Objects waiting for transformation!

Here is a sneak peek of some of the objects for Suspension of This Belief before Karl Unnasch re-engineers them into a new art object. There is still time to get an object of your own transformed! Follow the link HERE!

Behind The Scenes Footage

This video clip shows some behind the scenes footage of David Bowen setting up for Soft Chaos. Including a shot of him programing the blimps! This was before we loaded in the flies.

Interesting Tidbits about Flies!

To celebrate our little fly friends who are currently piloting the blimps in David Bowen's Soft Chaos we decided to share some interesting facts about them:

• The average house fly lives on average 30 days.

• A flies wings beat 200 times per second.

• Flies don't grow. They are born full size.

• Flies have 4000 lenses in each eye.

• Flies jump up and backwards when taking off.

• Average speed of a fly in flight is 4.5 m.p.h.

• Flies smell with their antennae.

So now you know a little more about flies...they will be with SooVAC till January 2nd.

Sarah Nakano talks about her work!!!

PRX » Piece » Sarah Nakano

SUSPENSION OF THIS BELIEF: A Guild-of-One installation

SooVAC is excited to announce that as part of Get Lucky 2011, our annual fundraising gala, we are collaborating on a installation/performance by local artist Karl Unnasch, SUSPENSION OF THIS BELIEF: A Guild-of-One installation! Part installation and part interactive event...this will have a little something for everyone. In fact for the first lucky 40 art enthusiasts that click HERE and then follow the purchase link can select an object of their choice to be re-engineered by The Guild (Karl Unnasch) and returned to them at the end of the performance.

The performance will be its own reward...during Get Lucky The Guild will physically suspend a living Hobbyist installation from the ceiling. Unnasch will start altering the personal artifacts before the event but finish several of the pieces while in a suspended workshop complete with workbench and display shelves. This will only be the 2nd incarnation of this project and the first time a suspended workshop is in the mix!

Here is a flicker feed of some of his previous reengineerings: A Guild-of-One
Here is a link to other works by Karl Unnasch.

Images From November Opening

Here are a few shots from the opening reception of soft chaos and Half Awake! Coming soon some behind the scenes footage of David installing soft chaos..

All About You...Sarah Nakano answers our questions!

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?

i remember drawing on the bottom of my lisa frank shoes when I was around four. me and a couple kids would sit around in this gym drawing on our shoes listening to smash mouth's 'all star' waiting for our moms to finish their aerobics class upstairs. good times, man. (i still draw on my shoes too...)

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence?

people like lewis chaplin, sandy kim, olivia bolles, and juergen teller are some of my favorite photographers. but hmm overall i think my biggest influences over the past year have been ryan mcginley's moonmilk series and basquiats paintings.

3. What did you listen to in the studio while creating this show?

the black keys, sonic youth, snoop dogg, and loads of tv shows.

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio.

lasers, a stone cauldron i bought for a dollar, 30+ types of tea

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?

i wouldn't say its my least favorite but i have a hard time understanding how the mona lisa is worth over $700000000. (but then again i have a hard time understanding how ANYTHING is worth over $700000000.)

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?

pictures of california, album covers, music posters, to-do lists, etc etc

7. What are you working on now?

surviving high school

8. What will the title of your retrospective at MOMA be?

i'm not sure but it would involve colored smoke machines, huge hollow glass sculptures, mini trampolines, lots of photos, and some type of collaboration piece with snoop dogg and/or oprah. also it would be in a zero-gravity room. i hope it happens someday.

THANKS SARAH!!!

For more information on Sarah's exhibition visit HERE!

For more of Nakano's work vist HERE!

Work In Progress!

David Bowen's blimps are resting up for their big night and awaiting the piloting flies to arrive next week! While Sarah Nakano is hard at work installing her show. Here is a sneak peak of the work in progress...

Please join us on Saturday, November 13th for the opening reception, 6-9PM!



















Sarah Nakano recently talked to Dylan Thomas of the Southwest Journal about her first solo exhibition. Read the full article HERE!

For more information on soft chaos, David Bowen visit HERE.
For more information on Half Awake, Sarah Nakano visit HERE.

UP NEXT!

