First Installment of Bacon Bits

As newly appointed President of the Wayne Bacon International Fan Club, I’d like to take a moment to talk about Wayne’s beginnings with Shackway Corporation in Australia.

Television was first introduced in Australia in September of 1956, just in time for the Melbourne Olympics. Within a few short years it became the nation’s most popular form of entertainment. Shackway initially became involved in Australian television as a sponsor of a daytime drama. When the production company folded, Shackway became the producer.

In 1959, Shackway premiered the evening drama, Firecar, starring Wayne Bacon. He also had a role on the short-lived Shackway produced show, Vampire Hunter. The rest, as we all know, is history.

Wayne was not the only Bacon to get the acting bug. His cousin, Liam Bacon, was a popular television commercial actor who appeared in over 81 commercials between 1956 and 1964. The above commercial features Liam and appeared often during Melbourne Tonight, Australia’s much-loved variety program.

I’m so honored and excited to get to know more Wayne Bacon fans from around the world. Please send me your Wayne Bacon stories HERE.

Sincerely,

Carolyn Payne

President

Wayne Bacon International Fan Club

If you want to learn more about Wayne Bacon or Shackway Corporation visit SooVAC until January 7th and explore Everybody Wins!

Give the Gift of Art

Here is a collection of tiny limited edition prints available now at SooVAC $25 or online here:


Listed in order of appearance: all prints 5"x6" Edition of 30

Ass by Andrea Carlson

Landscape Debris by Caleb Coppock

Another Live Birth by Marie Gardeski

Hidden Are Her Curses by Bethany Kalk

Wood by Liseli Polivka

Vista by Cherith Lundin

S.I. by Ryan Macintyre

Nature Study by Erika Olson Gross

Swinger by Bruce Tapola

All About You...Simon Huelsbeck

Get to know one of our exhibiting artists Simon Huelsbeck whose work in now on display at SooVAC. Hope none of his astounding work was lost in the flooding!


1.What is your first art related childhood memory?

First Grade, first day of art class. This kid had what I thought was a beautiful cigar box filled with art supplies neatly stacked and organized. He takes out a marker and proceeds to draw all over the box with a thick black line. I was slightly shocked and horrified but bizarrely excited. The hair stood up on the back of my neck.

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

The violations of Osvaldo Romberg. The lushly painted, perversely historical work of Vincent Desiderio and Julie Heffernan. I’m slightly infatuated with Mathew Barney’s frames. The quiet understated poetry of colleague, friend and artist Joseph Hu. The now old sight -sized graphite drawings of colleague and friend Gabriel Augustus Boyce. The surfaces and white rooms of Felix Gonzalez Torres. The sublime of Casper David Friedrich.

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

The same artists over and over:

Sigur Ros

Spaghetti Western String Quartet

Mumford and Sons

Bon Iver
Andrew Bird

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio.
Life Size Styrofoam Easel and Cello
300 Pounds of Plaster
And at the moment, unfortunately, not me. My studio was flooded last week and its horrible.

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

Stumped on this one. Not much of a hater.

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

Lisa Murch bugs
David Bowen Print

Almae Larson photos

Steve Firkins drawings

James Denoyer drawings

Keiko Yagashita Dog Silkscreen

Beautiful Mic Stowel Ceramic/Painting

Joseph Hu Self Portrait as a comrade of sorts

A lot of my own work and a few more words to make stairs

7. What are you working on now?

I’m casting my kids smallest toys. Making a little ladder of twigs. Trying to figure out how to get my kid to sit still long enough to cast his feet. Sculpting little painting surfaces. Excited for two upcoming exhibitions that will give me opportunities to experiment: James Wegner Gallery in March 2012 and UCR Art Gallery in Septemeber 2012.

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

Thanks Simon and good luck with the studio!

Point of Roughness: Work by Simon Huelsbeck will be up through December 3rd HERE.

For more of Simon's work visit HERE.

All About...Books

Now that SooVAC is host to three little free libraries I thought is would be a good time to highlight this project and the essential nature of books in the arts.

Founders of Little Free Library Todd Bol and Rick Brooks came up with the simple yet brilliant idea of creating elegantly simple housing structures of reclaimed wood and other found materials, in order to bring literacy awareness to one neighborhood at a time. For More on this amazing project you can visit their website HERE and the recent Star Tribune article HERE. These image are of the libraries that now call the exterior of SooVAC home. Bring by books to exchange (follow the take a book leave a book motto)...artist created books are especially welcome. As the project grows we are hoping to commission local artists to create their own Little Free Libraries. The Amish Built Little Free Libraries are available for sale at SooVAC, you can contact us at info@soovac.org or 612-871-2263.











