HOST
UMD Professor David Bowen is included in this exhibition. It might make a fun weekend trip to see. The Soap Factory is also an excellent venue to get work shown at as an emerging and even student artist.
The Soap Factory proudly Presents Host
Curated By Elizabeth M. Grady
September 8 - October 21, 2007
Opening Saturday September 8th 7-11 pm
Exhibiting Artists:
Alejandro Almanza Pereda, William R. Bergman, China Blue, David Bowen, Tracey Goodman, Erik Shorrock Guzman, Wade Kavanaugh, José Enrique Krapp, Caitlyn Masley, Panayiotis Michael, Derick Melander, Jeffrey Morrison, Jason Peters, Meridith Pingree, Jenny Polak, David Politzer and Carol Salmanson
At the intersection between the private and public spheres we experience social and emotional tensions. Venturing into shared spaces, like the remarkable building and site of The Soap Factory, we may follow or resist pre-set paradigms of speech and behavior. The motion, interactivity, and participatory nature of the work in Host refers metaphorically to such daily choices, encouraging a heightened awareness of the impact of one's actions on broader patterns of economic, political and societal relations. The installations explore that impact by drawing on the energy of the galleries and their occupants in the form of movement, light, and sound. Often addressing current events or ongoing social conundrums - like immigration or global warming - the artists create works that are often paradoxically hopeful, as they offer us spaces for contemplation and tools for coping, balancing an awareness of risk and a need for refuge. However, the art is far from limited by a single political perspective or framework, and many of the works point humorously or pensively toward the idiosyncrasies and foibles of our human condition. In this way the exhibition explores universal conflicts between the self and society, between individual urges and accommodation to the demands of living in the outside world.