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Joseph Schneider Exhibition at Marylhurst University
For Release: July 24, 2006September 5 – October 15, 2006
Reception: 3 to 5 pm, Sunday, September 10, 2006
Gallery talk: 12 noon, Thursday, October 5, 2006
Marylhurst University will present Joseph Schneider: Lawnmower Lady and the Whisper of Truth in The Art Gym, September 5 – October 15. A reception for the artist is Sunday, September 10, from 3 to 5 p.m. The artist’s gallery talk is at noon, Thursday, October 5.
The Art Gym exhibition will include large-scale mixed media sculptures and paintings by Joseph Schneider. This is the first major presentation of Schneider’s work in Oregon. A native of Spokane, Washington, Schneider returned to the Northwest in 2001 after pursuing his career in New York City for sixteen years. The move was precipitated by quadrupling rent rates on his East Village studio and apartment, juxtaposed with the lure of a home, five acres and two barns in the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area, where he now lives.
Schneider has exhibited at P.S.1, the Drawing Center and other spaces in New York; Fundació La Caixa in Barcelona, Spain; Center for Contemporary Art in Seattle, Washington; and the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art in Ohio. While in New York, he participated in P.S.1's National Studio Program. Since moving to Oregon, Schneider has been honored with a 2004 Oregon Arts Commission Artist Fellowship and a 2005 Creative Capital Foundation grant.
The Art Gym is located on the third floor of the B.P. John Building on the Marylhurst University campus, ten minutes south of Portland, Oregon on Highway 43. The Art Gym is open from noon to 4:00 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is free.
MORE ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Notes from Curator Terri M. Hopkins
According to curator Terri Hopkins, Joseph Schneider’s work often addresses current events and persistent social concerns. One of his best-known works is The Sea of Tranquility. This five mast schooner is modeled after German ships built early in the twentieth century, that were melted down as World War II scrap. Schneider’s ship flies multiple small sails made of fabric found in dumpsters, fabric shops, foreign countries, thrift stores and the artist’s closet. These fabrics are combined with flags of the member countries of the United Nations, to suggest a metaphor for the ragtag state of contemporary peace efforts.
Other works address war. Last Letters, for example, is a ten-foot square assemblage of dried roses, antique optician test lenses, a male torso x-ray, and copies of handwritten World War II correspondence. The squares containing the roses and x-ray form a cross. The letters, Letzte Briefe zum Tode Verurteilter 1939-1945 (Last Letters from Men Sentenced to Death 1939-1945), were written by German soldiers sent to the Russian front – a virtual death sentence.
Many of Schneider’s artworks demonstrate an optimism tinged with irony, or an innocence tempered by loss. The Song Innocence Hears is a wall-size painting initially completed for an exhibition at P.S.1 in Brooklyn in 1988. After the events of September 11, 2001, Schneider reworked the painting, adding halos to the eight female figures who float among the city’s skyscrapers. The artist writes:
On September 11, 2001 I was moving into a new studio in Oregon, and during the disaster and days afterward I found myself thinking about the painting again. … Much of the imagery and the words I had written on it seemed to apply, but something seemed to call for updating. I worked on the painting again over the next five years, feeling that it was a lost artifact of the city, and my relationship to it: the soul, the energy, and spirit. I put halos around the human images – it was my way of participating in the suffering, and hoping for the best.
The Art Gym is also presenting Infinity Net: Translator Stations. The towers that make up this installation are airy wire constructions ranging in height from eight to fifteen feet. They are strung with thousands of "Holy Cards," which the artist cut from wallpaper, letters, found photographs and pieces of paper combined with beads and small objects one might pick up on the street. Together the structures form a cityscape. The strings remind one of prayer cards, the windows in tall buildings and the individual and collective lives represented by the windows.
Founded in the fall of 1980, The Art Gym at Marylhurst University has a 26 year history of presenting work by hundreds of artists based in the Northwest. The Art Gym has published more than 50 exhibition catalogues, and sponsored more than 100 conversations about art in the region. In 2004-2005, The Art Gym was a recipient of the Governor’s Arts Award.