We are starting to take down the truly amazing exhibitions “Systematics” and “Alternative Futures”. But very soon two new exhibitions will be opening Saturday, November 13…and they are both must-sees!!!

David Bowen will be creating an interactive installation, “soft chaos”, fly-piloted blimps will roam the gallery. And then our first teen artist in residence, Sarah Nakano, will exhibit her work in a solo exhibition, “Half Awake”, in the front gallery, Soo Local. This exhibition will include a variety of different work...including film and installation. More updates to come as they begin to install the show. For now here are a couple images of what will be waiting for you from each of the artists...

David Bowen's soft chaos:

Sarah Nakano's Half Awake:

One More Week!

This is the last week I will be sharing the gallery with two amazing shows, "Alternative Futures" and "Systematics". Be sure not to miss seeing them in person and to help entice you I put together a few photos.








But remember nothing is better than the real thing! Thanks so much to Allen Brewer, Liz Miller, R. Justin Stewart and Pamela Valfer for putting together such thought provoking and beautiful work for the exhibitions.

Guest Blogger Vanesa Windschitl

Fall is finally upon us and while the trees are shedding their leaves, something has grown in our garden over night. Working alongside Vertigo Press and All Along Press, artist and printmaker Lisa Bulawsky has planted part of her most recent work in front of SooVac.

“We Belong To This Band” is a public print project honoring famed past and present artists and printmakers by means of tare-off portraits submitted by artists participating in the project. Bulawsky is currently one of the featured artists for the Mid America Print Council’s 2010 Biennial Conference taking place in Minneapolis/St.Paul this weekend.

Stop by SooVac and pick up a portrait of your favorite artist and, if you haven’t yet, check out our current shows "Systematics", featuring work by Liz Miller and J. Justin Stewart, and "Alternative Futures" by Allen Brewer and Pamela Valfer before they come down on October 31st.

All About You...next up Liz Miller!

Liz Miller:

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?

My first art-related childhood memory is of sitting at the kitchen table drawing on big sheets of computer paper. Both my parents are computer programmers, and in those days computers took up entire rooms...and relied on big sheets of paper! My mom would bring home all of the scrap paper and my sisters and I would use it to make art. There was never a set goal, just the freedom to create. I would draw for hours and hours. And, because the paper was all connected together, we could create huge panoramic drawings.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence?

My biggest influences are people who have pushed the boundaries between painting and sculpture. As a young student, I was particularly impressed by Jessica Stockholder and Polly Apfelbaum. They were using the language of painting in a sculptural and materially innovative way. And I've been really influenced by my husband, David Hamlow, who is also an artist. We share a studio. His work is very different from mine, but watching his process has made me question my own process and see things in new ways.

3. What did you listen to in the studio while creating this show?

Everything from Loretta Lynn to The National to Jay-Z to Car Talk.

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio.

1) Wrist braces (to keep me in fine cutting form) 2) A winter jacket (our studio gets really cold...even in the summer) 3) Teeny tiny drawings (my work is not always large-scale!)

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?

Dali's The Persistence of Memory

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?

Our house is 100 years old and we love antiquing. We have lots of great antique/vintage florals and images of courtship. Their simplicity....and sometimes awkwardness...is appealing to me, and they fit the house. We also have quite a few treasured works by our talented friends.

7. What are you working on now?

I'm working on several large projects that continue to integrate motifs from pattern, ornament, and decoration and splice them with weapon-related imagery. I'm also trying to keep up the momentum with my works on paper--I've really enjoyed devoting additional time to that part of my practice.

8. What will the title of your retrospective at MOMA be?

Rock, Felt, Scissors

Thanks Liz!
For more on Systematics, now exhibiting Liz's work visit HERE
For more on Liz Miller visit HERE

All About You...Soo Artist Questionnaire Part 3

Pamela Valfer:

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?
2 memories
1) My parent's coffee table book of Norman Rockwell's work - I would seriously stare at it for hours.
2) My mom bringing me to the MIA when we moved to Minnesota when I was 7 and sitting me down in front of Rembrant's Lucretia painting and telling me the story behind it. Intense.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence?
They are many and varied and always changing.
Mike Kelley
Tom Friedman
Joseph Beuys
Maurizio Cattelan

3. What did you listen to in the studio while creating this show?
It varies - everything from classical to Radio K to my CD collection, which I have about worn out.

