SEEING OURSELVES

6 March – 31 March 2012

Curated by Koan Jeff Baysa, M.D. and Caitlin Hardy, M.D

Seeing Ourselves is a unique exhibit in which world class art will be combined with cutting edge science to leave viewers inspired by the beauty and capabilities of the human brain. While many scientific advances have inspired artists over the years, art and medicine have a special area of overlap in the desire to represent the human mind and body. As demonstrated in two groundbreaking articles in the March, 2010 issue of Radiology, new MRI technology allows us to see details in the living brain that were previously see only through the lens of a low-powered microscope. This important step has excited the scientific world, but has not yet been shared with the art world or with the general public. High-resolution MRIs will be displayed side-by-side with the artwork they have inspired, allowing viewers to marvel at both the structural beauty of the brain and the creative potential housed inside of it.

The concept of the neuroplastic brain opens new horizons of hope for healing brain injuries through physiological and biochemical changes, and to become more aware human beings by discovering new ways of experiencing and interacting with the world.

http://musecpmi.org/upcomingexhibitions.html

ECO-ART

April 2, 2011 through May 29, 2011

PORI Museum, Finland
Jan-Erik Andersson, Brandon Ballengée, Ciel Bergman, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Joyce Cutler-Shaw, Agnes Denes, Chris Drury, Michael Flomen, Andy Goldsworthy, Helen and Newton Harrison, Ichi Ikeda, Richard Misrach, Nils-Udo, Dennis Oppenheim, Robert Smithson, Alan Sonfist

Guest Curators: John K. Grande (Canada) and Peter Selz (USA)
Curator: Pia Hovi-Assad

Eco-Art is comprised of contemporary artists and artist collaborations in the fields of environmental and ecological art. The show is intended to awaken interest in the outdoor environmental art phenomenon indoors at a museum site. The Pori Art Museum has a long history of exhibitions that reveal strong commitment to the art/nature dialogue.

In co-operation with: Royal Botanical Gardens (Kanada), Galerie Lelong (USA),
Electronic Arts Intermix (USA)

Catalog available upon email request:   jcutlershaw@earthlink.net

Orbital Loops

LINK TO INSTALLATION

Joyce Cutler-Shaw’s sources of inspiration are the natural world, the human life cycle, and the mysteries of the cosmos. The idea for Orbital Loops was generated from her interest in the visual traces of the orbits of the spacecraft, Cassini, which uses the gravity of Titan, one of Saturn’s 53 named moons, to propel itself into Titan’s orbit to observe that the paths of planet’s rings and moons. There are many orbits — our solitary moon around the earth, the planets of our solar system around the sun, migratory paths of birds, flight patterns of aircraft around the globe, and Olympic athletes around their tracks. Orbits are inherent in our common origins and significant in the routine pathways of our daily lives.

Orbital Loops traverses the 24 foot high ceiling of San Diego County’s Administration Building located at 5500 Overland Avenue, casting ceiling, wall, and floor shadows of its linear forms.  It is comprised of 24 sections of two inch aluminum tubing, powder coated in a iridescent blue/green and suspended from the ceiling.

Body Narratives, an Exhibit by Joyce Cutler-Shaw

Lecture and Opening Reception: March 24

Lecture 3:30pm Smilow Seminar Room

Reception 4:30pm – 7:00pm MSB Gallery*

March 24 to May 6, 2011

LINK TO EXHIBITION

“As on an archeological journey into unknown territory, I approach the human body as a mysterious terrain, a phenomenon of the natural world. We are of nature.” –J. Cutler-Shaw

Joyce Cutler-Shaw, in her role as artist-in-residence at the UCSD School of Medicine, has been drawing for many years in the anatomy laboratory. She explores the complex, individual, physical self with pen and brush and ink, just as the medical students dissect with a scalpel. She sees the history of anatomy as the history of human representation—how we are seen and how we see ourselves. It is the trajectory from a medieval, short-lived, astrologically defined physical self to a contemporary virtual, scanned, graphed, and charted one that incites and informs her work. Her multi-layered fine art project, titled The Anatomy Lesson, includes drawings, photo essays, collage, writings, installations, projections, drawing movies, and artists’ books.

