Jennifer Strunge, "Eyepiece" OPENS THURSDAY NOVEMBER 6

Please join us this Thursday evening to celebrate the opening of "Eyepiece," a new minstallation by Jennifer Strunge.

An indisputable phenomeon the DIY art/craft scene, Jennifer Strunge’s goofy, stuffed Cotton Monsters are instantly recognizable and have been shipped throughout the world. With Eyepiece, her creatures inhabit the space like a dark corner of your imagination, peering back out at you. A Baltimore native and practicing artist and puppeteer since preschool, Strunge’s work begs to be touched and doesn’t take itself too seriously. She works almost exclusively with recycled cloth, giving old clothes, blankets, and linens an entirely new life as they are reconstructed into comforting (if bizarre) quilts, monsters and soft sculptures.

The reception is Thursday, November 6 from 6 PM - 8 PM. Eyepiece will be on view until December 20.

Best City Paper

Thanks to Baltimore's City Paper for mentioning the Minstallation Gallery in the '08 "Best Of Baltimore" issue. Credit is due not only to those folks mentioned in the article, but to Jed and everybody else at the Creative Alliance; thanks also to Matt McConville who made the space look so great.


Keep an eye out for more excellent shows, including let it out and let it in, our season-opener by Geoff Grace.

Geoff Grace, "let it out and let it in" OPENS SEPTEMBER 13

Geoff Grace inaugurates the fall season with a new minstallation opening this Saturday, September 13, from 5 - 7 PM.

let it out and let it in is the artist's first project since winning the 2008 Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize. In this quiet celebration of the wide open spaces of pop songs and the American highway, billboards pass by with the gentle rhythm of a road trip, slowly unfolding the lyrics to "Hey Jude."


An artist, musician, and teacher, Geoff Grace has exhibited frequently in the galleries and alternative spaces of Baltimore, including exhibits at the BMA in 2005 and 2007. He has also shown his work in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Grace is known for packing grand statements into elegant packages, and his understated sensibility is a natural fit for the Minstallation Gallery.

Video Killed the Minstallation Star

I know what you've been thinking this August.

You've been thinking, "I'd like to hear Minstallation Gallery curator R.L. Tillman squeak out some semi-coherent thoughts about minstallation art, and more specifically, about Laura Amussen's Lady Chapel. "

Well, it's your lucky day! RadarRedux has posted some images of the show, along with a phone interview with yours truly.



Thanks to RadarRedux and Joan Spirytus. Lady Chapel runs through August 16.

Laura Amussen, "Lady Chapel" OPENS JUNE 21

Lady Chapel, a new minstallation by Baltimore sculptor Laura Amussen, opens Saturday June 21 with a reception from 4 - 7 PM. The piece will remain on view through August 16.

ABOUT THE SHOW:

Peeking through the gothic windows of Amussen's minstallation, are images of Madonnas, Virgin Marys and other various women cut from old art text books. Amussen has displaced these women, literally cutting them from their roles as mothers, lovers, friends, and wives.
Now their gazes and bodies are redirected towards one another in a semi-erotic fashion. The title Lady Chapel references the eastern end of a gothic church which is usually square and dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Influenced by environmental concerns as well as the rapaciousness of globalization, Amussen's work has evolved to encompass aspects of landscape and architecture in order to create metaphors of psychological space. In an increasingly globalized culture, a growing sense of placelessness makes it more and more difficult for us to place our own identities. Amussen studies both geographical and psychological dislocation and its attendant complexities, as well as antidotes to the prevailing need to belong somewhere.

Learn more about the work of Laura Amussen at the artist's website.

"View from a Vista-Dome: Dazzle Cities" minstallation views

James Reeder has created an illusive, elusive, and genuinely magical world inside the confines of our tiny gallery, and it must be seen to be believed.

In other words: View from a Vista-Dome: Dazzle Cities is a MUST-SEE!





