News

I am an artist in residence at the Sacatar Foundation in Bahia, Brazil, from March 21 – May 15, 2016.

From the press release: Continuing the established tradition of quarterly announcements of the award of Sacatar Fellowships for creative individuals from throughout the world, Sacatar is honored to share the names of the six selected Sacatar Fellows who will participate in a two-month residency session at Instituto Sacatar on the Island of Itaparica, Bahia, Brazil from March 21 to May 16, 2016: animator/filmmaker Elisabeth Zwimpfer (Switzerland/Germany), photographer Gordana Hajinovic (Serbia), visual artist Luciana Magno (Brazil, winner of the 2016 PIPA Prize), visual artist Lauren Adams (USA), choreographer/dancer Maureen Fleming (USA), and filmmaker Meredith Lackey (USA).

With the exception of PIPA Prize winners, all Fundação Sacatar fellows are selected through a highly competitive open call solicitation process that is conducted annually and semi-annually and reviewed by a panel of experts and past Sacatar Fellows. Application for a Sacatar Fellowship is open to creative individuals from throughout the world. For the 2015 – 2017 season, over 650 applications were submitted for approximately 30 residency slots.

About Sacatar: Sacatar was established in 2000 as a non-profit organization to provide creative individuals from around the world the time and physical space to create new work within an international community of artists influenced by the unique culture of Bahia, Brazil. Since 2001, Sacatar has awarded more than 300 Residency Fellowships to individuals from over 60 different countries and has directly supported more than 500 community educational and cultural programs and events in Brazil and abroad. In 2016, Sacatar anticipates hosting 25 creative individuals in four separate 8-week sessions at its oceanside estate, the Instituto Sacatar, on the island of Itaparica, a short ferry ride across the Bay of All Saints from the city of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.

The public is invited to meet the awardees at an interactive artist talk called “Conversas com Sacatar” on March 31, 2016 at 4pm at the Goethe-Institut located at Av. Sete de Setembro, 1809, in the Vitória neighborhood of Salvador, Bahia. Admission is free.

http://sacatar.org/

Trove/Trope An installation by O’Donnell Visiting Educator in Art Lauren Adams, in conjunction with the Sheehan Gallery’s “Scenes and Types: Photography from the Collection of Adnan Charara” exhibit. Opening Reception, Thursday, March 10 6-8pm March 11 – May 9 2016 Lauren Adams will be in residence in the gallery February 29 to March 11, and delivering a public lecture on Saturday, March 5 at 4:00 pm in Olin 130. 345 Boyer Ave. Walla Walla, WA 99362

In Trove/Trope, Adams investigates the mundane displays of decorative and utilitarian objects (the textiles, the jewelry, the pottery) in photographs from the Charara collection. The first part of the installation’s title refers to the collection as a special site, a trove, not only from Charara’s perspective as the collector, but also in the way the photographs assemble and capture people, places, and moments within the handily accessible format of cheap, reproducible, and collectible cards. The second part of the title refers to the problematics of representation as the reiteration of recognizable forms and objects that create the illusion of a reality outside of the photographs themselves.

In Trove/Trope Adams brings the strategy of repetition and appropriation to bear on the photographs from Adnan Charara’s collection. To this source material, she adds motifs from Owen Jones’s inventory of decorative surfaces, The Grammar of Ornament, first published in 1856. About the decision to draw on Jones’s inventory, she writes: “I was confronted with how to make connections between the specificity of the images (these are real people mostly doing real things in real places) and the generality of the types (types that were fantasy constructions for a non-native audience). I struck on the Owen Jones as a way to acknowledge this tension between generalities and specificities. Furthermore, many of the patterns in the Charara collection, from clothes to blankets to pottery to furniture, are in fragments or pieces. Jones’s original document also attempted, not quite successfully, to aggregate this fragmentation for Western eyes.” Adams draws on The Grammar of Ornament in an effort to consolidate the fragmented, exaggerated display on view in the collection. ]]>

Ortega y Gasset Projects opens the 2016 season with two concurrent exhibitions. A joint reception will be held on Saturday, January 23, 6-9pm.  At a special afternoon event on February 6, Jennifer Coates, David Humphrey, and Glenn Goldberg will play music in the gallery.

On view in the main gallery, Lauren Frances Adams and Jennifer Coates co-curate The Swerve, featuring works by Julia Bland, Caroline Wells Chandler, Glenn Goldberg, Bill Komoski, Joyce Kozloff, Bruce Pearson, Sarah Peters, James Siena, and Barbara Takenaga. The exhibition runs until Sunday, February 21.

