SP Weather Station presents
AIR / LAUNCH
Sunday, May 15 2011 4:00 PM
Flux Factory: 39-31 29th Street, Long Island City
www.fluxfactory.org/about-2/directions/
Free and open to the public
In the first of a series of events related to Air, Water, Earth and Fire:
Artist Susan Goethel Campbell will talk about her air-related work and launch a new air project that invites public participation, creating a temporary installation at Flux Factory. The latest installment of Campbell’s ongoing project “Dirty Pictures: Portraits of Air” will be on view.
SP Weather Station will conduct a brief introduction to unorthodox “launches” while launching the 2010 edition of the SP Weather Station Weather Reports.
Each portfolio in the edition of 30 Weather Reports contains 12 works produced by 12 different artists or artist groups who were invited to respond to any aspect of one month of SP Weather Station data in any format they desired. Works from the portfolio, including audio, books, drawings, and prints, will be on display; the portfolio will also be for sale. Participating artists include: (January) Liz Zanis; (February) Graham McDougal; (March) James Walsh; (April) Carissa Carman; (May) Mark Parsons; (June) Tim Dye; (July) Douglas Paulson; (August) Robyn York; (September) Cross Current Resonance Transducer [LoVid (Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus) and Douglas Repetto]; (October) Nicholas Fraser; (November) Man Bartlett and Angela Washko; (December) Ellie Harrison.
Come and celebrate with us! This event is made possible (in part) by the Queens Council on the Arts with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
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About Susan Goethel Campbell:
Susan Goethel Campbell creates work that explores the intersection of nature and engineered environments. Her prints, drawings, artist books and video projects have been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad including the Drawing Center and The International Print Center in New York. In 2009 she received a generous Artist Fellowship from the Kresge Foundation to create work inspired by her interest in weather and climate. In 2008, she was awarded a printmaking residency at the Flemish Center for Graphic Arts in Kasterlee, Belgium. Her work is in major public and private collections, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, New York Public Library, Detroit Institute of Arts, Toledo Museum of Art and University of Michigan Special Collections Library. Her work is currently on view in a group exhibition at Fred Torres Collaboration in Chelsea through June 11.
Image: still from Susan Goethel Campbell’s video Detroit Weather: 365 Days, 2011.
Many thanks to Susan Goethel Campbell, all the participating artists in the 2010 SP Weather Reports, Flux Factory, and the Queens Council on the Arts for making our AIR / LAUNCH on Sunday a success.
Air, one of the classical elements, surrounds us; it is immaterial yet material; it is also a place.
Invoking the yearning reach into the air, SPWS presented a mini-survey of DIY and unorthodox ‘launches’ — from ‘man-lifting kites‘ to Lawnchair Larry. We invite anyone who has launched something themselves to contact us and participate in an ongoing area of research being archived on our website (COMING SOON).
In the gallery, Susan installed a mini-field of natural anemometers made from maple seeds. Activated by a fan (and the breeze of passers-by), the installation resembled a miniature wind farm.
Alongside these was a grid of 24 used air filters in a spectrum of whites, browns, and grays. Comprising Campbell’s “Dirty Pictures: Portraits of Air” Volume 1, the filters were unscientific samplings of dirty air taken by participants in 7 countries, documented in a fold-out offset publication that was also on view. In her talk, Susan described several projects inspired both by specific atmospheric phenomena (real and man-made clouds in Detroit) and by the way that weather is documented and measured (drawing upon meteorological data as well as more immediate visual/tactile means).
We took the opportunity to ‘launch’ two projects:
For Volume 2 of “Dirty Pictures: Portraits of Air,” Susan distributed new air filters to participants who will create a visual record of particulate matter in the air across the five boroughs of NYC over the coming months.
The 2010 SP Weather Report portfolio is now available! A snapshot:
Contact spweatherstation@gmail.com for more information.
More images for the event are online here.
Participating artists include: (January) Liz Zanis; (February) Graham McDougal; (March) James Walsh; (April) Carissa Carman; (May) Mark Parsons; (June) Tim Dye; (July) Douglas Paulson; (August) Robyn York; (September) Cross Current Resonance Transducer [LoVid (Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus) and Douglas Repetto]; (October) Nicholas Fraser; (November) Man Bartlett and Angela Washko; (December) Ellie Harrison.