EXPOSE is the first in a series of exhibitions in the Contemporary Arts Center’s (CAC) display windows facing St. Joseph Street. Curated by a group of interns in the Visual Arts Department and overseen by the Director of Visual Arts, this project is the result of numerous conversations about the possibilities and limitations of curatorial practice. Through this mentorship program, aspiring curators and artists gain invaluable experience into the process of organizing a project in a contemporary arts institution. EXPOSE provides a platform for fostering understanding and appreciation of the role of the curator by addressing pragmatic responsibilities and exploring compelling programmatic content.

For the inaugural EXPOSE project, Angela Driscoll, Taney Roniger, and Ying Zhu were asked to address the restrictions, while simultaneously embracing the potential for this unique, yet often overlooked space. Each of these artists share an interest in the ways in which communication and data are transferred and processed through varying techniques of repetition and pattern, paralleling those inherent in the natural world. The positing of each installation in a public space allows for multiple viewing experiences throughout the day and night by passersby as well as visitors to the CAC. By employing this unique exhibition space—considering its location, function, and potential for artistic experimentation—this initiative cultivates relationships locally, nationally, and internationally among contemporary artists, the public, and the CAC.

Curated by the Visual Arts Department Interns:
Angela Berry
Christina Heppard
Libby Vieira da Cunha
Emily Wilkerson

Special thanks to Skin Horse Productions for facilitating the lighting for this exhibition!

Angela Driscoll explores time and narrative through the creation of visual and audio work. Systematizing information is central to Driscoll’s practice and her process often begins by arranging or re-arranging a particular set of data. After information is gathered and organized, a pattern emerges. This is referred to by Driscoll as ”information aesthetic,” a concept that complements the methods of categorization already present within a particular system. Driscoll has described herself as an artist who might have also been a scientist and this is reflected in her work, which has translated even the most elusive of human experiences—moods and feelings—into her own logical science. Previous bodies of her work have examined a wide range of subjects such as earthquakes, blogs, and urban water removal processes.

For EXPOSE, Driscoll—by means of photo documentation—has recreated Score for LOC Call Numbers, a site-specific installation originally presented at Tulane University’s Nadine Vorhoff Library in LOSS.RITUAL.RELIC. Residue: The Archive. The exhibition was organized by local artist Jan Gilbert through The Vestiges Project (a local artist collective) as a satellite exhibition for the inaugural biennial of Prospect New Orleans in 2008. Patterns are represented both visually and aurally in this work through a modified version of the call numbers used by the Library of Congress to organize books. For Driscoll’s version, shelves of library books were covered with colorful paper sleeves and stickers that referenced each book’s assigned call number. To allow the books to remain in circulation, the original call numbers remained on the spine of each book. Driscoll’s playful construction expands our knowledge of how information can be processed and displayed and reminds us that the library, as a house of knowledge, ultimately seeks to extend our awareness of the world. A score, which can be accessed by dialing 504.355.0083, references the dots on the spine of each book with an audio translation of this unique classification system. AB

Angela Driscoll’s work includes artist books, drawings, installations, video, and sound. She received a B.A. from Loyola University New Orleans and a M.F.A. from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia in Book Arts and Printmaking. Her work has been exhibited in Philadelphia and New Orleans, and is included in the collections at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Special Collections, Omaha; The University of the Arts, Special Collections, Philadelphia; and The University of Washington, Special Collections Library, Seattle. She currently teaches at Loyola University New Orleans and is an active member of Press Street’s Antenna Gallery, a non-profit collaborative project space in New Orleans.

Taney Roniger’s work traces the dichotomy of the natural and technological aspects of our daily lives. Through the use of patterning and repetitive mark making, Roniger references organic life forms, such as botanical environments, as well as the methods used to display cellular structures, such as DNA strands. In doing so, she constructs a metaphor for an implicit natural order that is both chaotic and unified. Exploring the drive for advanced biological technology, Roniger addresses these oppositional yet complementary elements of digital and analog processes through detailed work made explicitly by hand.

For EXPOSE, Roniger has created a diptych, which pairs a piece of drywall pierced by nails with a large-scale work on paper. Side by side the components transform the window space into what the artist refers to as a codex. The Latin origin for “code,” “codex” also describes a tablet or a book. Cellscape Codex is inspired by Roniger’s “Cellular Automata Series,” a number of works that are composed of intricately patterned landscapes on canvas and paper that respond to the digital language of computer-generated images. In Cellscape Codex, Roniger references this series conceptually, though she alters previous structures she has made by incorporating light. This addition accentuates the carefully placed incisions in both the paper and the wall, while also forming additional layers of pattern through shadows. EW

Born and raised in New Orleans, Taney Roniger has resided in New York City since 1989, where she attended the School of Visual Arts. After receiving her B.F.A. in 1992, she received an M.F.A. from Yale University in 1997. Since the late 1990’s, Roniger has been exhibiting her work internationally. She has been the recipient of a number of awards and honors, including a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and three fellowships at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY. Roniger is currently a faculty member at the School of Visual Arts, where she teaches drawing in the Fine Arts Department and Honors Program.

Ying Zhu’s work considers the complexities of communication by deconstructing the verbal and visual role of language. By addressing the graphic characteristics of text, she makes it possible to better understand how letters and words can serve as both a barrier and a bridge between cultures. In Crossing River by Touching Stones, the letter N is used to simultaneously refer to New Orleans (the site of the project) and Nebraska (the state where Zhu resides).

For EXPOSE, Zhu meticulously composed the chosen letter into a structure of delicate lines and patterns, repurposing the letter’s function as a symbol of communication and reconsidering it as an object. The repetition in Zhu’s work invites the viewer into the artist’s intrinsic process of interpreting English from a bilingual perspective and focuses not only on the linguistic value of text, but also its physical nature. The interplay between two- and three- dimensionality in Crossing River by Touching Stones emphasizes the perpetual liminal state of traversing a cultural boundary. In the artist’s words, “Two- and three- dimensional works tend to speak multiple languages and yet are able to understand/communicate with each other. I try to intensify this dependency and obscurity, blur the line between the two dimensions in my work.” LV

Ying Zhu was born and raised in Lanzhou, China. She received a B.S. in Management Information Systems from The University of Nebraska, Omaha, and an M.F.A. from The University of Nebraska, Lincoln, in 2010. She has been included in numerous exhibitions in Nebraska, Alabama, Texas, and Iowa. She will be an artist in residence at The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha in 2011.