Pictures from MERGE A-List

Check them out here! Thanks to everyone for a wonderful night kicking off Fusebox for the year! See you all November 12th at the Scoot Inn for Reggie Watts!

MERGE 10.16.09

Hello All! Austin Art Start has had the pleasure of uniting with Fusebox Festival on this fantastic event coming up Friday October 16th, and we'd love to see you. Expect great architecture, new Art Experiences, video, and participatory fun--RSVP to get insider information!
The details are below and more to come.
Until then,
Marcy Hoen




Fusebox Festival presents MERGE
10.16.09 8p-midnight

Join the conversation! Fusebox presents innovative artistic experiences to spark new ideas and ways of looking at the world. Fusebox is ready to start creating new avenues of conversation that bridge various art forms, audiences, and geography for the 2010 Festival taking place April 22 - May 1. Enter MERGE. Share ideas, make connections, and get a sneak peek of Fusebox 2010 programming at this free event taking place at the newly constructed 1500 Summit condos with beer courtesy of Dos Equis. Also, don't leave without purchasing your Fusebox Festival Pre-Wire Pass, which grants you access to the Festival as well as all general admission lead-up events through April.

Featuring:
Graham Reynolds & Golden Arm Trio
DJ Butcher Bear & Charlie
DJ Johnny Bravvo
Video curated by Kate Watson
And art on display from Shawn Camp, Brandon Gonzalez, Adreon Henry, Michael Merck, and Hank Waddell as curated by Marcy Hoen from Austin Art Start.

Kindly RSVP to MERGErsvp@wyattbrand.com by noon 10/16 for the exclusive chance to win a Fusebox Festival Pre-Wire Pass. Winners will be announced at the event so you can still buy yours at the special price during the event.

1500 Summit (just completed, not yet inhabited)
Just east of I-35, 4 blocks south of Riverside

SPONSORS:
Dos Equis
1500 Summit
Business District Magazine

Irreverence and the Arts

Over the history of visual arts, we as consumers and viewers have celebrated the irreverence of artists and their inability to conform to 'normal' ways of being in the world. We applauded the impressionists who broke away from realism, throwing form out the window. We embraced the cubism, and the further breaking down of light and color into elements of line and blocks. We even held Pop Art on a pedestal when it rejected art for art's sake.

However, when we view these works, we do it with all the solemnity of a church sermon--in stark, quiet, white cubes that sterilize the experience. We speak in hushed tones with our arms tucked neatly at our sides as if we were visiting our puritanical grandparents.

Comedian Ursus Wehrli rejects this method of interacting with the art he loves. His own personal take is to love it by taking it apart. Tidying things up a bit. He dives into each painting, as if he were a housekeeper with a penchant for nicely squared and tucked sheets, setting shoes in line and color coordinating the closets. By taking his most beloved works apart, he examines them on a deep level, marveling at their constituent parts, organizing them in a way that he finds humorous.

This is true art appreciation. Each of us has a distinctive way of interacting with the the art we love (or hate) that is uniquely our own. Act like an artist, throw custom and reverence out the window, get INTO the works, and do it your way.

Interview with Professor David Galenson

Recently I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing David Galenson, professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. He has written an insightful book about the two life cycles of artists. You can listen to the podcast here. Enjoy, and please feel free to post your thoughts and comments below!

Identity Complex Closing Party: This Thursday, July 24th from 6-9pm

Join us at 814 North Loop to close down this show! If you missed it, or want to see it again, make your way down Thursday evening to toast with us!

Welcome to Identity Complex, 2008, an Art and Architecture exhibit:

Identity is a complex algorithm unique to each of us, informed by our parents, the media, history, and the context in which these combine. This process is constant and continual; identity the ever-evolving product.

We are unconsciously, and sometimes overtly, manipulated and massaged into molds generating well-behaved consumers that play well with others. What forms your beliefs about yourself, others, and the objects you encounter? Are you crafting your own “self,” or is someone else doing it for you?

Each of the artists participating in Identity Complex are challenging their personal beliefs, their understanding of the form of art, and helping us to do the same. Sometimes playful, sometimes deadly serious, each one asks us to examine how we have been informed, and what decisions we have made about ourselves, and the world around us.

Thanks for participating,

Marcy Hoen

Austin Art Start

Identity Complex: Metrohouse Art and Architecture was a great time! Read Michael Barnes' review of the event, and post your own!

View photos of the artist talks here

Some quotes from attendees:
"The Metrohouse Art show was the best art event I've been to since Miami [Art Basel, Miami]. The synergy of art and architecture was delightful. Thank you for manifesting it!"
~Megan Jaster

"Overall, the art was as good or better than any show I've seen in Austin all year - and the space was remarkable. You deserve to be applauded for launching an exciting new vehicle for bringing artists and collectors together. While maintaining a formal, non-commercial tone, these spaces present a much more accurate suggestion of how the art will look and feel in a contemporary living environment...."
~Ebbesen Davis

"What surprised me about … Identity Complex, the art and architecture exhibit on West North Loop, was the fierceness of both major aspects of the events. Metrohouse’s residences, joined by a tree-topped courtyard, look like they emerged from some hyper-inventive designer’s dreams, with open, angled spaces executed in contemporary materials and obsessively pristine details. The art, assembled in the live-work lofts by Marcy Hoen of Austin Art Start, was similarly forward-thinking in electronic and sculptural medias, as well as a few more modest paintings. The art-mad crowd walked around mouths agape. A fair point was made by several partiers: “What Austin artist could afford to purchase such lofts?” Well, it might attract creative types from more costly real estate markets, looking for a lot of good light and the inspiration of edgy digs. The city is a pretty strong magnet as well."

~Michael Barnes Austin 360,

Monday, July 14, 2008

Metrohouse and Austin Art Start, July 12th