Found

Exhibition Celebrating Conservation and Community

Curated by

ANDREA COTE

July 25- August 29, 2009

Opening Reception July 25    5-7PM

at

art sites

651 West Main Street (Route 25), Riverhead, New York 11901    T: 631- 591-2401

http://www.artsitesgallery.com

Gallery Hours:           Thursday Sunday, 12-5 PM.

The urgency of conservation, waste, and renewal takes artistic form in the upcoming exhibition Found at Art Sites Gallery inRiverhead, NY, bringing together eight contemporary artists with overlapping interests in ecology, resourcefulness and community. Whether collected from curbsides, dumpsters, lunch trays, flea markets or from the artist's studio floor, objects once discarded and overlooked gain new value through transformation into works of art. 

Matt Bua, Julie Peppito and Maire Kennedy juxtapose materials to reveal tensions -- between the natural and the manmade, the city and suburbia, class and culture -- creating a record of our desires, obsessions and excesses. Tara Parsons and Charles Butterly invite engagement with environmental and societal concerns through positive interventions. Twentieth-century art movements such as Assemblage, Surrealism, and Arte Povera are revisited and updated by Pablo Cano, Craig Kane, and Pierre Cote.  All these artists share a capacity to express humor, poetry and greatness through humble means.

The works include installation, collage, puppetry and outdoor sculpture. The exhibition will include many pieces realized on site and created for the show. Several make use of Art Sites' expansive riverside property. Artist talks, a video screening, and a variety of community events and workshops will be featured throughout the shows 5-week duration. Crafts made from recycled materials by artisans from the Fair Trade Market in Hampton Bays and by Blanca Ricardo of East Hampton will be available for purchase. A catalog created by the curator Andrea Cote, a local artist based in Flanders, will accompany and document the show. One installation will invite public participation, drawing stories from area residents.

The Stitch Britch Fork House

WANTED- Your stories, souvenirs, symbols and collections of stuff to tell OUR history. No Object or story is too Mundane! Artist Matt Bua will be building the "Stitch Britch Fork House" outdoors at Art Sites Gallery in July. The structure, a pavilion in the shape of the North and South Forks of Long Island, will house a creative display of local history, lore, and urban legends collected by the community - YOU! Bring your objects and stories to Art Sites July 15-25th. Volunteer assistants welcome.

Take Home this Piece!

We are trying a social experiment inspired in part by President Obama's successful fundraising strategy. We feel it is important for the method of support to mirror the exchange between artist and viewer. Rather than solicit large sums of money from donors, we invite you, the viewers, to support and take part. The artists in this exhibition have dedicated their time and energy to create new works, many of which are site-specific and require travel of considerable distance. Please consider supporting their efforts.

Craig Kane, an artist based in Queens, has created a very special "Found" sculpture (pictured on card and above.) For every $5 contribution, you not only make a contribution to a special show, but a chance to submit your name to a drawing and win Craig's piece! For every $25, you get 5 chances and a free downloadable copy of the exhibition catalog!! For every $100, you get 20 chances and your name listed as a sponsor for the show in all press and catalog materials!!! The drawing will take place at the Artists' Talk on August 30.  All of the money raised will go to support the artists.

Calendar of Events:

July 25, Saturday  5-7 PM, Opening Reception, free

July 26, Sunday  4 PM, Screening of :  " PABLO CANO - THE MAKING OF VIVA VAUDEVILLE " 2007    Filmed by : SHELLY GEFTER,  One hour  DVD  includes  interviews with  MOCA Director / Chief Curator Bonnie Clearwater  and Choreographer Katherine Kramer. Free

July 29, Wednesday 5:30 PM Art Discussion, free

What do you see when you look at art? Join curator Andrea Cote for an in-depth and lively discussion about the work on view.

August 1, Saturday, Childrens Workshop at East End Arts Council 10AM -12 pm

Ages 7-10 yrs, $25 Register through East End Arts Council

Students will create puppets from found and recycled materials inspired by the work of Pablo Cano. 

August 2, Sunday 1 PM Family workshop, $5, under 10 free .

Bring the family for a collaborative project. We will create a transparent fantasyscape based on the work of Maire Kennedy. Project will be displayed at the Riverhead Library.

August 9, Sunday, 1 PM Childrens Workshop

Children's Workshop at Art Sites: (1-3) Ages 8-12 yrs, $25

Students will create small-scale sculptures using clay and found materials based on the works of Craig Kane and Julie Peppito

August 30, Sunday Artists Talk and Panel Discussion

ARTISTS

Matt Bua, founder of b-Home, a property in the Catskills housing site-specific visionary structures, and whose project Cribs To Cribbage is currently on display at Mass MOCA, will be building a recycled "crate house" on site. The structure, a pavilion in the shape of the North and South Forks of Long Island, will house a creative display of local history, lore, and urban legends collected by way of an open call to the community.

Charles Butterly, whose styrofoam ice bergs and shopping-cart bird houses were recently on view during the Peekskill Project, will be creating a sculpture on the grounds that will biodegrade over time as well as a live performance.

Pablo Cano's work has delighted children and adults in presentations of his avant-garde marionettes and plays commissioned annually for the past ten years by the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. "Found" will feature several of the artist's puppets created from recycled materials. There will be a special screening of a documentary recently produced about the artist giving insight into his work and creative process.

Pierre Cote is a local artist based in Flanders and the curator's husband, whose ingenuity inspired this exhibition. He dissembles and seamlessly recombines discarded objects, juxtaposing the awkward and graceful, the obsolete and the visionary, always with a sly formal humor.

Craig Kanes constructions of small objects and words blink from within the walls and cast surprising shadows, revealing the extraordinary in the familiar. Following solo installations at Spacecraft Gallery and Point Loma University in San Diego, at Art Sites Craig will create his vignettes onsite, responding to the unique gallery space as well as the other artists works.

Maire Kennedy creates natural forms from unnatural products. Her elegant large-scale sculptures made from hundreds of plastic spoons and drinking bottles transcend their seeming simplicity. Previous exhibitions include the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse and The Rochester Contemporary.

Tara Parsons engages the public in the creative process while addressing social issues. Her recent project Not Without a Trace, a partnership with the Audubon Society and the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, presented at Grand Central Station on Earth Day, invited the public to draw flocks of endangered birds on the street in chalk.

Julie Peppito, a NYFA Sculpture Fellow and Andy Warhol Foundation Grant recipient, creates densely layered mixed-media drawings and sculptures that echo the abundance and excesses of contemporary society. Working with cast off collectibles and plastic trinkets, her aim is "to make the awful and corrupt delicious again."

Andrea Cote co-curated Posing at Henry Street Settlements Abrons Art Center with Joelle Jensen in September 2007. Her artwork has been exhibited at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Islip Art Museum, Delaware Art Museum, The Rotunda Gallery, Solar, and PanAmerican Art Projects.

Sponsors: 

Crozier Long Island, Kevin Freitas, Art As Authority, Suzanne Egan