RAW / 2008 / GHOSTS / artists

Jump to: Paper Rad / Nikki McClure / Cat Chow / tEEth / Julie Green / Mary Rothlisberger / Lucky Dragons / Ryan Trecartin / Social Practice / Bikes to Rwanda / G&g / Gary Wiseman / Glow Dome

The three members of the East Coast collective Paper Rad—Ben Jones, Jacob Ciocci and Jessica Ciocci—create unapologetically lo-fi zines, comics, paintings, music and videos that distort and transform the day-glo colors of pop culture's detritus. Since emerging as part of the energetic scene that centered around Providence, Rhode Island's Fort Thunder, Paper Rad have exhibited or performed at the Whitney Biennial, the Liverpool Biennial and the Tate Britain and have received praise from such publications as the New York Times, ArtReview, Artforum, Art in America, Rolling Stone and Mute. They have also created music videos for artists such as Beck and the Gossip. Paper Rad's contribution to this year's RAW will include an installation and performance.

Since 1996, Olympia, Washington based Nikki McClure has been creating intricate black and white papercuts that draw from her experiences and observations of motherhood, nature, and community. Her papercut images are well known from her annual calendar, magazines such as Progressive and Punk Planet and her involvement with record labels K and Kill Rock Stars. Her work was recently anthologized in Collected Raindrops: The Seasons Gathered. Along with a selection of her pieces, McClure will also lead a papercut workshop as part of this year's RAW.

For RAW 2008, New York artist and fashion designer Cat Chow will be presenting some special pieces focusing on this year's "ghosts" theme. A graduate of Northwestern University, Chow fabricates her conceptual artworks from everyday objects, poetically transforming such raw materials as dollar bills, single lengths of zippers and dress-makers' measuring tapes into socially conscious works that blur the boundaries between art, fashion and craft. Chow's zipper dress Bonded, an elegant white gown made entirely of a single length of zipper, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's permanent collection. Chow is the recipient of numerous awards including the Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award (2003) and the Avant-Garde Design Vision Award at the Gen Art Styles 2000 International Design Competition. Upcoming solo exhibitions include Speak Softly at the Elmhurst Art Museum which includes a publication with an essay written by Valerie Steele.

Portland-based dance ensemble tEEth will perform their bizarre "Normal and Happy," an elaborate piece that mentions of prosthetic skin, latex costumes, a kaleidoscopic tunnel of mirrors and shuddering fits of movement only begin to explain. According to tEEth, "Normal and Happy" "explores an individual's psyche, investigating the blurred division between one's conscious and subconscious mind." The collaborative product of choreographer Angelle Hebert and composer Phillip Kraft, tEEth's surreal work has astounded audiences in the past at such events as Seattle's On the Boards performing arts center's Northwest New Works Festival, Ten Tiny Dances, Linda Austin's Richard Foreman Festival & Cabaret, 2Gyrlz Enteractive Language Festival, and Conduit's BamBam Festival.

Oregon artist Julie Green's The Last Supper is an ongoing project documenting the final meal requests of death row inmates in the US. Green uses mineral paint fired onto ceramic plates to record the last meals of over 300 of the 1,099 inmates that have been executed in the US since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976. Green's presentation The Last Supper Table at RAW will include 12 new plates based on last meal requests from 2007 and an accompanying video presentation. Green has shown her challenging work in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the US, UK, and Japan and has discussed The Last Supper on the NPR program The Splendid Table.

For RAW 2008, Washington installation artist and archivist Mary Rothlisberger will bring her Bureau of Public Recollection, a playful installation that resembles a pillow fort as much as an office. The Bureau displays and archives visitors' donated memories to draw attention to the shared nature of what Rothlisberger calls "the layered human presence." Rothlisberger will also give a lecture on her time with the Elsewhere artist collaborative in North Carolina, an old three-story thrift-antique shop transformed into a living museum dedicated to the experimental integration of artistic production and cultural history.

