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TRANS Curated by Stephen Spurrier and Kyle Jenkins
‘In The Flat Field’ Jeffrey Cortland Jones
This is a wonderful show by Jeffrey Cortland Jones. The work is incredible. See below for more information.
Locating
apprehending then releasing
the resistance of a color then surrendering to it a hard edge as it softens
the slight peeking that come from covering and layering that space between the wall and object
when shallow and deep appear the same
what its like to look through the fog
when a mostly matte surface shifts to a little tinge of gloss that hangs out at the edge that place between misplacing and finding
how white can be both warm and cool at the same time
when you find that correcting is making it worse
the moment when a stable stack is on the verge of collapse when contemplation breaks down and you go for it
- What ideas are you examining though your exhibition at Raygun?
The work at Raygun is a continuation of ongoing research…but smaller in scale. This exhibition has given me the freedom to be looser and make work not so precious.
- What are the ideas that surround your work/your practice?
I really interested in building up and taking back down. Layering and covering past decisions. I am interested in the shifting subtlety of color.
- What are your influences/other interests?
My work has varied and vast influences. Visually; Fergus Feehily, Ian Kiaer, Andrew Bick, Gordon Moore, Ron Buffing ton, the quilts of Gee’s Bend, and Denyse Schmidt to start. Sonically; the Smiths, the XX, the Cure, the Pet Shop Boys, New Order, Depeche Mode, Soft Kill, Skeleton Hands, the Dead Kennedys, Silverstein, Thursday. Other influences are without pause; the way skateboarding affects its physical environment. It’s the way hard concrete ledge softens after it has been skated. Or the painted marks left on a handrail from a skateboard sliding down it. Or the grimy marks drawn on the wall from a wall ride. Graffiti/tagging is also a major component to my practice. Not the act of making but rather the battle that takes place between artists and the officials. I get excited to see how tags get buffed out and painted over…and how the color used to cover is never correct.
Jeffrey Cortland Jones
AN ACT OF SHOWING
We’re super happy to be participating in the project ‘An Act of Showing’ in Melbourne, which is a material conversation about artist-runs and ‘place’. A number of artists run spaces have been asked to contribute a work that best represents their project space. Each work is exhibited together as a way to delve deeper into the conversation about the ARI, past funding models, histories and collective visions, towards provoking conversations about and between ARI’s which will focus on ‘place’ and ‘situatedness’.
If you’re in Melbourne later this month, swing by and check it out, as well as RAYGUN’s contribution and extended project Sharing Loving Giving. xx
FICTION (With Only Daylight Between Us) v2 with 200 artists from 16 Countries
Fiction (With Only Daylight Between Us) . v2
A social experiment featuring 200 artists from 16 countries, curated by Jeffrey Cortland Jones.
Dave Ackels . OhioLuke Ahern . Ohio
Steven Alexander . Pennsylvania
Matthew Allen . Netherlands
Ky Anderson . New York
Rosaire Appel . New York
Hernan Ardila . Spain
Nicholaus Arnold . Ohio
Chris Ashley . California
Jimmy Baker . Ohio
Steven Baris . Pennsylvania
Andi Baumgartner . Ohio
Paul Behnke . New York
Russell Beighton . China
Michael Bennett . Germany
Michelle Benoit . Rhode Island
Emily Berger . New York
Joshua Bienko . Tennessee
Arvid Boecker . Germany
Christine Boiry . France
Tom Bolles . California
Dustyn Bork . Arkansas
Mark Bradley-Shoup . Tennessee
Darden Bradshaw . Ohio
Ian Breidenbach . Ohio
Michael Brennan . New York
Valerie Brennan . Cyprus
Mary Bucci McCoy . Massachusetts
Timothy Buckwalter . California
Ron Buffington . Tennessee
Phillip Buntin . Ohio
Colin Canary . Canada
Marc Cheetham . New Jersey
Todd Chilton . Illinois
Mary F. Coats . California
Lucinda Cobley . Texas
Bethanie Collins . Missouri
James Collins . Michigan
Jeffrey Collins . Ohio
Vincent Como . New York
Michael Conlan . Ohio
Alex Couwenberg . California
Deb Covell . England
Colby Currie . Texas
Brian Cypher . Washington