The title for the exhibition is based upon a book of the same name by Stephen Greenblatt, which touches on ancient atomistic theory, wherein atoms normally falling straight through a void are sometimes subject to a clinamen — a slight, unpredictable change. It is in this interruption of regularity where the action lies. According to Lucretius, if atoms were not in the habit of swerving, “nature would never have produced anything.” Taking this as a point of departure, The Swerve presents contemporary paintings and sculptures that explore the haptic and conceptual approaches to pattern: how pattern and its rupture are employed in service of meaning.

Joyce Kozloff appropriates the iconic Islamic star to create a richly colored all-over pattern that merges non-Western motif  with an American quilting logic, revealing the political in the decorative. Julia Bland utilizes an eccentric, loose weaving technique to build emblematic, symmetrical imagery that seem to contain hidden meanings, while Caroline Wells Chandler uses crochet to generate soft sculptures: feminist homunculi that merge cartoons with craft. Sarah Peters’ ancient Assyrian hair patterns become almost architectural as they frame and support an open-mouthed female: many periods of art history coalesce into a single head. Barbara Takenaga’s woozy forms radiate from a glowing center, as her carefully tended surfaces create cosmic vortexes. Bill Komoski’s lattices and sculpted holes on canvas leak toxic sludge in tongue-like shapes, as he channels the bodily via the urban industrial. Bruce Pearson’s white-on-white biomorphic carvings also make use of relief, embedding text within them: once your eyes adjust the code is broken. In James Siena’s drawing, a figure emerges from a density of tiny marks, she seems to be trapped within the edges of the paper. Glenn Goldberg makes hallucinatory use of dots to create an atmospheric world from which two tiny birds emerge.

The artists all share a propensity to tease out meaning from complex visual matrices. Images range from figuration to abstraction, but the recurrent theme is an organic wavering between recognizable form and repetition.

On view in the gallery vestibule, Adams and Coates curate Star Upon Star, a site-specific installation by Kirsten Hassenfeld. The piece will be on view throughout the Ortega y Gasset spring exhibition program.

Star Upon Star is constructed from recycled giftwrap, using a system both geometrically precise and intentionally off-kilter. Hassenfeld forces clashing patterns and the associations they evoke to coexist and to coalesce into a sculptural whole.

Educated as a printmaker, Kirsten Hassenfeld makes sculpture from paper and found objects. She has been honored with numerous awards and residencies, most recently the St. Gaudens Memorial Fellowship in 2014. Her work has been featured in Art in America, the New York Times Magazine and Interview Magazine, among others. She lives and works in Brooklyn and the Catskills.

Lauren Frances Adams (Baltimore, Maryland) mines the histories of power, labor, and material culture to make surprising connections that resonate with current sociopolitical issues. Solo exhibitions include Back Lane West, Cornwall, UK; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; EXPO Chicago; and Conner Contemporary, Washington, D.C. Group exhibitions include: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; Contemporary Applied Arts, London; CUE Foundation, NY; Mattress Factory and the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.  Residencies include Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant.

Jennifer Coates is an artist, writer and musician living in NYC. Her ongoing series of paintings – “Total Fat” – explore the sacred architecture and spiritual radiance embedded in processed foods. She recently had a two person show of collaborative work with David Humphrey at Arts & Leisure Gallery and a two person show with Tom Burckhardt at Valentine Gallery, both in NYC. She currently has a painting, PB&J, on view at the Museum at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. She has written art reviews for Time Out New York and Art in America and can be seen playing violin and singing in various bands in the region.

Ortega y Gasset Projects is a gallery curated projects space in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. Comprised of artists currently living in Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Tennessee, OyG operates a cross-country collective and an incubator for dialogue and artistic exchange.

For more information contact Lauren Frances Adams at laurenfrancesadams@gmail.com

Open Saturdays & Sundays 1-6pm and by appointment

Ortega y Gasset Projects The Old American Can Factory 363 Third Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11215