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio.
1. A picture of a baby monkey clinging to a fake mother monkey made of wire with a milk bottle attached to it
2. Corn cob holders
3. Slides of the moon

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?
Anything from Matthew Barney

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?
Not my art - mostly taxidermy - and vintage paintings of landscapes and portraits purchased at estate sales

7. What are you working on now?
I am currently experimenting with putting Hummel sculptures in clay.

8. What will the title of your retrospective at MOMA be?
Posthumous

Thanks Pamela!
For more on Alternative Futures, now exhibiting Pamela's work visit HERE
For more on Pamela Valfer visit HERE

All About You...Soo Artist Questionnaire Part 2

Allen Brewer:
1. What is your first art related childhood memory? seeing the Gustave Courbet exhibit at the MIA with my dad and asking him (confused) what the painting "the Origin of the World" was. He blushed. Commercially speaking, my first art sale was to the mailman. It was a portrait of Garfield.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence? the purity and truth of Naive/Folk Art, and my own doubt.

3. What did you listen to in the studio while creating this show? My Bloody Valentine, Bonny "Prince" Billy, Low, Sun Kil Moon, Beat Happening, Neil Young.

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio. (1)an 1869 Swedish Bible, (2)a Richard Simmons workout book, (3)all my childhood sketchbooks/yearbooks.

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?
the Mona Lisa....I've seen it, its overrated.

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?
Old hunting lodge paintings, annon. turn of the century portraits, good friend's mini collections.

7. What are you working on now?
drawing and painting with my eyes closed.

8. What will the title of your retrospective at MOMA be?
The Future Doesn't Exist.

Thanks Allen!
For more on Alternative Futures, now exhibiting Allen's work visit HERE
For more on Allen Brewer visit HERE

Get To Know Soo's Exhibiting Artists

In the spirit of the Proust Questionnaire...we decided to ask our own questions of current exhibiting artists to get to know them better and maybe why they do what they do. Soo Blog Questionnaire #1- All About You (R. Justin Stewart)

First up is R. Justin Stewart ...here is what he had to say:

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?

I remember taking an art class when I was in 1st grade. We had to draw geometric shapes and fill them in with a different pattern in each shape.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence?
The two artists that most excite my are Sarah Sze and Robert Irwin, but I draw most of my influence from the books that I read. Reading allows me to bring new ideas into my brain. It is not as if I read a book and then go make a piece about it, but more that each books offers hundreds of new ideas and a couple of them will stick around. Then as I keep making my work, trying to push myself forward, I see things that I’ve read start to manifest in it. Sometimes they’re ideas from books that I read two or three years ago. Other times, a book that I’ve recently read provides a new lens in order to view past work in a new way which will help advance my current process. Each book seems to either nudge me in a new direction or allow me to understand my past work in a new light.

3. What did you listen to in the studio while creating this show?
The kind of work I am doing really drives what I listen to. When I am doing work that does not really take much thinking (e.g. drilling holes into thousands of half-inch wooden spheres) I tend to listen to NPR. When I am doing work that takes thinking (e.g. trying to figure out how to construct a 3 Dimensional form using zip ties and plastic o-rings) I tend to listen to music. Currently the bands played most are Fun., The Hold Steady, and Band Of Horses.

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio?

Electric carving knife, 3 lbs of Japanese Sencha Green Tea, a Green Bay Packers 2010-2011 Schedule.

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?

The Mona Lisa.

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?
In my home, I have work by a lot of different people, but one of my current favorites is a piece by Seth Koen. ( http://sethkoen.com/ )

7. What are you working on now?

My current project is a large map-based installation depicting the
transformation of the idea of the Messiah and how it has shifted over time.

8. What will the title of your retrospective at MOMA be?
The things I thought about.

Thanks Justin!
For more on Systematics, now exhibiting Justin's work visit HERE
For more on R. Justin Stewart visit HERE

September 18th Opening

Thanks to everyone who stopped by Soo last weekend for the opening receptions of Alternative Futures and Systematics. The exhibitions will be open till October 31st.