Project: “Thinking Portraits: Mind, Body, Language,” current and ongoing
Thinking Portraits: Mind, Body, Language is a collaborative interdisciplinary art and cognitive neuroscience project that is currently in progress. The three principal investigators are Jan Estep, Art, UMN; Wilma Koutstaal, Psychology, UMN; and Sheng He, Psychology, UMN. Generally we are studying various neural and cognitive properties of semantic knowledge with regard to abstract and concrete language and the role functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) plays in representing scientific findings. Funded by a University Symposium Award and the Institute for Advanced Study. See project page for more information.
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Distribution: Beneath the surface (of language), Silver Island Mountain Byway, Wendover, Utah, USA, June 18, 2010
My latest illustrated map Beneath the surface (of language), Silver Island Mountain Byway, Wendover, Utah, USA (2009) has been accepted for distribution at Printed Matter bookstore in New York. It is available in house and online, where you can also find my other artist publications, Doing Time, Nothing But Time (2009), Hot Air Sincerely (2007), Ad Infinitum and Desert Maps (2005), and my first map, Searching for Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lake Eidsvatnet, Skjolden, Sogn, Norway (2007).
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Artist talk: “Documenting Natural and Conceptual Topographies,” Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, June 12, 2010
As part of the Arboretum’s Photography Symposium: Capturing the Essence of Place, an artist talk and Q and A panel discussion along with photographers Phillip Schwarz and Joel Truckenbrod, 9am to 2pm.
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Published: “Who’s Afraid of Conceptual Art?” Quodlibetica, Constellation 07, April 2010
New essay exploring why artists and viewers resist conceptual art, laying much of the blame on narrow expectations about what art should do and look like and an assumed schism between feeling and thinking, body and mind, that prevents people from perceiving conceptually motivated work. Who’s Afraid of Conceptual Art? (Image by Keith Arnatt, Trouser Word Piece, 1972.)
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Artist talk: Department of Art, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN, April 12, 2010
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Artist talk: “Ordinary Language,” Weisman Art Museum, March 25, 7pm
Exhibition: “Common Sense: Art and the Quotidian,” February 6 to May 23, 2010
In conjunction with the exhibition, “Common Sense: Art and the Quotidian,” which includes my video Time and Time Again, I will present a pecha kucha style talk in response to the question “Art can’t be common, right?” Using a mix of my own work and the work of other artists (above, left a detail from my Hot Air Sincerely, and right, Janine Antoni, Mortar and Pestle), I explore common phrases we say all the time but on reflection turn out to be absurd and strange. Professors Paula Rabinowitz, English, and Jennifer Marshall, Art History, will also be presenting, and curator Diane Mullin moderates. This event is part of the WAM Chatter series; see Weisman Art Museum for more details.
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Public talk with curator Yasmil Raymond: “A Conversation on Art and Discomfort,” Walker Art Center, February 27, 2010, 2pm
To announce the opening of the exhibition “Abstract Resistance” Yasmil and I engaged in an open dialogue about art and ethics, framing the works in the show within a discussion about how art can address death, violence, and conflict in ways that provoke discomfort as well as empathy. Can art make us care? And what is a viewer’s responsibility to such works? We began our conversation in November 2009 and invite the audience to join in during this public edition. Visit Walker Art Center.
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Artist talk: “Mapping Art, Language, World,” Intermix: Art and Language in Independent Publishing, CAA Conference, February 12, 2010, Chicago
A slide presentation featuring my map projects; the panel addresses artist publications of all sorts, and is organized by Sally Alatalo of Sarah Ranchouse Publishing. Visit CAAs website for program details.
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Exhibition: “Claiming Space: The Material and Immaterial of Site and Language,” Quarter Gallery, University of Minnesota, January 22 to February 18, 2010
Curated by Katinka Galanos, this exhibition brings together five Minneapolis-based artists whose work conceptualizes the language and experience of specific, and often invisible spatial boundaries. Both material and immaterial, physical and psychological, acts of describing and inscribing site play an important role in their work. Artists include Juana Berrio, Jan Estep, Janet Lobberecht, Peter Haakon Thompson, and Marcus Young.
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Reading: Franklin Art Works, Reading with Alex Fleming, Jan Estep, and Paige Sweet, January 7, 2010
A reading from Beneath the surface (of language) and Desert Maps, accompanied by recent video filmed in the Great Salt Lake Desert area of Utah. The event celebrates the closing of Alex’s exhibition at Franklin.
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Awarded: Arts Writers Grant, Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation, December 2009 to March 2011
In December 2009 the annual Arts Writers Grants were announced and I received a grant for short-form writing, to support and develop writing projects over the next year and a half. See Arts Writers Grant Program for more information.
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Artist talk: Art Department, University of Wisconsin, Madison, October 27, 2009
Visiting artist talk and graduate studio critiques. See art.wisc.edu for more information.
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Published: Two essays in the new online arts magazine Quodlibetica, Constellation 04, September 2oo9 and Constellation 05, November 2009
Check out two new essays published this fall: “On Disappearing” about the definition of wilderness, disappearing into the wild, and the young artist/explorer Everett Ruess who was last seen wandering into Davis Gulch near Escalante, Utah with his pack mules in 1934; and “What does it mean to kill an animal in the name of art?” about a number of contemporary artworks that involve the death of animals, including a few I experienced during my recent trip to Finland, that question art’s ability to deal with violence and moral relativism.
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Conference talk: “Public or Private, The Use of Art,” Progress or Perish Conference, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland, September 24 to 25, 2009
I presented two papers at the Progress or Perish! – Recognizing the Past, Challenging the Future conference at the University of Lapland: a longer piece titled “Public or Private: The Use of Art” and a shorter presentation titled “An Expanded Idea of Activist Art” in the Activist Art Forum. My colleague Minna Rainio participated too. Visit www.ulapland.fi/progressorperish for the full program. Photo of Rovaniemi along the Kemijoki River.
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Artist Residency: Center for Land Use Interpretation, Wendover, Utah, April 6 to 20, 2009
In mid April I spent two weeks at CLUI’s residency facilities in Wendover, Utah, on the edge of the Utah/Nevada border in the middle of the Great Salt Lake Desert. I wrote and gathered photographic material for a new map project, titled Beneath the surface (of language), Silver Island Mountain Byway, Wendover, Utah, USA, which will be printed this fall. Wendover is a great base station for trips to see Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, just north of Salt Lake City, and Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels, roughly 65 miles north of Wendover in Lucine, Utah. Visit www.clui.org for more information about this region, their residency and exhibition programs, and to peruse their extensive land use data base.
Meet our dog Juniper
Juniper is a Goldendoodle, which is half golden retriever, half standard poodle.
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