Books can be an essential companion to artists work...recontextualizing and expanding an initial concept or creating a completely different view. It is a more intimate look at an artist's work...not only in its ability to expand a conversation but as an object that marks an experience one can easily take away with them for later exploration.

On Saturday October 22nd, 6-9pm, during the closing of hot 3-way action and Jet-setter Hideaways: The Utopian Propaganda, there is also going to be a book release of a Location Volume exploring the process involved in creating hot 3-way action. Location Volumes is the brain child of local artists Scott Nedrelow and Ruben Nusz, a publishing experiment created to give artists an unmediated platform to define their own work. Visit HERE to see previous volumes of Location books.

And one last note...well more like a recommendation for one of my favorite artist created books, an old one but a good one:

David Bryne's Your Action World: Winners Are Losers with a New Attitude

All About You...Katharine Hawthrone

This week we are going to take a look back at one of the choreographer/performance artists that participated in the August 13th performance evening at SooVAC:

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?
Creative movement classes at the local community center – my parents say I took dancing much more seriously than other children. I also used to dance in my driveway a lot, to the great amusement of our neighbors.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence?
My biggest influence/inspiration is the body in motion and physical concepts from the natural world. I use my background and training in physics to explore and conceptualize the world around me, which I enact through motion.

3. What did you listen to while creating this piece?
Christopher Jette (the composer) and I listened to a lot of Roy Orbison while making SoundLines, the piece we presented at SooVAC. The piece itself uses a wide range of sounds, from drones to granular synthesis. I often choreograph material in silence and later adapt it to the sound score.

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio.
Radio & radio transmitter, headlamp, a bag of fresh fruit

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?
I’ve never really enjoyed Mozart – I’ve always felt like I was missing something with respect to his compositions, it sounds like elevator music to me.

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?
I love maps, strange things with stories, and Americana. In my apartment we currently have a STOP sign repurposed as a coffee table, antlers, car license plates, and topographical maps.

7. What are you working on now?
In early 2011 I created a piece called Lumen, in which the performers wear and control a small light source. Right now I am working on creating a partner work to Lumen, called Lux, to further explore light as a spatial and movement element. Both works are part of my larger investigation with how to integrate technology into performance. I’m fascinated by how to take a technical element that is normally external to movement performance (light) and deeply embed it into the performer’s interactions.

8. What will the title of your retrospective at BAM be?
Techné (the ancient root word of technology)

Thanks Katharine!

For more about Hawthorne's performance at SooVAC visit HERE.
For more about her work visit HERE.

All About You...Melissa Loop

Read all about Melissa Loop now showing at SooVAC:

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?

I remember having to decorate these cardboard doll figures in the first grade. I made a ballerina and I was deeply concerned that people might think she was bald on the back of her head unless I could indicate otherwise. In the end, I made a ponytail on the top of her head (hey it was the 80's) out of fringed construction paper and then bent the paper so it went behind her head. My teachers thought it was great and put it in all kinds of those little art shows, but they all kept straightening her hair so that her ponytail stuck way up on the top of her head like she was an idiot and I found it infuriating that it was never displayed correctly.

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

David Hockney has slowly taken over as my biggest influence. I love how he still embraces all of these new technologies in his art.

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

Lots of audio books. I had no idea that historical novels were so captivating. Plus I now know a boat load about the English Monarchy.

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

I have a bunch of moss, model train figures, and these glittered plastic fern pieces from Michaels.

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

The Mona Lisa

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

Lots of random stuff. Pictures of ships and birds from old books I have a shelf with a kinds of vintage and Japanese toys. Not much else though cause we moved last April and I can't ever decide where to hang anything.

7. What are you working on now?

I have another exhibition opening in Portland OR in just a few weeks so I am finishing up a large group of paintings that are a continuation of the Utopia Jet-Setter series. I am really excited to start a group of much larger paintings this winter. They will be abound 5x8 ft...maybe larger.

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

Wait...I have a retrospective at the MOMA? Fantasy Island: The World's Greatest Hits.

Come by SooVAC to see Melissa Loop's work in person, up until

October 23rd. And there will be a closing reception Oct. 22nd 6-9pm

More of Loop's work HERE.

Thanks Melissa!

All About You...Kristin Van Loon

We couldn't let the amazing Choreographers/dancers that performed at Soo in August go with out getting them to answer the all about you questionnaire. First we get some insight into Kristin Van Loon.

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?
Lying in a crib and hearing my dad practice with his barbershop quartet.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence?
Duchamp for the seed that influenced…John Cage, Steve Paxton, etc. etc. etc.
I always have a pet artist. Right now it's John Baldessari.

