ica : current exhibition

EXCHANGE

January 20 - April 11, 2010
Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art

EXCHANGE explores collaboration as the means to transfer ideas and generate new modes of thinking. This exhibition series will feature diverse collaborative approaches including the joining of arts and letters, the merging of the physical boundaries of the human body, institutional collaboration, and a project requiring the participation of ICA visitors. These projects manifest as collaborations between individuals, groups, and institutions, traversing subjects as broad as oil politics, the history of optics, Zen Practice and personal space.

In the Lunder Gallery: Lewis Hyde and Max Gimblett: animal dreaming

animal dreaming highlights an ongoing collaboration between painter Max Gimblett and poet and cultural critic Lewis Hyde. Inspired by their shared interest in Buddhist practice, Hyde and Gimblett have created a series of works on paper and artist books. animal dreaming features works spanning their twenty years of collaboration and debuts a new series of paintings made for the ICA.

In the William Sloane Jelin Gallery:

David K. Ross: Alhazen's Problem (image below)

Alhazen's Problem brings together the visual technologies of the camera obscura and of digital video to temporarily link two Portland institutions, the Children's Museum & Theatre of Maine and the ICA. The project draws upon the early history of optics to comment upon contemporary cultures of looking.

In the Long Hall: Caitlin Berrigan: Transfer

Transfer depicts two performers transferring the contents of a full pitcher of milk to an empty pitcher through the interface of their mouths. Berrigan contributes a sense of immediacy and intimacy with her interpretation of collaboration, testing our assumptions of accepted social and physical boundaries.

In the Evans Hunt Gallery: Deb Todd Wheeler: PolyPolyphemous
Deb Todd Wheeler is a sculptor, inventor, and media artist. Her work concerns technology as a mediator for human interaction with the environment. Wheeler will coordinate a large participatory project that promotes the common good of joined labor forces.

Events:

Artist Reception Wednesday, Jan 20, 5-8 PM

Artist Talks and Lectures:

Osher Hall,12:30, free and open to the public

Max Gimblett, artist talk Tuesday, January 19

Lewis Hyde, “The Collaborative Self?Thursday, January 21

David K. Ross, artist talk Thursday, Feb 18

Deb Todd Wheeler, artist talk Thursday, March 18

Exchange is funded in part by the Margaret E. Burnham Charitable Trust