All of Cutler-Shaw’s work is rooted in drawing: drawing as a way of seeing, as a mode of inquiry, as an act of empathy. For this exhibition she is presenting selections from a new series of drawings and wall collages, titled Limbs and Trunks, considering body limbs and tree limbs as phenomena of nature. Additionally, she will be showing a group of her series called The Lab Coats. These are standard white laboratory coats, hand drawn with images from the history of anatomy. The gallery’s display cases will contain some of Cutler-Shaw’s new series of artists’ books, conceived as Conversations with old medical texts to which she adds pages of drawings and texts of her own in response.

For more than thirty-five years, Joyce Cutler-Shaw has been exhibiting internationally and installing permanent, ecologically themed commissioned works, such as those at the East Carnegie Library in San Jose, CA, and the Mission Valley Branch Library in San Diego, CA. Her works are represented in both museum and library special collections like The Museum of Modern Art, the New York Public Library, and NYU’s Bobst Library.

Date & time:

03/24/2011 – 3:30pm – 7:00pm

Location:

MSB Gallery*

Address:

NYU Langone Medical Center
550 First Avenue
Medical Science Building, First Floor

*The gallery is located near the library administration offices along the corridor between the Thomas S. Murphy Sr. Conference Room and the Joan and Joel Smilow Research Center.

“Commentary by Joyce Cutler-Shaw,  Artist in Residence, School of Medicine of the University of California San Diego

History is story telling with images embedded in memory. The history of anatomy is a history of human representation: how we are seen and how we see ourselves. Visual images are continually shaped and re-shaped by the enthusiasms and preconceptions of the present. The visual representations of the history of anatomy are an extraordinary record of our evolving self-images, public and private, cultural and social. As historian Martin Kemp has written, in observing the connections of medical science and art, ‘No field is richer in metaphor than the body.’ ”

To continue to the online article click here.

At Elephant Butte: When the River Runs Dry
Joyce Cutler-Shaw, artists slide book, 2009. Photo: Phel Steinmetz

What shall we do when the river runs dry?

Exhibition:
September 11 – October 24, 2009
DW Williams Art Building, University at Solano
New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM

(575) 646-2545 http://www.nmsu.edu/~artgal

Catalog available

LINK TO EXHIBITION

This exhibition represents the beginnings of a metaphorical journey, a process of discovery of the complex history and current significance of the Rio Grande and its territory. For so comprehensive a subject, the exhibition is conceived as an introductory visual essay through drawings, writings, artists books and digital imagery. The river and its region encapsulate the ecological challenges of our time. Cutler-Shaw’s projects emerge at points where fact and metaphor intersect.

LINK TO EXHIBITION

The new library features two public art elements.

Lightlines, a sculpture fabricated from aluminum coils, is suspended from the building’s ceiling trusses in and around the main entrance and transversing the east/west hallway.  Working with the community to explore shapes, forms, cultural and natural elements of the neighborhood; Cutler Shaw identified imagery that speaks to the location.  From this she created a visual vocabulary she calls the East San Jose Carnegie Calligraphy. These images, created in laser cut iridescent acrylic, are suspended from the aluminum coils of Lightlines, animating the artwork with reflective light.

Wall of Birds in Flight is an installation on the Library’s west wall in the children’s area. The artwork plays on the imagery of local birds in flight - some in silhouette, others in great detail and back-lit.  The work brings natural elements of the outdoor environment – the neighborhood’s abundant bird life – indoors.

The Grand Opening Celebration was Saturday, August 29; with dedication ceremony and ribbon-cutting.  The new East San Jose Carnegie Library is at 1102 E. Santa Clara Street (at S. 23 Street), San Jose, 95116.  The phone number is (408) 808-3075.

My twelve- day trip to Beijing was the result of two invitations, first, to exhibit artwork at the Chinese Calligraphy Biennial which opened August 2nd and second, for the Olympic Fine Arts 2008, with an opening ceremony on August 11th, the latter offering a ten day hotel stay for participants. It was an eventful journey of contrasts.

