 2010, from 6 to 9 PM. Artist-in-Residence Anthony Schrag will present "Art Can Not Save Us" at 7:15.
From rhythm and repetition to destruction and creation, ZipStir spans a spectrum of forms and ideas that reveal meticulously crafted installations. The exhibition’s gallery space has been divided into two separate spaces on the Center’s main floor that present installations whose medium is limited to plastic zip ties and wooden stir sticks.
Hong Seon Jang’s art derives from his fascination with the comparison of human activity and natural phenomena as it corresponds destruction and creation. Jang’s Center installation, “Zip City” focuses on human activity, the sprawl of human made structures and the desire to expand our own habitat into the natural world. “Zip City” is a play on words in reference to US zip codes and the use of common plastic zip ties, the only material used to construct the work. The zip code (aka “zone improvement plan”) was invented for control and efficiency of mail delivery through a mapping system. Marking territory and assigning codes for a city plan is a human act of dominance and control over nature and creates a boundary between individuals. Jang mimics the fundamental force of survival and growth by manipulating materials into a likeness of natural forms to embody new contexts of physical existence.
Jonathan Brilliant, who uses only coffee stir sticks, creates installations that are both ironic and labor intensive with a traditional craft sensibility. Inspired by the visual phenomena of patterning and mark-making, Brilliant’s installation, “The Coffee Shop Project” uses the coffee shop as a natural environment and a common material found within most coffee shops, to suggests that the coffee shop and related consumer environs are more organic and nurturing than the “real” natural environment.