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May 9 June 6, 2009
opening reception May 9, 7 10 pm
Brandon Anschultz (St. Louis)
Sarah Baker (London)
Fantastic Nobodies (Brooklyn)
Iain forsyth and Jane Pollard (London) Robert Goetz (St. Louis)
Wendy Mason (Los Angeles) Erick Michaud (Austin)
Brandon Morse (Washington d.C.) John Watson (St. Louis)
Curated by dana Turkovic
Amass is an exhibition with multiple intentions and various definitions. First realized at Boots Contemporary Art in St. Louis, the exhibition’s second incarnation will respond directly to the space and mission of Monte Vista but will also maintain its original curatorial premise. The title is a reference in its most direct translation a metaphor for curating an exhibition; to gather artwork, to assemble ideas, to group, and to collect. The exhibition at Monte Vista will bring together
new video work from a selection of national and international artists. Under this headline, Amass is also blurring the boundaries between, art, design, and information by questioning the conventional configurations of how we view video art. By commissioning two artists to design “sculptural support” that invites, and in some ways, compels the audience to assemble and come together as viewers, the exhibition will aim to provide a series of smaller encounters within one collective social experience, thereby highlighting the existence of a ‘closed temporal loop’ between creation, interpretation and reception. This approach touches on Nicolas Bourriaud’s observations on what he coined “relational art”: “the audience is envisaged as a community. Rather than the artwork being an encounter between a viewer and an object, relational art produces inter-subjective encounters. Through these encounters, meaning is elaborated collectively, rather than in the space of individual consumption.” These experimental display interventions also set up a system for response and conversation within the work, providing
a complimentary transference between the space, the curator, the artists, and ultimately the viewer to develop through a sustained professional critique. By tweaking the dynamic, the challenge of this installation will aim to illustrate the possibility of complex associations that come together in one space, where video art and display connect, ultimately pinpointing and exploiting the meeting place between these art forms, the gallery space as social environment and collective spectatorship.