Friday, August 1. For the Summer Olympics of 2008, China had transformed Beijing, literally spending billions, and mobilized thousands of young people in blue and white uniforms to greet and assist visitors at the airport and at booths on street corners and gathering spots throughout the city. I arrived at Beijing airport after 10:00 pm (China is 15 hours later than California time) after traveling about 22 hours. I had not brought the Chinese translation of the address and directions to my first hotel (for a two night stay). This is a necessity when traveling by taxi. Not seeing an information counter and greeted by three of the young Chinese offering help, I asked where I could have the hotel information translated. They carried my bags, saw to the translation, led me to the taxi, instructed the driver, and just before the cab pulled away, the young woman ran over to whisper a phrase that I, and most other visiting women, would hear often, “You are very beautiful.” I never did find out if there was an equivalent standard compliment for men (such as, I imagined, “Are you an Olympic Athlete?”) Striking, on the ride to the hotel, were the continuous and extensive glowing lighted panels outlining the undersides of overpasses in the complex of roadways into the city – a city of night lights.

My first hotel, the Crowne Plaza, within line of sight of the “Birds Nest,” the Olympic Stadium, was a center of activity around the bend from one of the five new upscale shopping centers with a large open Plaza with huge outdoor screens for Olympic viewing. As the Plaza was not visible from the hotel entrance, I did not yet know it was there. Though I had a reservation, the hotel was so fully booked they did not have my room ready, though late at night. They sent me to the lounge for a complimentary drink and a rather long wait. There was a singer, highly amplified. Very loud live or recorded background sound turned out to be typical of restaurants or other public spaces. The lucky part of their having wrong rooms at the ready, meant they made up an upscale one, lately vacated, which turned out to be worth the wait.

Saturday, August 2. Had an elegant breakfast at the hotel, where Olympic athletes and their associates were at many of the tables. I soon went to the Ku Center in an art district – one of several in Beijing for contemporary art – for the opening events of the first Chinese Calligraphy Biennial in which I had my Dimensional Alphabet of Bones. The exhibition complex included contemporary art galleries, an artist residency, studio buildings and meeting halls. The exhibit of about 30 international artists was beautifully installed in elegant space. Meeting artists from other parts of the world, we photographed each other with our work. It was a festive opening with costumed performances, standard formal ceremonial opening with dignitaries and later, a bus ride to take the artists to a dinner at a local restaurant. Seated at opposite ends of the very large dining hall our noisy art group shared the space with a separately catered, equally noisy wedding party, both competing with very loud, very dated, background music. On both sides of the hall the buffet lines were congenial and long.

In a taxi back to my hotel we came upon huge crowds. The driver, unable to turn, pulled up and stopped at an unfamiliar Plaza. I could not see my hotel though it had a large lighted name on the top of the building. We were surrounded by crowds, many wanting the taxi. The driver insisted I get out. I refused, not knowing how far I was from the hotel or where it was. He would not move and an English speaker of sorts watching this, said “Hotel is there” and waved a hand, but, without English language, could not tell me how far or how to get there. I had to get out as the cab was not moving and with the crowds, could not. I was not sure of the direction, did not know what was happening with so many people. A young man said “I show you hotel, please to follow ”and seeing my distrust said “not be afraid.” With so many people around, I did follow and across a park-like space, around a corner, across the huge plaza, I saw the hotel. It was the night they lit the Birds Nest, the Olympic Stadium, and had spectacular fireworks, not only visible from the Plaza and hotel front, but displayed on enormous outdoor screens. The event had just ended. Hundreds of people were streaming out on the streets and walkways. One had to be identified and wanded before entering the hotel for security reasons, an omnipresent fact of Olympic season life in primary areas. Not so in many of the more local places I was to visit.

Sunday, August 3^rd. I was to check out by noon and transfer to the Schonbrunn Hotel for my ten day stay courtesy of the Olympic Fine Arts 2008. It was forty minutes away, far west in the fourth ring of Beijing and isolated. The ride was a tour of street plantings, an investment of millions. Blocks and blocks of roadside and median rose bushes and shrubs and mature street trees (where none had been even weeks before) and elaborate planting displays with topiary garlands and flowering plants.)