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ANATOMISING THE MUSEUM: Contemporary Art & Museum Collections ANATOMISING THE MUSEUM brings together international artists, curators, researchers and museum professionals to probe at the effects of interventions and incisions in museum collections by contemporary artists. Valand Academy, Thursday 26 November 2015 at 09:00-18:30. Why are we encountering increased examples of museums engaging artists to work amidst or from their collections? How critical can artistic interventions in collections be when they most often occur at the invitation of the museum? What forms of critical curatorship are authored when museums engage artists to work amidst it practices? Are the procedures of the museum anatomised or consolidated through such projects? Through convergence of art-criticality and heritage-criticality this seminar investigates interpretation and intervention, critical curating and quasi-curatorial methods as effects and methods of artistic intervention in and through museum’s collections and their practices. Presenters: Lauren F. Adams, artist and Associate Professor, Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore (USA), Sara Barnes, independent curator (DE), Christine Borland, artist and Professor at Northumbria University (UK), Mary Coble, artist and Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, Valand Academy (SE), Martha Fleming, art and sciences specialist, Reading University (UK), Lisa Sputnes Mouwitz, Director of Gothenburg Medical History Museum, Matty Pye, Curator Adult Programme, V&A Museum (UK), Miranda Stearn, Head of Learning, The Fitzwilliam Museum (UK), and others. ANATOMISING THE MUSEUM is co-organised by the MFA: Fine Art Programme, Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg and Gothenburg Medical History Museum, Sahlgrenska University Hospital. Free but limited places. Book by email: denise.mellion@gu.se For more information: http://akademinvaland.gu.se/aktuellt/e/?eventId=3107746568]]>

Artist Lauren Frances Adams has been awarded a month-long residency in September 2015 at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans. Based in the culturally diverse and historic city of New Orleans, the Joan Mitchell Center’s mission is to support local, national, and international contemporary visual artists. The Joan Mitchell Center is an artist residency center developed to offer both time and space for artists to create work in a contemplative environment. In addition to the artist residency and local artist studio programming, the Center curates and produces public programming that serves the broader community of New Orleans, and endeavors to serve as an incubator, conduit and resource for partnerships in the arts. Artists-in-Residence: Fall 2015 Lauren Adams Xenobia Bailey Julie Green Heather Hart Robert Hodge Lavar Munroe Shoshanna Weinberger For more information: http://joanmitchellfoundation.org/center/artist-in-residence PRESS: Artforum, “In New Orleans, Joan Mitchell Center Makes its Debut,” August 26, 2015]]>

I will be in residence at the Montello Foundation in northeastern Nevada in late August 2015. Montello Foundation is a foundation dedicated to support artists who foster our understanding of nature, its fragility and our need to protect it. The full list of artists in residence at Montello this summer: • Lauren Adams, Baltimore • Tyler Beard, Denver • Max Bellamy, New Zealand • Kyla Hansen, Los Angeles • Regin Igloria, Chicago • Katie Miller, Seattle • Soyoung Shin, Los Angeles • Lauren Strohacker, Scottsdale • Annie Varnot, New York • Allison Wiese, San Diego • Letha Wilson, New York]]>

July 18, 2015 through August 22, 2015 Opening reception: Saturday, July 18, 2015, 7pm-10pm Guest Spot @ THE REINSTITUTE, 1715 N. Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD

Guest Spot @ THE REINSTITUTE  and TRANSMITTER (NYC) are excited to announce a collaborative group exhibition titled Self-Organized — Aesthetic Politics of The Artist Run.  The exhibition will be on view from July 17th through August 22nd at Guest Spot @ THE REINSTITUTE, with an opening on Saturday, July 18, 2015 from 7pm-10pm. Self-Organized — Aesthetics Politics of the Artist Run will also be featured at a satellite booth in The Artist Run Fair that will run congruently with the show’s opening weekend. The booth will be on the ground floor at The Artist Run Fair (1714 N. Charles Street, Baltimore) Friday July 17th through July 19th. Hours will be Friday and Saturday, 11am-9pm and Sunday, 11am-6pm. The Artist Run Fair is organized by Open Space and BOPA.

