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AAI Lower East Side Rotating Studio Program Recipients - Spring 2010

Kate Burnet and Dan Woerner

Image:video still from "Nevermind The High SIgn" 2009

Kate Burnet and Dan Woerner live and work in Long Island City, NY and the desert of west Texas on the Terlingua Ranch. They make videos, installations and sometimes objects that graft our memories of the past and our prospects for the future from from fragments of pop culture and other detritus. As collaborators in art and life, they attempt to make their work not about the compromises that are customary between two or more individuals who artistically create together but about a situation where collaboration itself takes over and becomes the third party which is truly present and primary. http://84fordunicorn.com/

Vidal Centeno

My primary interest lies in assembling three dimensional objects or constructs. In some of these constructs I reconfigure specific systems and forms using disparate materials and modalities in an attempt to establish a tenuous stasis between opposing ideas, the coalescent and the repellant, the concrete and the illusory, the personal and the social. Using materials such as Strathmore 500 Bristol Board, expanded metal and fluorescent lighting I fabricated a model of a fighter jet engine that has been torn apart as a result of a fictional explosion or crash, entitled F119, 2009. The resulting ambiguity, as well as the illusory aspect of the work underline the degree to which the lamp functions or dysfunctions as a source of illumination both literally and figuratively. Artist File Online

Olek

Image: “Working Woman in White: A Portrait”, 2009, crocheted nylon twine on the ceiling, and a chair, 9 hrs performance created for an exhibition “Zakamarki/Recesses” in BWA Sanok Gallery, Poland, photo: Olek and BWA Sanok Gallery.

Olek was born Agata Oleksiak in Poland and graduated from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland with a degree in cultural studies. In New York, she rediscovered her ability to crochet and since then she has started her crocheted journey/madness.

I think crochet, the way I create it, is a metaphor for the complexity and interconnectedness of our body and its systems and psychology. The connections are stronger as one fabric as opposed to separate strands, but, if you cut one, the whole thing will fall apart. It’s also a literal extension of the body, a sort of second skin that can be stretched and reshaped by the body inner workings as it shapes or distorts that body. I can’t really speak to what I want to reveal—to know that, you’d have to find the end of the string and unravel it.

Olek herself however can be found in her Lower East Side studio with a bottle of spiced Polish vodka aggressively re-weaving the world as she sees fit. www.agataolek.com

Natsu

Image description:Weaving of Fate, 2007-2008, Plastic beads, sequins and brass wire.
Installation view, KK Projects - Derelict Cottage I (destroyed by Hurricane Katrina), New Orleans

Natsu was born in Japan in 1976 and currently lives in New York City. She received her BFA from Joshibi University of Art and Design in Tokyo, JAPAN. Her bead sculpture has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Star-Ledger and Interview Magazine, etc. Her residencies include The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Swing Space Residency (2009) and Aljiria’s Emerge 08 (2006).

- My repetitive primitive act in the creating process, stringing beads and weaving them with my hands into a complex web structure, is like prayer or contemplation to me and it creates an infinite pattern symbolizing the cycle of the world. Beads are like atoms, the basis on which the entire world is formed. I follow the rhythmic, nearly-unconscious motion of my hands. My handmade, labor-intensive process of creation transforms time into art.www.natsuuniverse.com

Selection Panel: Our thanks to the 2010 selection panel for their time and expertise: Ian Cofre, Independent Curator; Eduardo Difarnecio, Artist & AAI member; Shinnie Kim, Program Manager, International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP); Kimberly Marrero, Independent Curator + Arts Advisor - KM Art Advisory; Jen Mazza, Artist, LES - RSP Resident, Fall 08