Detroit's Museum of New Art (MONA) is proud to announce its second exhibition exploring regional artists and their artwork. DETROIT NOW, the first such exhibition was conceived in February of 2002. At that time, the museum sought to coordinate with regional galleries in showcasing the best and brightest of new, young talent working in the metropolitan area.

The idea was to create a museum that would work in a concerted effort with the galleries of the region: in order to create, in theory, an exhibition without walls.

The idea was also to create a sort of biennial out of it all, since the list of such young talent is always refreshing itself. That show was an enormous success in 2003.

The MONA exhibition of 12 regional artists’ works, in all media - painting, works on paper, sculpture, installation, film/video, performance, photography, textiles, web-based and interactive art - will be on view from July 15 through August 13.

@ the Museum of New Art

July 15 thru August 13

Opening reception: Friday, July 15th from 7 to 10pm

regular hours: 12-6pm Thursday through Saturday

MONA is located at 7 N. Saginaw, Pontiac

tel: 248-210-7560

THE DETROITER

ARTDAILY

MOMENTUM

FREE PRESS

     Lisa Dillin

was born in Silver Spring, Maryland, and received a BFA from Atlanta College of Art in 1998. After graduation, she returned to Maryland where she had several solo exhibitions in Baltimore including Maryland Art Place. Her current work is carved entirely out of wood and finished with acrylic paint. Her concepts often live within the realm of the political and could be seen as a mirror of both our time and of personal interests.

     Chris Erchick

combines emotionally inert materials into constructions which convey an emotional state that transports the viewer in unexpected ways.

     Anthony Frazzini

Luxurious and elegant, fatigued and real. one could use these adjectives to describe Frazzini’s videos, which have been made precisely to capture the movements of unsettled and fluctuated emotional and physical interaction. Combining methods of pre-planned improv and cinema verite, these videos were made in hopes of capturing the real, placed within surreal landscape and scenarios as an antithesis to the current advent of Reality TV and media. The aesthetic strays away from the clean, crisp, high-def images of modern projection, and dives straight forward into a vat of blurred and over-exposed movements, thus accentuating the movement and blurring out the useless information that we, as the public, have become so accustomed to accept.

                 Marie Gardeski

A kitten (or baby tiger) batting at a leaf. Practicing to kill.

A little girl holding and scolding babies in grocery store checkout lanes.

Reading nutrition facts.

For future reference.

Some scenarios may seem innocent enough, but upon closer inspection unmistakable sadness (however expected or accepted it may be) becomes apparent.

Gardeski explores the relationship between humor and the uncanny as she creates familiar, yet disturbing scenes sometimes involving violence, usually evoking pathos. Characters appear and reappear.

Never learning lessons.

                 Aaron Hillman

Dark brown cocktails on the rocks in clear high-ball glasses, the slow
methodic thumping of ambient music in the background, and the subtle golden glow of light coming from the lamp in the corner, are all part of the space that Hillman pictures during the creation of his objects. These pieces start as highly designed objects that resemble furniture that is “left” of functional in their role with the user. Their attempt to lure the inhabitant toward leisurely activity is thwarted by the fact that they are built at a scale where interacting with them is uncomfortable and frustrating. It is at that point where the objects pick up a sense of humor. The components of orange Formica, brown vinyl, and wood paneling reference a time when leisure in society was valued in the human condition.

Awkward design can most affectively be achieved through a shift in scale from what is considered the nominal size of an object. In Hillman's sense of design he finds gratification in going against the tradition of ergonomics in design, and create objects that contain a rumpus room aesthetic but function awkwardly.

      Matt Monroe

builds machines that give motion to something that does not normally move, or makes something move in an unexpected way.  With one of these machines he can express an emotion or describe the complex relationship between the user or audience and the moving thing.

        Cynthia Randolph

questions how we can slow down and fully experience the moment in our current culture with its industrious notions of time.  Her work explores the ways in which our increased ability for connection digitally has made it seemingly easier to stay connected, but has at the same time facilitated disconnection: we email waiting in-line for our coffee, talk on our cell phone to our family as we rush to work and then we have virtual relationships with people who have virtual names and identities. She asks, what experiences transcend the hurried pace?  For her investigations, she primarily uses the medium of video because its intrinsic incorporeal properties resonate with her studies of time and intimacy in our digital age.  

Randolph was born in Washington, DC. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in English Literature from University of Wisconsin-Madison and has just recently completed her Masters of Fine Arts in Sculpture at Cranbrook Academy of Art. 

      Matt Schlian

is a 24 years old artist from Connecticut.  Currently a graduate student at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, he is specializing in the Printmedia Department. Trained formally as a Paper Engineer, Shlian’s work deals with paper exploration in ways such as die cutting, sculpture, interactive books and as printed matter.

     Jeffrey Schweitzer

is from Chicago.  He received his BFA in Painting and Drawing from Columbia College Chicago. Schweitzer 's work includes a mixture of photography, video, animation, and voice over. Recently his work has included audience propelled drawing reels that create an intimate cinematic experience.

     Andrew Simsak

resides somewhere between phenomenology, sociology and the carnival side show, creating steel harnesses outfitted with cameras and microphones that function as extensions of the body, altering perception through a physical displacement of traditional perspective.  Self-inflating spaces and clothing futilely jockey for personal space and privacy, transforming the wearer into a confined spectacle. An apparatus worn for 5 days collapses past and present, blurring public and private actions by continually broadcasting what it records 90 minutes later. Interactive and performative in nature, Simsak challenges the distinction of audience and art while involving the viewer or himself in a direct, visceral experience. Using electronics, video monitors and surveillance cameras which comment on technology’s influence on our perception, both of our environment and of ourselves, he infuses the everyday with the fantasy of an even more virtual reality.

          Amanda Thatcher

is interested in what home and permanence mean to an individual in the face of population movement. She hopes to find clues as to how issues of money, conformity versus individuality, memory, and travel contribute to where and how we choose to live. Her work investigates the fragile balance we strike between convenience, status, and necessity in our search for a home that will make us happy.

    Andrew Thompson

works with clothing both as subject matter and as a medium to discuss aspects of ones identity that are shared in a public forum. Thompson is interested in how people become “branded” and how branding is a replacement for regionalism and locational identity. People need no longer to be burdened by race, place, or patriotism to feel like they belong. Mobility between one “place” and another can be as easy as a change of clothes.