AIR-HMC, Summer 2009

AIR, International Artists Residencies exhibition

The HMC, Inc. and Ferencvarosi PinceGallery cordially invite you for the
AIR, International Artists Residencies exhibition
(works in a variety of media)
Ferencvarosi PinceGallery
IX. Mester u. 5. Budapest 1095
May 7 - May 29, 2009
Opening reception: May 7 at 6:00pm
Opening remarks: Carolyn Glassman, Cultural Attashe - US Embassy, Budapest
Curators: Palfi Anna - ArtOrigo & Beata Szechy - HMC

Exhibiting artists:
1. Rudee Westphal, SD; 2. Megan Randlett, MA; 3. Lisa Erdman, FL; 4. Odette England, UK; 5. Niku Kashef, CA; 6. Jenna Spevack, NY; 7. Howard M. Christopherson, MN; 8. Gregory Euclide, MN; 9. Benjamin Page, CA; 10. Andreas Papanastasiu, UK; 11. Patricia Tinajero, TN; 12. Marlene Vinha, Portugese; 13. Lana Ing Gabor, Canada; 14. Kristine Trever, VA; 15. Holly Boruck, CA; 16. Hannah Verlin, MA; 17. Candida Pestana, Portugese; 18. Amy Eloise Thomas and Oliver Irvine, Ireland; 19. Megha Joshi, India; 20. Terra Fine, WA; 21. Malesha Jessie, CA; 22. Luca Armigero, Italy; 23. Louis Denes, Canada; 24. Amelia Schembri, Canada; 25. Cara Tomlinson, OR

Tuesday, May 19 - Thursday, June 10

Amanda, Emily, Sarah, Jessica, Eveline

Artist Talk 1.
AIR-HMC, International Artists in Residency, Budapest
Hotel Medosz, Hunting Conference Room
Budapest, VI. Jokai ter 9.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Program:
10:00-   Sarah Pedlow from California -- photography, sculpture, and video artist
10:45-   Emily DiCarlo from Canada -- photographer, installation
11:30-   Eveline Kotai from Australia -- drawing, mixed media
12:15-   Amanda Meeks from Chicago, IL -- book artist, handmade paper
13:00-    Round Table discussion

Tuesday, June 16 - Thursday, July 09

Relaxing at Beata's garden

Michael Hilsman & Amy Sacksteder

^{Artist Talk 2.}
^{AIR-HMC, Artists in
Residency, Budapest}
^{1073 Budapest, Akacfa u. 26.}
^{Thursday,
June 18.}
^Program:

^{10:00- Amy
Sacksteder, Michigan -- painter, install}
^{11:00- Michael Hilsman,
Pakistan/US -- painter}

Tuesday, July 14 - Wednesday, August 5

Douglas Gast, Hsu chiung wen, Jeanne Dunn

Dolie Thompson, John Shadeck

Artist Talk 3.
AIR-HMC, Artists in Residency, Budapest
1073 Budapest, Akacfa u. 12.
Thursday, July 16.

Program:
10:00- Jeanne Dunn, USA--water color, mixed media
10:45- John Shadek, USA -- photography
11:30- Dolie Thompson, USA -- photography
12:15- Hsu chiung wen, Taiwan-- installation
13:00- Douglas Gast, USA -- film, photo
13:45- Lunch and round table discussion

Tuesday, September 22 - Tuesday, October 6

Thursday, September 24.

Artists Talk:
    10:00-    Brigitte Spiegeler, Den Haag, The Netherlands -- photography
    10:45-    Rebecca Cross, Oberlin, OH -- installation
    11:30-    Michael Costello, Boston, MA -- drawing
    12:15-    Anna-Marya Tompa, UK -- film, photo

Monday, December 28, 2009 - Monday, January 11, 2010

Aniko Kiss, Sudhir Duppati, Neil Chowdhury, Marian O'Donnell, Esta Roh, Richard Soler, Annie Heckman, Francoise Duresse, Daniel Temkin, Cheri Soler

Artists Talk 6.
Program:
Wednesday, December 30
    10:00-Daniel Temkin, Astoria, NY -- photo
    10:30-Françoise Duresse, Boulder, CO -- video, mixed media
    11:00-Sudhir Kumar Duppati, New Zealand -- painting
    11:30-Esta Roh, Chicago IL -- mixed media
    12:00-Marian O’Donnell, Ireland -- painting

      2:00-Neil Chowdhury, Syracuse, NY -- digital photomontage, digital video, and mixed media.
      2:30-Annie Heckman, Chicago, IL -- installation, video, drawing
      3:00-Richard Soler, Houston, TX -- masks

