Please join us for the opening reception of NO/GOOD PLACE, curated by Paul Wilson (Department of Art History) and featuring the work of nine Finnish artists making work about utopia.Please join us for the opening reception of NO/GOOD PLACE, curated by Paul Wilson (Department of Art History) and featuring the work of nine Finnish artists making work about utopia.
Opening Reception
Thursday, March 24, 5-7pm
(***SPECIAL PERFORMANCE OF THE IC COMPLAINTS CHOIR AT 6 PM!***)
Handwerker Gallery
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NO/GOOD PLACE: Utopian Art from Finland
Curated by Professor Paul Wilson (Department of Art History)
March 23—April 22, 2016
Thomas More created the word utopia in 1516 by combining the Greek words for not and place. However, when the resulting word is pronounced in English, the meaning in Greek changes to good place. This wordplay initiates the complexity and contradiction that characterizes utopia as an idea. It is at once a perfect place and an impossible one, a place we both desire and fear. While utopian or dystopian stories or images typically imagine societies isolated in space (the island or enclave) or time (the future), these fictions invite us to make comparisons to our own contemporary world. The flaws and nascent possibilities that we are blind to in our own time and place become visible when projected onto another one. Similarly, the utopian gestures or critiques found in these artworks from Finland offer us opportunities to reflect on our own utopian aspirations here in Ithaca, our “10 square miles surrounded by reality.” The photographs, films, performances, and installations in the exhibition explore the porous boundaries between utopia and dystopia.
Otto Karvonen and Pilvi Takala subtly intervene in everyday situations, testing the limits of what is possible to do or imagine within a particular social context or physical space. The artist duos Nutty Tarts and Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen both address utopian themes in their projects, but they also seek to match that content with collaborative, socially engaged artistic forms. The films of IC-98 offer spare allegories of development, collapse, and regeneration that challenge the anthropocentrism assumed in most utopias. Nina Katchadourian’s found maps revel in the imaginative pleasures of cartography but also hint at the absurdity of conflating political divisions with natural ones.
Support for the exhibition provided by Frame Visual Art Finland; the Ithaca College Department of Art History; Joey Bromfield & Colin Stewart in the Dillingham Scene Shop; Mike Wainwright & the college carpenters; Dave Heichel, Jeff Poth, and the college moving crew; Ryan Engels, Rick Basha, & Drew Hammond of the campus ITS team; the staff and members of the IC Complaints Choir; the student staff of the Handwerker Gallery; Matt Glaysher and students enrolled in Museum Practices; as well as students enrolled in Studies in Art from Baroque to Modern: Utopia.
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All Handwerker Gallery events are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 10.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m.; Thursday, 10.00 a.m. to 9.00 p.m.; and weekends, noon to 5.00 p.m.. The gallery is closed to the public on Tuesdays unless otherwise specified for an event but can accommodate group or class visits by appointment.
For further information or individuals with disabilities requiring parking accommodations, please contact Mara Baldwin at mbaldwin@ithaca.edu or 607.274.3548. Please make requests for accommodations as far in advance as possible.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20160321122121164