“The current economic situation and society’s low confidence in its institutions has suddenly demanded artists become more imaginative in the way they organize themselves. If labels such as ‘alternative’, ‘non-profit’ and ‘artist-run’ dominate the self organized art scene that emerged in the late 1990s, the separatist position implied by the use of these terms has been moderated during intervening years. The new anthology of accounts from the front line includes contributions by artists, as well as their institutional counterparts, that provide a fascinating account of the art world as matrix of interconnected positions where the balance of power and productivity constantly shift.” Occasional Table – Self-Organized We are excited for the opportunity to focus our programming around one of the most influential methods of contemporary cultural production, the self-organized initiative. Self-Organized — Aesthetic Politics of The Artist Run is a group exhibition inspired by a published collection of perspectives on this topic, also entitled Self-Organized. The exhibition will feature the work of co-founders and directors of artist run spaces, along with relevant publications from Baltimore, New York City, and beyond. This exhibit module is a survey of influential spaces, examining the aesthetic and political aspirations of the directors’ work and how this influences their galleries’ infrastructure and the broader art community. As Lafuente points out in Self-Organized, “We live in a time when the structures that historically made it possible to develop a critical relationship to artistic practice, together with the social and political models that supported them, are being dismantled. Because of this, it is now imperative to think of new modes of organization that are neither inherited, nor imposed.” TRANSMITTER & GUEST SPOT @ THE REINSTITUTE’s programming seeks to further this active dialogue between multiple artistic disciplines. Artists/ Participants: Arts & Sciences Projects / New York City / Baltimore, MD Lauren Adams / Ortega Y Gasset Projects / Brooklyn, NY Kat Chamberlin /  Common People / Brooklyn, NY Henry Chung / Robert Henry Contemporary /  Brooklyn, NY Mathew Crowther / Crusade for Art / Chicago, IL Hilary Doyle / projekt 722 / Brooklyn, NY Alex Ebstein / Nudashank / Baltimore, MD Robert Alan Grand / Kimberly-Klark / Queens, NY Alexis Granwell / TSA Philly / Philadelphia, PA Tom Griggs / Fototazo / Medellín / Antioquia / Colombia Reid Hitt / projekt 722 / Brooklyn, NY Rhia Hurt / Trestle Gallery / Brooklyn, NY Bonny Leibowitz / Curator / Dallas, TX Mathew Mahler / Small Black Door / Brooklyn, NY Keri Oldham / Field Projects, / New York, NY John M. O’Toole /  Oranbeg Press / Boston, MA Norm Paris / TSA NY / Brooklyn, NY Lauren Portada / Regina Rex / New York, NY Niels Post / Kunst en Complex / Trendbeheer / Rotterdam, Netherlands Trevor Powers / Cat Labs / Easthampton, MA Jacob Rhodes / Field Projects / Brooklyn, NY Joaquin Segura / SOMA / Mexico City, Mexico Ginevra Shay / The Contemporary / Baltimore, MD Conor Stechschulte / Open Space / Baltimore, MD Julie Torres /  Curator / Brooklyn, NY Iemke van Dijk / IS Projects / Leiden, Netherlands Robert Walden / Robert Henry Contemporary /  Brooklyn, NY Guido Winkler / IS Projects / Leiden, Netherlands Patricia Zarate / Key Projects / Queens, NY Hours: Saturdays 1-4pm & Wednesday 5-7pm or by appointment PRESS: ‘Uncertainty in Artist-Run Efforts as Station North Develops,’ Rebekah Kirkman, Baltimore City Paper, August 5, 2015 ‘Brooklyn to Baltimore: A Celebration of Artist Run Spaces,’ Michael Anthony Farley, Art F City, July 30, 2015]]>

a handle, a stem, a hook, a ring, a loop Open Source Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Thursday, June 25 and Friday, June 26, 3-8pm Saturday, June 27, 1-6pm Part of Whitney Lynn’s presentation of Rummage, a series of performative installations at Open Source Gallery in the month of June. Lauren Frances Adams and Christine Wong Yap share interests in how objects and possessions are imbued with meaning. a handle, a stem, a hook, a ring, a loop is a collaborative installation of imaginative objects and paintings that explore desire, loss, and non-attachment. Garages often serve as surplus storage, but the lack of excess space in NYC inspired Wong Yap to make papier-mâché piñatas of objects that she would like to own but cannot store, such as cooking appliances and woodworking tools. The exhibition culminates on Saturday with a ‘non-attachment piñata party,’ where the confetti-filled piñatas will be available for the public to hit and destroy in a gesture of letting go. Adams invites strangers to submit a story of their personal desires and burdens to prompt a painting, resulting in a display of the finished artworks that will be exchanged with their new owners after the close of the show. Inspired by the exchange found at garage sales and on internet websites like Craigslist, Adams performs a ‘service’ to solicit the hidden appreciations and antagonisms between strangers and their possessions. To participate, visit this online form: https://goo.gl/forms/a2BJdQKhpS. Lauren Frances Adams mines the histories of power, labor, and material culture to make surprising connections that resonate with current sociopolitical issues. She is a resident of Baltimore, Maryland. Christine Wong Yap makes sculptures, installations, participatory projects, and drawings to spark and sustain attention to emotional experiences. A long-time resident of Oakland, California, she relocated to Queens in 2010. Lauren and Christine are part of Ortega y Gasset Projects, an artist collective that aims to mount exhibitions that provoke interpretation and dialogue, engaging with a wide forum to disseminate aesthetic experience. OyG works collaboratively over geographical distances to extend beyond local communities and forge larger networks of cultural dialogue.]]>