*** Daniel Temkin: "The Metro Postcard project" highlights the struggle of the modern city to retain its character against the influx of chain stores and generic commercialism. It is made up of postcards of banal urban stores that could seemingly be anywhere, while providing visual clues, or superimposed text (in a style typical of postcards) identifying the location. These postcards are blown up to a large size...
*** Françoise Duresse: My work introduces both performance as well as manipulation with the image by drawing and painting directly on the surfaces of film and layering video footage. The nature of my work relies on the visual and narrative that materialize through the joining of images associated with direct handwork of traditional mediums such as painting, drawing and photography. I use customary pictorial codes, merge with the characteristics of cinema to produce animate images that are historically grounded within the traditional art-making practices...
*** Sudhir Kumar Duppati: The concept of Evolution in my work is a response to the Contemporary and Historical aspects of Human Existence. Perhaps my imagination about Genesis is but a part of the whole concept of evolution and its process. This is about my personal experiences of imagining the origins of life. My paintings engage in a religious and scientific understanding and reasoning about the process of evolution. My ideas are drawn from the aspects of the theory of Evolution by natural selection proposed by Charles Darwin, the big bang theory proposed by Stephen Hawking and the religious creation of life...
*** Esta Roh: I usually have a lot of dreams at night. Many of them are nightmares, so I constantly tried to ignore them. However it has been getting bigger and bigger, and starting to take out considerably large part of both my feelings and everyday lives. So it finally leads me a decision on this new project. I felt that it was time for me to find out why I had to have such dreams at night, and what their meanings were. Finding out the meaning of dreams by using a drawing is quite interesting. Since most dreams leave me some kinds of atmospheres or feelings rather than clear imagery, the process of imagification can be only possibly made through my imagination. In the middle of this process, dreams are somewhat distorted. I call it “re-dreaming process."
*** Marian O’Donnell: What I appreciate most about Budapest is the architectural space. This is enhanced by the exciting new constructions being built and their juxtaposition with the classical architecture of the previous generations. Other cities have not been so successful in this marriage of styles. I like the mid scale of the city: not so tall that the human feels diminished. The larger buildings are complimented by ground space. Proportion and composition are one of the main preoccupation of my work. For me the city gives a sense of ‘cool space’ which I find inspirational.
*** Neil Chowdhury: As a mixed British and Indian, raised in the United States, I witnessed and took part in post-colonial battles playing themselves out on a domestic scale. For me the complex history of Indian calendar and commercial imagery signifies the emergence of my own identity, a slow process of assimilating influences from both cultures. These images, collaged with my documentary photographs function as a kind of subversive bridge between cultures with the understanding that part of their richness arises from the multiple
meanings that are doomed to different interpretations by individuals on either side of the East-West divide. Finding some way to reconcile these differing perspectives inspires my creative project...
*** Annie Heckman: You told me that the end of life looks just like the mouth of a broad tunnel: a project on Budapest's Labyrinth and Bridges
My project is an exploration of Budapest’s Labyrinth and Bridges through drawing and installation, with potential publication and animation outcome, as a way to look for resemblances to pictures of the afterlife as formulated in different philosophies, religions, and visual narratives: the mythic underworld tunnels of hell and the pearly gates of heaven. I will use the Budavari Labirintus as a physical starting point to consider visual metaphors for death and loss, with a special attention to the writings of Maria Nagy, a Hungarian psychologist who investigated the relationship between age and comprehension of death, most notably in her 1948 study with children and adolescents in Budapest. The bridges of Budapest will serve as a visual reference for the grandeur of imagined entryways and portals. My studies will involve text-based historical and contemporary research as well as the creation of photographs, drawn materials, and field notes.
*** Richard Soler: I am a mask maker. I produce art masks, rarely wearable. Masks have been a part of my life since I began to sculpt as a teenager. My purpose in visiting Budapest is to seek out new opportunities for inspiration, that will encompass the Hungarian heritage and my own interests. My own work is akin to craft, because I extensively use media like papier-mache, yet I have a more sophisticated approach. I love folk art, dolls, costumes, theater and the magic of make-believe. I am not an actor, but I can play many roles through my masks.