Rob de Oude . New York
Carly Dahl . Arkansas
Douglas Degges . Tennessee
Mairead Delaney / Rae Goodwin . Illinois / Kentucky
Daniel DeLuna . New York
Peter Demos . New York
Ludovic Dervillez . France
Susan Dory . Washington
Laura Duerwald . Pennsylvania
Tom Duimstra . Michigan
Brian Edmonds . Alabama
Greg Fadell . Michigan
Richard Feaster . Tennessee
Gabriele Fedele . Italy
Maxwell Feldmann . Ohio
Juan Fernandez . Illinois
Matthew Feyld . Canada
Stuart Fineman . Pennsylvania
Russell Floersch . New York
Benjamin Gardner . Iowa
Matthew Neil Gehring . New York
Arjen Geurts . Netherlands
Timothy Gierschick II . Pennsylvania
Alan Greenberg . Pennsylvania
Billy Gruner . Australia
Feng Guo . New York
Sharon Hall . England
Evan Halter . New Jersey
Hollis Hammonds . Texas
Hanz Hancock . England
Darren Haper . Ohio
Jodi Hays . Tennessee
Jeanne Heifetz . New York
Rachel Hellmann . Indiana
- Nigh Herndon . Oklahoma
Howard Hersh . California
Gabriele Herzog . England
Justine Hill . New York
Ruth Hiller . Colorado
Courtney Hoelscher . Michigan
Daniel Hollier . Australia
Harold Hollingsworth . Washington
Jan Holthoff . Germany
Claire Robertson Houghton . Ohio
Gilbert Hsiao . New York
Gina Hunt . Illinois
David Hytone . Washington
Julian Jackson . New York
Dorothee Joachim . Germany
Celia Johnson . North Carolina
Ron Johnson . Virginia
Ashley Jonas . Ohio
Heather Jones . Ohio
Jeffrey Cortland Jones . Ohio
Julie Jones . Ohio
Suzanne Laura Kammin . New Jersey
Jason Karolak . New York
Jeff Kellar . Maine
Eric Keller . Tennessee
Laura Sue King . New York
Rick Klauber . New York
René Korten . Netherlands
Alicia LaChance . Missouri
Jason Lahr . Indiana
Rudy Lanjouw . Netherlands
Matthew Langley . New York
Emma Langridge . Australia
Bonny Leibowitz . Texas
Daniel Levine . New York
Geno Luketic . Ohio
Hannah Luxton . England
Matthew Macaulay . England
Christopher Manning . New York
Pedro Matos . Portugal
Joanne Mattera . New York
Jeff Maurer . Ohio
Tim McFarlane . Pennsylvania
Rob Meehan . Ireland
Dennis Meier . Germany
Derek Meier . Minnesota
Phillip J. Mellen . Massachusetts
David T. Miller . Pennsylvania
Lucy Mink-Covello . New Hampshire
Marc Mitchell . Arkansas
Matt Morris . Illinois
Alexandra Morrissette . Pennsylvania
Patrick Morrissey . England
James Austin Murray . New York
Melissa Newman . Tennessee
Brooke Nixon . Maine
Sean Oswald . Ohio
Alex Paik . New York
Daniel Pfalzgraf . Kentucky
Charley Peters . England
Gary Petersen . New York
Kyle and Kelly Phelps . Ohio
Marion Piper . England
Sue Post . Massachusetts
William Potter . Indiana
Debra Ramsay . New York
Sue Ravitz . New York
Peter Reginato . New York
Emil Robinson . Ohio
Jason Rohlf . New York
Kimberly Rowe . California
Christopher Rico . South Carolina
Eric Ruschman . Illinois
Anne Russinof . New York
Nick Satinover . Tennessee
John Sabraw . Ohio
Amy Sacksteder . Michigan
Joe Saunders . Tennessee
Karen Schifano . New York
Manuel Schmettau . New York
Pete Schulte . Alabama
Tim Schwartz . Pennsylvania
Diane Scott . Australia
Zach Searcy . Tennessee
Peter Shear . Indiana
Robert Sherrill . New York
Gabriel J. Shuldiner . New York
Suzan Shutan . Connecticut
Bobby Sinclair . Scotland
Dana Smith . Missouri
Ty Smith . Alabama
Jessica Snow . California
John Sousa . Ohio
Benjamin Lee Sperry . New York
Jered Sprecher . Tennessee
Clary Stolte . Netherlands
Lars Strandh . Norway
Krista Svalbonas . Illinois
Nick Szymanski . Michigan
John Tallman . Tennessee
Struan Teague . Denmark
Aimee Terburg . Netherlands
Julie Torres . New York
Richard van der Aa . France
Jasper van der Graaf . Netherlands
Cecilia Vissers . Netherlands
Christina Renfer Vogel . Tennessee
Don Voisine . New York
Seth Wade . Ohio
Mark Wethli . Maine
Joel Whitaker . Ohio
Jason Willaford . Texas
David Willburn . Texas
Michael Wille . Illinois
Paige Williams . Ohio
Werner Windisch . Germany
Douglas Witmer . Pennsylvania
Stephen Wright . Kentucky
Eric Yevak . New York
Patricia Zarate . New York
Mark Zimmermann . New York
Tamar Zinn . New York
Vinson Valega
We met Vinson Valega (fondly known as Vins) through Sharon Louden during her book launch/trip to Toowoomba. We are feeling the need to take a moment to acknowledge the amazing human and musician. We are thrilled and are feeling need to share. I have included links below to the pages for the two albums that we have the privilege of owning. This will take you to essays that Vins has written about the albums, as well as poetry, and MP3s. enjoy x