Los Angeles-based Luke Fischbeck's Lucky Dragons project is a combination of sound, video and dance that gives a human touch to the technology he uses. Fischbeck's interactive live performances involve an unusual set up of quilts or ropes with built-in circuits connected to a laptop that processes the digital signals that audience members send via contact with these circuits and with each other. Lucky Dragons has performed at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York's PS1, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Philadelphia Institute for Contemporary Art, the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Frankfurt's Schirn Kunsthalle, and New York's The Kitchen, and will be a part of 2008's Whitney Biennial.

Philadelphia-based filmmaker and artist Ryan Trecartin's innovative debut video, A Family Finds Entertainment, depicts a cast of dozens of frenzied and paint-splattered characters as they careen through 42 minutes of sexual politics, crude computer graphics, animation, death and fireworks. A recent New York Times article on new video art describes Trecartin's fragmented narratives as "about just saying no to life as we think we have seen it and saying yes to zanier, virtual-utopian possibilities." Trecartin has exhibited his work at the 2006 Whitney Biennial; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Getty Center, Los Angeles; and the Saatchi Collection. Trecartin will be in attendance to answer questions following the screening.

Students from Portland State University's graduate Social Practice program will be carrying out several projects as part of RAW 2008. Among the students' projects will be a dowsing event, a campfire with marshmallows and ghost stories, and a haunting reanimation of Reed's old news through the KRRC radio station and the Quest newspaper. Social Practice is an emerging interdisciplinary artistic method that utilizes the "social" as its medium, connecting art with communities through direct engagement with the public. Harrell Fletcher, pioneering Social Practice artist and director of PSU's program, has shown his work nationally at the San Francisco MoMA; the de Young Museum; the Berkeley Art Museum; Yerba Buena Center For the Arts; Smackmellon in NYC; PICA in Portland; the Seattle Art Museum; and internationally in England, France and Sweden. Learning to Love You More, the book version of a website Fletcher created in collaboration with Miranda July, was published by Prestel in 2007.

Founded in 2006 with support from Stumptown Coffee, Bikes to Rwanda (BTR) provides cargo bicycles to co-operative coffee farmers in Rwanda. The organization's aim is to improve quality of life in these communities through a bike workshop and maintenance program that provides transportation resources for basic needs and enhances production of quality coffee. As part of this year's RAW, Clara Seasholtz, executive director of BTR, will give a presentation accompanied by two documentary films about Rwanda in the 1990s and the history of coffee. Seasholtz, an art major turned non-profit director, will also discuss how students can find a meaningful career with a non-profit organization. Stumptown will host a coffee tasting following the presentation.

According to Gordan Barnes, "Sometimes inspiration strikes like a bolt from the sky, sometimes like a tape from the trash." For this year's RAW, G&g (Gary Wiseman and Gordan Barnes) will present the film I give this to you for something to do (Dad, is that you?). Wiseman found the battered VHS tape, self-produced by a group of male college students, in the trash by an apartment building where he used to work. According to Barnes, watching the twelve-minute-long program of short and seemingly disconnected skits is almost like seeing someone naked "and feeling sort of guilty and excited at the same time." I give this to you for something to do (Dad, is that you?) is the first in a series of marginalized masterpieces presented by curatorial duo G&g.

Gary Wiseman recently completed Tea Project, a two-year cycle of 30 interactive performance events (2006-2008). The Tea Project performances occurred in Portland, New York and Canada. Gary will return to NY in spring 2008 to complete the Personal Favorite Places New York project. In September he will present work in Calgary at the Art City Festival with collaborative performance group T-Folk. For RAW 2008, Gary Wiseman will present his Conversation Piece as part of RAW Radio.

The Glow Dome, is a mobile small press distro and gallery housed in an old Airstream trailer. The exhibition will be roving around campus for RAW 2008, packed with colorful artbooks, handmade zines, and prints from around the globe. Steered by artists/curators Adam Zeek and Kristin Allen, the Glow Dome travels up and down the West Coast. On this trek the trailer posts at galleries, art walks, house parties, and most anywhere they are invited.