3. What did you listen to while creating this piece?
These three songs over and over and over and over and over:

George Harrison: "My Sweet Lord"
Simon & Garfunkel: "Keep the Customer Satisfied"
Chicago: "Make Me Smile"

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio.
-a giant Thomas Hirschhorn 1999 wall calendar
-a ping pong table
-a ten-foot pole
(all figured prominently in this piece)

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?
-the cow public sculptures

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?
My walls are craptastic. From where I sit, I see: Sean Smuda photos (real deal), Bill Starr photos (real deal), xerox art by Louise Odes Neaderland (real deal), Elliott Durko Lynch mail art (real deal), plus cheep reproductions by Gehard Richter and David Salle and Damien Hirst.

7. What are you working on now?
"Show Me Sun Blindness and I'll Show You a Strong Bank" (with Arwen Wilder as HIJACK): a sextet for Zenon's Dance Zone

and a new, as yet untitled HIJACK duet for the Walker's Choreographers' Evening in November

8. What will the title of your retrospective at BAM be?
Twenty Five Hundred Dollars

Thanks Kristin!
To see more of Kristin Van Loon's work visit HERE.

All About You...Jehra Patrick

Here is some q & a action from Jehra Patrick, the last but definitely not least of the Untitled 8 artists.

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?
My Mom has a crayon drawing I made labeled at 3 months old, but my earliest memories are of my parents helping me and my sister draw mermaids. Then we’d cut them out and use them as paper dolls.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence? My influences are constantly changing and evolving. Lately I’ve been looking at lots of German painters: Eberhard Havekost, Matthias Weischer and other New Leipzig painters and Oehlen Albert. I’ve been conceptually interested in Louise Lawler, Michael Asher and New Institutionalism. I love the work of Richard Prince, Gerhard Richter, and Sigmar Polke, for the various ways in which these artists have pushed limits of painting, picture theory, and authorship.

3. What did you listen to in the studio while creating this show?
Big Boi, Burnt by the Sun, Red Vendetta, Atmosphere, Devil’s Night Radio (a mainstay in my studio), Beach House, Beck, Sonic Youth, Wu Tang Clan, Sleigh Bells, and lots of reggae.

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio. An antique vanity, a gun range target and a guitar and amp

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art? I was never a big Tino Sehgal fan… but, what can I say, I like objects.

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?
Local artists Doug Forbes, Margi Grill, Abigail Woods Anderson and Indiana artist Quinton Fletcher; vintage prints by Goya, Toulouse Lautrec, and a few anonymous works; rock art posters by Kozik and lots of Aesthetic Apparatus pieces; found paintings and objects; and some of my own older works. I would love nothing more than to expand my art collection – especially of MN artists – I have so many on my wish list!

7. What are you working on now?
I am continuing to work in both painting and photography using the museum and its visual archives as my subject. To share my process: I’m big into reading and research, which are just as integral to my practice as production. At present, I’ve been delving in to the Walker Art Center’s visual archives from the 1940’s to 1960’s, reading Words Without Pictures (various contributors) and have been grazing on On the Museum’s Ruins (Douglas Crimp, photographs by Louise Lawler) for the last 6 months… while looking to German painters for formal strategies. Oh, and browsing the New Museum’s visual archives – especially from the 1980s. I could keep gabbing on my interests, but the short answer is that a few larger paintings as well as some mid-sized works are on the way!

8. What will the title of your retrospective at MOMA be? Ah, man… I have no idea… I’m sure the title would be the last thing I’d think about.

Thank Jehra! To see more of Jehra's work visit HERE.

All About You...Erin Hernsberger

Now for some Q & A from Untitled 8 artist Erin Hernsberger...nothing like a little grotesque beauty.

1. What is your first art related childhood memory? Sitting on the carpet of my grandparents house, watching my grandfather draw. I was about four years old.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence?
Ava Medieta, Jenny Saville, Eva Hesse are the artists that come to mind. And Anish Kapoor and Ernesto Neto. And National Geographic’s “Inside the Living Body.”

3. What did you listen to in the studio while creating this show?
Gillian Welch and CocoRosie

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio.
A cactus, a framed circular goose print from a garage sale that reminds me of my childhood home, and a stack of vacuum sealed animal parts (maybe that one is expected)

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art? Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe. 6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?
An Indian quilt made of textiles from wedding gowns, yarn drawings from Goodwill, a photo by Areca Roe, a photo by Amy Stevens, and two framed black and white photos from past students.