Jeffrey Cortland Jones
Artist As Culture Producer book launch
On Friday we picked up our visitors Sharon Louden, Vinson Valega, Hrag Vartanian, Veken Gueyikian and Gina Fairley from Brisbane airport, then home via a pit stop to check out the roos on the way back to Toowoomba. The night was spent sharing a meal together with non stop conversations about the idea of the artist as a culture producer. The following morning we invited artists from our community to join us for breakfast and meet out visitors then on the Toowoomba library for the Artist As Culture Producer book launch.
The launch was welcomed by Federal member for parliament Dr John McVeigh and MC’d by local councillor Geoff McDonald. Sharon and Hrag discussed different essays by artists taken from the book and the launch ended with discussions from the audience surrounding ideas of the artist and their value as an active and important fabric of all communities. The main theme of the discussion was that the artist needs to create their own opportunities by stepping out of their studios and collaborate with different sectors of the community. Sharon and Hrag fly the flag for the artist to value their time and skills, in turn breaking the age old notion of the poor struggling artist. The event was sponsored by NAVA (National Association of Visual Arts), and it felt good to be able to share the importance of the NAVA pay rates available for Australian artists to incorporate into their arts businesses.
After the book signing we headed back off to Brisbane for a second book launch at Queensland Gallery of Modern Art and then on to a final dinner together in Brisbane’s West End. We miss our visitors already and are super grateful they took the time to join us in regional Queensland. They finish their Australian trip with a visit to Warlukurlangu Artist Run Space in Alice Springs and then home to New York.
SHARON LOUDEN AND HRAG VARTANIAN
We are super stoked to be receiving Sharon Louden and Hrag Vartanian from New York City this Friday in Toowoomba for the book launch of her new book The Artist As Culture Producer. They will be launching at The University of NSW, Carriageworks, RAYGUN PROJECTS, QAGOMA and Ularu. Register your free Eventbrite tickets to the book launch and discussion on Saturday click here . Seats at the Toowoomba Library are limited and filling fast.
We are super thankful to NAVA for their support in bringing them to us and helping enable this event.
This book has been released on Amazon for just a few months and already has been selling fast. Here’s an excerpt of the book. When Living and Sustaining a Creative Life was published in 2013, it became an immediate sensation. Edited by Sharon Louden, the book brought together forty essays by working artists, each sharing their own story of how to sustain a creative practice that contributes to the ongoing dialogue in contemporary art. The book struck a nerve—how do artists really make it in the world today? Louden took the book on a sixty-two-stop book tour, selling thousands of copies, and building a movement along the way.
Now, Louden returns with a sequel: forty more essays from artists who have successfully expanded their practice beyond the studio and become change agents in their communities. There is a misconception that artists are invisible and hidden, but the essays here demonstrate the truth—artists make a measurable and innovative economic impact in the non-profit sector, in education, and in corporate environments. The Artist as Culture Producer illustrates how today’s contemporary artists add to creative economies through out-of-the-box thinking while also generously contributing to the well-being of others.
By turns humorous, heartbreaking, and instructive, the testimonies of these forty diverse working artists will inspire and encourage every reader—from the art student to the established artist. With a foreword by Hyperallergic cofounder and editor-in-chief Hrag Vartanian, The Artist as Culture Producer is set to make an indelible mark on the art world—redefining how we see and support contemporary artists.