The Nothing That is: a drawing show in five parts June 5 – September 7, 2015 Contemporary Art Museum Raleigh Warehouse District 409 West Martin Street Raleigh, NC 27603 CAM Raleigh is pleased to present The Nothing That Is: a drawing show in five parts curated by Bill Thelen. This extraordinary exhibition includes more then 85 local, national and international artists all exploring contemporary approaches to drawing, mark making and gesture. The Nothing That Is will be presented in five parts throughout the museum and also includes drawing projects in the community. Chapter 1 DDDRRRAAAWWWIIINNNGGG in the Main Gallery curated by Bill Thelen and Jason Polan features a “do it yourself” approach to drawing with an emphasis on emerging artists, illustration, zines, economy, and building community through drawing. These artists’ works all utilize drawing as a prime strategy in their art-making process. Artists will be exhibiting collaborative and singular works embedded with their own unique drawing practices including Tedd Anderson, Joana Avillez, Amanda Barr, Chris Bogia, Elijah Burgher, Richard C., Robin Cameron, Ryan Travis Christian, Casey Cook, Daniel Davidson, Louise Despont, Mollie Earls, James Esber, Joy Feasley, Bill Fick, Nancy Ford, Sarah Gamble, Nathan Gelgud, Lincoln Hancock, EJ Hauser, Harrison Haynes, Kathleen Henderson, Jordin Islip, Rich Jacobs, Spencer Jacobs, George Jenne, Ken Kagami, Tricia Keightley, Thad Kellstadt, Victor Kerlow, Jeff Ladouceur, Matt Leines, Lump Lipshitz, Ryan Martin, Stefan Marx, Rich McIsaac, Hazel Meehan, Allyson Mellberg, Tristin Miller, Lee Misenheimer, Lavar Munroe, Kymia Nawabi, Tucker Nichols, Paul Nudd, Jason Osborne, Jason Polan, Tal R, Fernando Renes, Josh Rickards, Steve Reinke, Louis Schmidt, Christopher Schulz, Stewart Sineath, Damian Stamer, Paul Swenbeck, Megan Sullivan, Jeremy Taylor, Christopher Thomas, Derek Toomes, Michael Worful, James Ulmer, Todd Webb, Neil Whitacre, Eric White, Laura Sharp Wilson and Tyler Wolf. Chapter 2 Conceptual Approaches in the Independent Weekly Gallery focuses on artists employing contemporary drawing strategies with nods to conceptualism, feminism, queer theory, formalism, video, performance, photography and art history featuring: Lauren Adams, Becca Albee, Leah Bailis, Lucas Blalock, Kellie Bornhoft, Blake Fall-Conroy, Joy Drury Cox, Steven Evans, Ray Johnson/Richard C, Alex Jovanovich, Gary Kachadourian, Pedro Lasch, Stan Shellabarger, elin o’Hara slavick, Deb Sokolow, Stacy Lynn Waddell and Amy White. Chapter 3 Movement in the Independent Weekly Gallery will show video that reflects the principles of drawing. Videos will all be based on drawing and range from animation to performance. There will be several special screenings throughout the summer. Featured artists include David Colagiovanni, Jerstin Crosby and Fernando Renes. Chapter 4 Locals Only will feature capsule solo exhibitions by North Carolina artists. These “locals only” exhibitions will rotate throughout the exhibition space and feature regional artists that utilize drawing as a prime strategy in their art-making process including Carol Cole (June), Barbara Campbell Thomas (June), David Eichenberger (July), Chris Musina (July) and Tedd Anderson (August). Chapter 5 Open Source explores social engagement by featuring projects that utilize collaborative art strategies that extend beyond the museum’s walls. Through community outreach and social practice, there will be opportunities for the community to be involved in the exhibition. Such projects as Jason Polan’s ongoing “Taco Bell Drawing Club” will unite artists of all abilities to draw in a non-hierarchical, non-judgmental setting. Other projects will include the CAM Young Artists Advisory Panel, The Drawn, Elsewhere, Pedro Lasch, Vegan Snake Club and Lee Walton. PRESS RELEASE Press: Frieze Magazine, “The Nothing that Is,” by Mimi Luse, Issue 174 November/December 2015]]>

Thanks to the PUFFIN FOUNDATION for studio support in 2015. The Puffin Foundation supports “projects that seek to enrich and inform the public on important subjects such as the environment, social justice, civil rights and other contemporary issues facing the country (and the planet), that some organizations might hesitate to fund.”]]>