7. What are you working on now?
I am currently building and photographing still-lifes dealing with various medical/surgical approaches to the interior body/exterior body.

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

To see more of Erin's work visit HERE.

All About You...Emily Bennett Beck

Now for some q & a goodness from Emily Bennett Beck, Untitled 8 artist:

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?
I had the fortune to attend an after school art club in the 5th grade. My art teacher, Ms. Schmidt, had all these wonderful art posters for us to leaf through and I found this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkie_(Lawrence_painting), stared at it, put it away, and began a painting of it back at my desk. When I was done with my painting, went back to the stack of art posters and when I flipped to the real ‘Pinkie,’ I felt as though I could literally feel the wind blowing and the ocean roaring at me. I was SO ashamed of my own work. My work felt dead in comparison.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence?
All the fabulous contemporary figurative painters of course; John Currin, Elizabeth Peyton, Lisa Yuskavage and Dawn Mellors, to name a few. The pre-raphelites continue to amaze me, and Sargent and Whistler. I am influenced by so many artists- it’s hard to name them all.

3. What did you listen to in the studio while creating this show?
I rely on Pandora quite a lot… I’ve been listening to a lot of George Micheal and 80s romantic pop ballads this year. I’ve been trying to channel lots of teen angst.

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio. I have lots of old ‘How to Paint’ magazines and books from the 1960s. They’re very instructive.

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?
I can’t come up with an answer for this one…. I’m stumped.

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?
Lots of paintings by my late grandmother in-law Phyllis Beck, and lots of work from fellow artist friends.

7. What are you working on now?
Several series at once. Gouache paintings, digital paintings. Some of my new work deals with the desperations of youth, and some with the desperations of middle age.

8. What will the title of your retrospective at MOMA be?
Probably something campy like, “Painted Ladies.”

Thanks Emily!

To see more of Emily's work visit HERE.
Untitled 8 is up through August 21st.

All About You...Erika Lynne Hanson

Now for a little q & a with Erika Lynne Hanson now exhibiting in Untitled 8.

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?
Learning how to use a bead loom

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence?
Nietzsche, Bruce Nauman, and Thomas Cole

3. What did you listen to in the studio while creating this show? Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (first 4 books)

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio.
Buckets of water (from collecting ice melt run off), A Huge Loom, a dollar bill on the floor.

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?
I find Lichtenstein paintings pretty annoying

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?
Exclusively landscape prints and paintings that have been collected from thrift and antique stores.

7. What are you working on now?
new weavings, sculptures and videos for my upcoming exhibition The Icebergs, in Kansas City this fall

8. What will the title of your retrospective at MOMA be?
Sabotage: transitory objects, microscopic cataclysms.

Thanks Erika!

To see more of Erika Lynne Hanson's work visit HERE. Untitled 8 will be on view through August 21st.

All About You...Donna Dralle

This week the blog is back to featuring artists from Untitled 8...this time Donna Dralle.

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?
Drawing on used office paper my father brought home after discovering that I started drawing on the end papers of hardback books. I was 3.

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

3. What did you listen to in the studio while creating this show?
Shostakovich, Bartok, Britten, Monteverdi, Bryars, Cage, Schnittke, Ives, Paert, Crumb, and many others.

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio.
A baseball (baseball is art), an image of Rilke, carved wooden birds.

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?
Monet- all of it- I don’t like Monet. A lot.

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?
A photo I modeled for; a drawing by Susan McDonald; images of birds (I like birds); a ceramic life mask of Beethoven; a ceramic life mask of me made by my best friend John Poulos in High School.

7. What are you working on now?
Naked composer Series: Monteverdi; after that, another self-portrait- I’ve been working on a sketch.

8. What will the title of your retrospective at MOMA be? A Life on Paper: Sculpture in 2D (Incidentally- this is why I don’t like to mat my drawings- I really think of them as 3 dimentional objects- hence why they are framed in shadowbox frames.)

Thanks Donna!

For More of Donna Dralle's Work Visit HERE.
Untitled 8 will be up through August 21st.

All About You...Jake Freeman

This time I am mixing it up with one of our SooFUZE Artists, Jake Freeman (he is sixteen). This one is definitely one to watch.

1. What is your first art related childhood memory? My first art related memory would have to be coloring in characters like Aladin, Ariel, and Tarzan with my Mom.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence? I would say my biggest influences are the photographic duo known as Mert & Marcus or the photographer Terry Richardson. I love how Mert & Marcus use color and light and I love how Terry is twistedly sexual with his work.

3. What did you listen to in the studio while creating this show? A lot of Lissie, Local Natives, Crystal Castles, etc. Basically a lot of Indie tunes.