The Schonbrunn was an old Palace intended to be rebuilt as a grand hotel. It had been open barely a month. (I had not been able to find it online until I called and was given a coded website. All arrangements, including visa letters and art shipping had been done by email with the OFA through many, often confusing emails). I did not see another hotel guest at all, either checking in, leaving or lounging. Asking if other artists had checked in I was told there was a couple from Italy and an American. As it turned out, the American was me. I left a note for any others there to meet at breakfast and though late in the day, with precise directions in Chinese, I took a taxi to the Museum of Natural History. I had read about an exhibition on Origins of Life. The museum had a very large Plaza in front set back a long way from the street. As at many prominent sites there was an elaborate floral display at street side, surounded by a barrier, behind which, was a temporary mesh fence that blocked access to the Museum Plaza and Main Entrance, Approaching an entry gate on right side I was told it was not a visitor entrance, and to walk to the opposite end of the fence to buy a ticket. Given the closure of the shortest walk across the Plaza it was a long, uncomfortable hike to the other side, circling the fenced floral display through street crowds. No one was at the ticket booth though there was still more than an hour until closing time. I went to the exit door to inquire and was waved inside.

What was striking in this modest museum, in extreme contrast to the Olympic Special street plantings, was that their most elaborate displays of natural elements were manufactured, as fake trees, plastic plants and projected imagery. I was most taken with the skeletal structure of a dinosaur - it evoked the image of one of the installations (in Styrofoam) of the Chinese Calligraphy Biennial. Leaving the museum I walked around the neighborhood. A guide book had listed a local department store nearby, which I never found, but did discover local shops with sweet breads and cakes (where I should have bought more) and extremely elaborate bridal costumes in a string of window displays. Stopped the taxi part way to the hotel for a local shopping street. Bought a light cotton shirt for 15 dollars.

Returning to the hotel, thinking I would have dinner there, discovered there was no food service and no food nor wine by the glass in the bar. My dinner was two small buns from the sweet shop, an apple and almonds from my plane trip and the small supply of good chocolate from home.

Monday, August 4^th. In the large dining hall, a young couple, the Italian artists were having breakfast. We were glad to see each other. Got acquainted and made plans to meet at the hotel and go to the best duck restaurant for dinner. They had an elaborate set of well researched sightseeing plans for the week. My first plan was to change my room for one with more space, no glass wall to the bathroom shower and a good view. With that done I was able to witness daily the constant haze over the city, even with all manufacturing plants closed and traffic cut in half for the Olympic period.

Taxis were inexpensive for in transit sightseeing opportunities. Driving off to the Ku Art Center was an architectural tour. At Ku Center I was to photograph the show and have help from the lovely gallery assistant, Jing, to arrange appointments at the Institute of Automation at the Chinese Academy of Science. My personal agenda for Beijing included some investigation of their new medical imaging technology. She helped arrange an initial meeting for the next day. From there I found an island of isolation as the only person in Beijing to visit the Museum of Chinese Traditional Medicine and the Museum of the History of Chinese Medicine. Even the taxi driver had trouble finding them on the campus of Peking University – mostly closed for the duration of the Olympic Games. The two people working there seemed surprised to see anyone. One unlocked the cash drawer so I could pay. The other turned on the gallery lights and kept watch over me, but in a friendly fashion, and typically, with a perpetual smile.

I continued to Wang Fu Jing Street a main avenue to visit a primary silk shop. Had endless samples at a special tea shop and hot chocolate in a very upscale, air conditioned Haagen Daz. Back to the hotel then to meet Christina and Allesandro for our duck dinner, which guide books and hotel staff claimed was the best in the city. Two days later my Chinese friend informed me it was only second best, though that night it seemed very special (after my non-dinner the night before). Our duck, carved at the table, was numbered and a souvenir card verified its pedigree.

More to follow…

LINK TO MOVIE

Shadows Movie Stills : The Book, 2008

This book is a fan fold of photographic movie stills, taken from Shadows, a “drawing movie” of the Skeletons and Shadows drawing series. The movie version is  a 3 minute loop.   Shadows Movie Stills : The Book is in the exhibit “The (UN)Framed Photograph” on display at the Center for Book Arts in New York City from July 6^th – September 10^th, 2011.