Louden’s worldwide book tour begins in March 2017. More information and tour dates can be found online at http://www.livesustain.org.
Stephan Moore Cont.
We always ask our artists a few questions in regards to their shows with us and their practices. Here is our dialogue with Stephan
1. What ideas are you examining though your exhibition at RAYGUN?
I am interested in systems that we take for granted until they stop working, so I am interested in attention and its management. This piece speaks to how the systems we have created to transmit information emulate human attention, “multi-tasking”, and have the potential to destroy the messages they convey through their inattention/split attention. I am interested in the value we place on attention. I am also interested in the artifacts created by the destruction of messages, and how these artifacts can accrue their own meaning and value. The sounds produced in the gallery, in the room that contains and shapes the sounds, take on a special quality simply by their status of occupying a gallery. The intelligibility of the original signal, and the intelligibility of the damage the signal has suffered, become the objects of our attention as we listen. We try to discern what is going on. I am interested in failure and in incomprehension, but I am most interested in creating a space for exploring the assembly or reassembly of ideas in the sonic sphere — how sound delivers information in real time, and the rhythm of how meaning is received. I usually find myself pursuing the activation of what Chris Mann calls “machines for making sense”, i.e. the conscious mind of each listener, and providing rich, raw material for these “Machines” to work on, puzzle out, extract information from, and assemble an understanding of. International politics and surveillance culture are also in here, somewhere. Or maybe these issues are now identical.
2. What are the ideas that surround your work/your practice?
I think a lot through listening, and I find that my experience of aural perception, of being a human with the capacity to sense sound, informs the path I take more than any other factor. I became an artist because I believe in the transformational power of concentrated perception. I feel a responsibility to both sharpen my own awareness, and to create works that invite others to do the same.
I’m fascinated with simple systems that exhibit unpredictable behavior when brought into contact with the material world. Whether through faulty mechanics, human error, or chaotic acoustics, the emergent traits exhibited by these systems afford their audience (including myself) opportunities to experience strange beauty and stumble upon unplanned insights. In such systems, a failure to behave “properly” is the starting point for experimentation and exploration.
As a social animal, I greatly value the collaborative process and the capacity of artwork to create and sustain community. The majority of my larger projects have been undertaken in a collaborative context because I find solitary art-making lonely and long-term friendships and collaborations to be nourishing and productive. When my work begins as a conversation between myself and other minds, I find it retains a greater capacity for continuing that conversation with its audience.
3. What are your influences/other interests?
My work with Pauline Oliveros, and her concept of Deep Listening, had a profound effect on me at a critical moment in my development, when I was trying to figure out how to transition from being a singer and a composer of fixed scores to being an electronics improvisor and a sound artist making more open-ended works. She had a talent for saying something simple and profound at exactly the moment when I needed to hear it, exposing and disrupting my most unhelpful mental routines and helping me to think about my practice differently.
At the same time I began working with Pauline, I came across an article by Katharine Norman, a composer celebrated in the field of Acoustic Ecology. She writes: “Our ordinary listening is itself a complex, multi-layered activity of which hearing is but a part. In going about our everyday listening lives we take – I suggest – several different, but interdependent, stances, which amount to a dynamic construct. References, memories, associations, symbols – all contribute to our understanding of sonic meaning. Rather than deprive us of this activity, the real-world composer can treat it as a creative force, one which may be influenced, changed or subtlely directed to give us an enriched understanding of real-world sounds : listening is as much a ‘material’ for the composer as the sounds themselves.” I owe a lot of inspiration to the field of Acoustic Ecology and the work and teachings of its luminaries, but this idea of listening as a compositional domain remains most profound and instructive for me.
My six years working for the choreographer Merce Cunningham, and with the amazing musicians who surrounded him, proved to me the benefits of letting go of parts of my process and turning some of the work over to the winds of chance that are blowing all around me. I learned to trust that a touch of indeterminacy often grants access to experiences outside of the realm of my imagination, which I’ve come to regard as a preferable terrain to explore… the air is fresher there.
Finally, I am constantly inspired by my peers, by the artists I collaborate with and who share their practice with me. The choreographer and artist Yanira Castro I have worked with for over 10 years at this point, and my friendship and collaboration with sound artist Scott Smallwood is nearing two decades, just to mention two among many. I am moved by their brilliance and humanity and generosity — my best qualities as an artist and a human are things I have learned by observing them.
RAYGUN 