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio. The most unexpected thing in my studio would have to be a military knife from World War II.

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art? My least favorite piece of famous art would have to be the potato eaters by Vincent Van Gogh. Actually, I don’t really like any of Van Gogh’s work.

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls? I don’t really have much art on my walls these days. At one time I had a giant photo of New York City hanging on my wall, along with some other photos of the city, but now I only have a deer skull and some personal photos.

7. What are you working on now? Currently, I am in the process of scheduling/planning a beauty shoot that explores the idea of being two faced through color blocked makeup, emotional expressions, and fake body parts.

8. What will the title of your retrospective at MOMA be? I can’t really say at the moment. I am still so young and have a lot of figuring out to do when it comes to my work. You will just have to wait and see.

Thanks Jake!

More of Jake Freeman's work HERE
SooFUZE will be up until August 21st...visit HERE for more info.

All About You...Laura Hallen

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?
My grandpa was a kooky inventor and artist himself, and let me have a corner
in his studio where I kept crayons and paper, and my own personal vacuum. I think he liked that I cleaned up after him…

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence?
It’s pretty hard to narrow it down to one, since there is an abundance of talent right here in Minneapolis, but I’d have to say Ray Kruskopf, my grandpa. And Eva Hesse.

3. What did you listen to in the studio while creating this show?
Let England Shake by PJ Harvey.

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio.
Bottle rockets, a feather boa and a vintage mink coat

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?
this may not count as famous, but anything by Thomas Kincaid

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?
I have art by Greg Euclide, Jaron Childs, Eleanor McGough, Cody Kiser, Eddie Hamilton, Casey Opstad, Jeff Baker, Gene Pittman, Jennifer Davis, DC Ice and of course, my beloved framed family collage wall.

7. What are you working on now?
I’m experiencing a dance between the internal and external landscape of the plexibox and entering a phase where I want the internal landscape of my plexiboxes to be oozing out of the box, down the wall, onto the floor. Or, better yet, an empty plexibox on the wall with a messy pile of stuff on the floor across the room. Even better, a video of me filling the plexibox with bottle rockets, and BOOM!

8. What will the title of your retrospective at MOMA be?
Bottle Rockets, Feather Boas and a Mink Coat

Thanks Laura!

More of Laura Hallen's work HERE.
Untitled 8 will be up through August 21st at SooVAC.

All About You...Steven Lang

For the next couple of months we will be highlighting artists from Untitled 8 and SooFUZE. First up is Steven Lang (exhibiting work in Untitled 8):

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?
When I was four years old, my father left me alone “only for a minute” with an open can of deck paint and a brush. I painted myself red.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence? a.) Artists who are funny, e.g. Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Martin Parr, Bruce Nauman b.) Artists who repeat, e.g. Bernd and Hilla Becher, Jenny Holzer, Ed Rusha. c.) Artists who appropriate, e.g. Richard Prince, Sherry Levine, Robert Heinecken

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

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio.
A stove, a refrigerator, and a sink. I work in the kitchen.

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?
“American Gothic.” I look exactly like that guy!

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?
Allen Brewer, Eric Ruby, Samuel Bjorgum, Alec Soth, soon to be Jim Denomie. My own stuff is up, if only to keep it off the floor.

7. What are you working on now?
Paying off my credit card.

8. What will the title of your retrospective at MOMA be?
“I came, I saw, I concurred.”

Thanks Steven!

More of Steven Lang's work HERE.
Untitled 8 will be up through August 21st at SooVAC.

All About You...Mary Johnson

Here is our last highlighted artist from Sideshow Soo...Mary Johnson. I wonder what she is doing with 3000lbs of cement...I hope it has something to do with the inflatable bunnies. Images below our of Mary Johnson and Amy Toscani's contribution to Sideshow Soo.

1. What is your first art related childhood memory? Sewing a rabbit for my grandma.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence? Mike Kelley, Liz Craft, Liza Lou, Jeff Koons

3. What did you listen to in the studio while creating this show? Amy Toscani, my collaborator.

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio. Lithographic printing plates from 1950’s cheesecake calendars, 3000 lbs cement, 20 inflatable vintage rabbits

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art? That depends, do you consider the Mary Tyler Moore statue famous ?.

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls? Erik Ullanderson, Lynn Gray, a taxidermy bat, some things by my kids

7. What are you working on now? Working on the wall, latest in the series of shrine-like assemblages. 8. What will the title of your retrospective at MOMA be? It’s All Good

Thanks Mary!

For More of work by Mary Johnson visit HERE.