Evolution of Hungary/1

Sudhir Kumar Duppati

Being a Stranger/1

Esta Roh

When it is 100 years old it will be exactly like a

piece of wood - Annie Heckman

Closing exhibition & ArtVideoFest

AIR/HMC, Budapest
Hungarian Museum of Trade and Tourism, Budapest, Szent Istvan ter 15.
Opening reception: Monday, August 03, 2009 at 6:00pm
Opening remarks: Dr. Katalin Geller - art historian
Curator: Beata Szechy-HMC
August 3 - September 13

Amanda Meeks-IL, Emily DiCarlo,-CANADA, Eveline Kotai-AUSTRALIA, Jessica L. Smith-AL, Sarah Pedlow-CA, Amy Sacksteder- MI, Michael Hilsman-NY, Douglas Gast-WA, Hsu chiung wen-TAIWAN, Jeanne Dunn-CA, John Shadeck-AZ, Dolie Thompson-NE

Anne-Sarah Le Meur-FRANCE, El Putnam-MA, Dan Boord/Luis Valdovino-CO, FemLink-FRANCE, John Takacs, NY

OPENING SPEECH BY KATALIN GELLER: AIR/HMC, Balatonfured/Budapest, International Artists Residencies exhibition at  Hungarian Museum of Trade and Tourism  August 3 - September 13  When Beata Szechy's founded the Hungarian Multicultural Center in 1990, her goals were fostering culture, personal connections, and art related exchanges. At the beginning mostly American artists participated at the residencies. Now artists from all over from the world come to work here for few weeks and exhibit their art. This particular exhibition is unusual, as the artists think similarly but execute their work differently. Almost all the artists’ subjects link to the their travels or Budapest. We can feel the temporary feeling, living somewhere else for a time, a shaper view of the new.
 John Shadeck using a homemade, pinhole (lensless) camera, created these images to depict the general area of each of the eleven stations on the M1 (yellow) metro line, the oldest underground railway on the European continent. These photographs are negative, reversed images exposed directly onto light-sensitive paper in the camera. No film was used.
 Dolie Thompson’s photographs were taken in Varosliget. Her black and white photographs are filtered and soften the sunlight, creating a much more beautiful environment, emphasizing oppositions such as soft and sharp.
 Amanda Meeks arrived from Chicago. She is interested in relationships and memories of her day-to-day, pursuits of connecting with those around her, communication, and interactions with others past and present. Her work is meant to provide viewers and participants with a sense of a very intimate conversation. For example, she drew a Yellow Fiat 500 car and wanted to meet with the car owner, but did not succeed. So she wrote a letter to him and put it under the wiper telling him if he comes to the opening he will get the drawing. Also, she has created a sound piece during her stay. “In One Day”, uses sounds that in the gallery setting evoke just a memory and could be understood as disappeared voices. 
Emily DiCarlo from Toronto was inspired by time. “The Temporal Visitor” is an installation comprised of a number of performance-based photographs and objects.
“Eleven Minutes Less” is a marker of time, expressed through the daily accumulation of cigarette butts. Contrasted with “Eleven Minutes Less” is her hand, or the “life line". Walking in Budapest, she searched out the public clocks which represent the “universal time” that is meant to unite the public and also disperse a common understanding of time.
 Jessica L. Smith’s jars are a celebration of smallness. She derived this concept from Budapest secessionist architecture, which is decaying over time just like our memories, buildings, bodies, and civilizations.
 Douglas Gast calls himself an artist/cartographer. “The 30 Days of New Life Project” is a series of performances, each of which results in a new map. Last year he spent 30 days in Berlin with a similar project. Each point included on the map is of personal, artistic, historical or cultural interest. He does not control what gets included in the map, rather, local residents make suggestions and it is their suggestions that ultimately build it.
 Jeanne Dunn created a "map" as she printed on canvas an element from the Liszt Ferenc Square, composed of part of tree trunks with circle-shaped surroundings with stones and divided by a man made sculpture.
 Eveline Kotai uses a combination of sections of paintings from Australia and Hungary, cutting, sewing, and created a textural series, entitled “Mirage 1, 2, 3”.
 Sarah Pedlow's "What’s Wrong With This Picture?" is a self-portrait. Hungarian folk art and embroidery inspired her work in Budapest. She has braided her hair and wrapped it with ribbons. "Raday utca, 05.24.09" is a photograph and chain stitch used in Kalotaszeg embroidery which she stretched out to suggest a network in the sky linking to architecture and referring to the cultural district in Budapest.
 Amy Sacksteder arrived from Michigan. Her island paintings refer to the last moments of Amelia Earhart's life during the final flight before she was lost.
 Michael Hilsman is an international traveler whose work deals with both the tragedy and the beauty of the human condition, and is influenced by such topical subjects as politics and religion.
 Hsu Chiung Wen, an artist from Taiwan, created objects from artificial flowers, "The Flower Named Ever", reminds me of Huysman’s essay, where the main character likes the artificial flowers rather than the real ones...