Gehäuse Untergeschoss
March 7 - March 29
Philara Sammlung Gallery
New Works by:
Opening: Saturday, March 7th, 7:00 pm
Exhibition: March 7 - March 29
Hours: Saturday-Sunday 3:00 - 6:00 pm
Telephone for special viewing: 01771469436, 017661151253
Walzwerk Street 14
40599 Düsseldorf
This exhibition will continue to Nuremburg in Fall 2009 ... See you there ...
Urban Renewal - 01/09 - Now the piece or project has grown to about 53 parts - 5x7" paintings inspired by formal elements of nature but also by the ritualistic and rythmic act of walking the grid of alleyways of my neighborhood ... and of course, with my rescue shepherd Luka. See the first Urban Renewal entry below for more info and images of the first pieces. Above is a grid of 24. The piece continues to grow over time ... created from a piece of history - damaged paintings on paper from the Shockoe Bottom Studio Fire of 1997 (wow, 12 years ago!). These pieces were cut from the saved yet un-restorable paintings on paper left from the fire - re-painted with new and current ideas, formal elements, repetitive motion, and with an overall sense of social equality. See below for a few more details ...
A little video I made in homage to Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty movie - Earth & Time: Stone Cairn. The audio is the same audio piece that plays from the bottom of the cairn ... Please excuse the pixel-noise.
Ritual Function
A few years ago I began a series of environmental works investigating the relationship of art to time and decay. The series began as performative interventions and collections from open areas and natural settings. The destinations for these sites were pre-determined from stories passed down to me by my mother and aunts – tales of travel and strange events from their past.
The secondary art pieces resulting from these interventions are a combination of documentation, audio, collections, and objects in multiples and combined – all as layers over time.
Brad Birchett, Pomegranite for the People, 41 x 48", 2006
Tea, detritus, pomegranite seeds, natural carbon charcoal, etc ... all working together with acrylic paint on a panel. The paint is non-active but at times serves as a base ... for other elements to work within .... you can NOT keep them away ...
Brad Birchett, Site Seer 03: The Bleu Grotto, Ontario, Canada, 2004
Microorganisms eat away at natural materials such as cotton, as does entropy over time, while freeze-thaw breaks down ceramic compounds returning the earth to earth, and of course, most omnivores love local apples ...
Bio-art has been defined as "an art practice in which the medium is living matter" - Wikipedia. In these pieces organic matter has been used and allowed to "grow" or flourish in certain areas. Matter such as coffee, tea, and even detritus has long been used as staining agents but in certain climates micro-organisms will invade these substances ... and well, the process is definately an on-going aesthetic and molecular (if not olfactory) change ....
See more Bio-Art pieces in the Ritual Function exhbition and within the Transformation series where installations are left to endure climate ... and molecular change ...
A grid of small paintings, each 7" x 5", hung together to form a multiple ...
It is significant that the existence of the work of art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function.Walter Benjamin
“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
Brad T. Birchett, Urban Renewal, mixed media on mounted paper - grid, 2008
Urban Renewal: A re-accountment of the visual and physical experience of walking, within a grid of formal-expressionist painting parts. Here are a few details ...
This multiple-piece will be hung, in its present state, mirrored to another piece, Action to Object, in the Other exhibition curated by Rob Tarbell at The Piedmont Virginia Community College Gallery in Charlottesville, opening April 25th ... See the review of the OTHER exhibition at PVCC in The Hook, by Laura Parsons ...
Brad Thomas Birchett, Action to Object, installation with bench, stone cairn, and audio, 2006
For more DECAY - RENEWAL - RITUAL - ENTROPIC behavior see the Transformation work that was up at Vanderbilt University last year: HERE ....