* My apologies to James Reeder (a gifted photographer) for these 'hack' images. I took the photos tonight and just had to post them. James did a marvelous job with his minstallation, and it must be shared!

James Reeder, "View from a Vista-Dome: Dazzle Cities" OPENS MAY 3

James Reeder is a photographer and sculptor living in New York. Reeder brings his singular point of view to the Creative Alliance with his new minstallation View from a Vista-Dome: Dazzle Cities. The exhibition opens May 3 and runs through June 13.

Please welcome James to Baltimore this Saturday May 3 at an opening reception from 4 - 6 PM. Refreshments will be served!

ABOUT THE SHOW:

NYC’s James Reeder is known for his small, atmospheric photographs of delicately constructed model environments. Though related in concept to photographers like Thomas Demand, whose images of constructed spaces are mistaken for the real thing, Reeder’s images are distorted and the models clearly handmade. Depicting blurry cityscapes or the aftermath of epic natural events, they feel simultaneously archaic and timeless, reducing colossal and long-enduring structures to fragile and transitory symbols of utopia.

Learn more about the work of James Reeder at his website.

Public Print Lab Closes Tomorrow

Thanks to Bruce, Nolen, and Justin for an amazing, innovative minstallation!

Public Print Lab images

Public Print Lab, minstallation by Post-Typography. Email images to print@publicprintlab.com.






publicprintlab.com

Public Print Lab by Post-Typography OPENS MARCH 15

Public Print Lab, a new minstallation by Post-Typography, opens Saturday March 15, 4-6 PM.

Avant garde design subversives Nolen Strals and Bruce Willen, aka Post Typography, convert the gallery into a miniature, quasi-automated, open source publishing house. Images emailed to print@publicprintlab.com during the run of the exhibition will print out in the gallery and be bound and published as a book at its end. Making waves nationally since 2001, Post Typography has received numerous fancy design awards and been featured in such publications as Ellen Lupton’s Thinking With Type and D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself, The Art of Modern Rock, Metropolis magazine, and Taschen’s Contemporary Graphic Design. They specialize in conceptual typography and custom lettering, with forays into art, apparel, music, curatorial work and vandalism. Technical assistance for Public Print Lab provided by Justin Blemly of beatbots.com, DIY media resource for Baltimore, DC and beyond.

ABOUT PUBLIC PRINT LAB:
http://publicprintlab.com/

ABOUT POST-TYPOGRAPHY:
http://www.posttypography.com/

ABOUT JUSTIN BLEMLY/BEATBOTS:
http://www.beatbots.com/mission.php

Eric Dyer, Bellows Organ

ERIC DYER
Bellows Organ
Feb 2-Mar 8
Film phenom and 2-time Sondheim Prize finalist Eric Dyer inaugurates the Minstallation Gallery with Bellows Organ, the zoetrope/sculpture that forms the climactic scene of his latest film. Dyer’s unique animation process combines the zoetrope, a pre-cinema optical toy, with rapid-prototype 3-D printing to create installations and unnerving films that feel archaic and futuristic at the same time. In the film version of Bellows, concertinas breathe like humans and share both their expressive and destructive potential.

Minstallation Gallery Photos

The beautiful gallery under the stairs:


A little bit closer now:

Minstallation

minstallation, noun
1. in art, a miniature installation.
2. an exciting new art form.

The Minstallation Gallery at the Creative Alliance is now open. The space is Baltimore's only exhibition venue dedicated to the miniature installation, or minstallation. As described by Creative Alliance Artistic Director Jed Dodds:

Presented by artist/impresario R.L. Tillman, the newest addition to Baltimore’s cultural landscape has already staked its position as the region’s most vibrant miniature installation space. Emerging and established artists are encouraged to spread their wings in this intimate yet ambitious gallery, with 225 square inches of floor space and generous 14 inch ceilings.

Creative Alliance at the Patterson, home to the exciting new Minstallation Gallery, is located at 3134 Eastern Avenue.