Lecture as Performance with Danny Volk

Lecture as Performance with Danny Volk

Humorous. Expressive. Descriptive. Experimental. Controller.

"God DJ". Order of Appearance.

Danny Volk is originally from Akron, Ohio. He now lives and works in Chicago along with teaching at the community college. Volk studied at Kent State University receiving his BA Theatre Studies in 2006. He received his graduate degree in Visual Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014. Danny Volk is a conceptual, performance, installation, and video artist. He has been acting all his life--memorizing lines and following rules. Taking on the role of a character but taking it in as his own experience as well. Volk spoke confidently. He was comfortable. Using hand gestures and beginning a conversation with his audience.

DVNY

Danny Volk refers to his performances as a series of projects. DVNY stands for Danny Volk, New York. The Danny Volk standing before us had been tagged in a post by New York Danny Volk's girlfriend. "Yes...and? Improv," says Volk in response to this event. He began changing who he was on his Instagram posting suits, fancy breakfast in bed, watches, etc. Anything that could relate to the Danny Volk in New York he translated into his Instagram. Participating in stealing other people's photos, having a group that was in on playing this "game" he had created. Then, he had added a new variable into the experiment. Tagging actual people became an interest and the reaction was acknowledgeable to that it wasn't the Danny Volk they believed him to be. What does this performance say about humanity? It breaks the boundaries and norms that society has created for us to behave. We often see negative towards the word "fake." However, Volk has opened a door to experimentation and creating rules for himself to follow to step forth into the world of make believe. What makes an act make believe or reality? If it is happening, is it not reality?

The idea of documentation through questioning who the project is for, what are the character rules, and showing the role of the camera are presented in the Order of Appearance. The "God DJ" controls the sound, music in the background...everything. Danny Volk only controls the volume. It interrupts the conversation between the two performers. There was tension created in how uncomfortable the speakers were being interrupted by the God DJ/ Danny Volk. During this performance, he exposes the camera because the "subject matter is too personal." In addition to the rules he has created, the people involved had not been fully aware that they were performing. 

University Galleries.

In the lecture, I began noting to myself the gestures, tone of voice, and posture Danny Volk was using during his talk. Was the audience a part of yet another performance? Some live by the quote that life is a performance. Some or most are skeptics of this philosophy. Danny Volk is fascinating, different than other artists. He evokes you to question what is real and what is not. Using consent as a central base, he draws fine lines in both directions. He believes his work to be research documentations that "allow, to, for, with" individuals. Ultimately, leaving the audience amused, confused, and even exposed for participating in yet another performance by Danny Volk.

Beyond the Norm

               

Beyond the Norm

Celebrating Normal Editions Workshop's 40th anniversary, University Galleries presents Beyond the Norm: An International Juried Print Exhibition on September 20th through October 16th.

54 artists from across the United States and Canada are featured in the exhibition. Susan Tallman is the juror as well as a critic, author, art historian, and teacher at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The show is highlighting majorly women featuring BFA Alum Megan Hinds, Amy Cousins, Erika Adams, Mary Hood, Kim Morski, Karen Kunc, Julia DePinto, and others. Including printmaking processes  such as woodcut, serigraph, lithograph, monotype, intaglio, video and site specific installation.

Left: Sarah Hulsey, In the Woods of Mendeleev, Woodcut and letterpress, 2014. University Galleries.
Right: Karen Kunc Kunc, Biocosmic Wave, 2013. University Ga

Invitation. Meet and Greet Biocosmic Wave and   . 

Black Monotype. Scientic table with new elements. 

Aside Lithograph. Seeking Beneath a Microscope. 

New Discoveries.

Setting the Tone Past the First Wall.

Upper: Kim Morski, I Forgot, Reduction Woodcut, 2016.
University Galleries
Lower: Kirsten Bartel, American Dream: Lightning Storm with Grass,
Lithograph and inkjet, 2015. University Galleries.

Relationships Between. Coupled Works Fitting. Sharing Color, Line, and Shape. Beyond the Norm.

Captivating Dialogue. 

From the Work. To the Viewer.

The installation invites and actively engages the viewer to keep swiveled head. The lighting gives each piece it's own spotlight to stand out to the viewer. Curation of the show is chosen specifically for the works to relate to one another. It is beyond the norm for the work to behave so well together.

Left:
Right: Marilee Salvator, Form #4, Etching and wood, 2016. University Galleries.

 

Erika Adams, I see you, I see you too, Collaborative artist's book: letterpress and ink, 2015. University Galleries.

Seeing. I see you. Blue rectangle. I see you too. 

White gloves make the pages delicate to turn. A series of blindly contoured portraits.

Intimacy bounded on white sheets. Cool neutral print.

The view between two people. Human interaction.

Left: Emily Arthur, Gnatcatchers (with Ledger Paper), Monoprint and screenprint, 2016. University
Right: Amy Cousins, All The Queerness That's Fit To Print: The Abiline Reporter News 1967-75, Serigraph, paper, buttons, wood and foam, 2015. University Galleries.

Type. Type. Type. Writer Font. 

Words to be read. Illustrations to speak. 

Depth of layers and bulging. 

Beyond the Norm: International Juried Exhibition is captivating and leaves the viewer wanting more. It is an exhibition that can be seen more than once continuing to discover new relationships between the works.

Feeling Bruised: Claire Ashley Analysis

       

       

Feeling Bruised: Claire Ashley Analysis

Bruised
Spray paint on PVC-coated canvas tarpaulin and fan
2015

Claire Ashley is originally from Edinburgh, Scotland currently residing in Oak Park, IL while teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Department of Contemporary Practices. Ashley has lived in the United States for a little over 20 years. Claire Ashley's exhibition Cawt, Taut, Hot ....Not was on view at University Galleries from May 21 - September 11, 2016. Upon entering entering the gallery, the viewer is greeted by her wall painting installation as well as her form Bruised made in 2015 and is approximately 8 x 8ft asymmetrical sculpture form.  

Approaching the front entrance of Bruised's temporary home.  Bruised is in isolation of its family gathered in the main living room of University Galleries. Seemingly more damaged skin than the rest. This is shown through its discoloration related to skin. It is neither high intensity neon nor the soft blue grey of Claire Ashley's other beings. The surface is comparable to violet bruised skin that that is in the process of its yellow healing stage. Continuously healing while simultaneously reacting to the touch of life.  Even the stages of pinks, reds, oranges, and blues are present in the spray paint application on the cool tonal grey skin.

Bruised is realistically believable in relationship to human bodies. The combination of little spray particles, spaces of color, patched repairs, the various stretching of the canvas, and the metallic surface glow in the light from the window aside from it. The handmade canvas tarpaulin creates more bulging appendages. An essence of wrinkling age is presented through the creases or the bending of a limb with the touching of skin.  

The installation of Bruised near a ledge invites the viewer to live closely in the space while sitting next to the being.  I began searching beyond the outermost surfaces and into the space between the wall and the body. My eyes wondered through a thin space finding a hidden hand sewn patch of repair almost perfectly diagonally from the patch above the top of the form. As if to be grabbed by a higher bigger being.

Aside from Claire Ashley's installation view of her beings, she conducts performances of these beings interacting with the outside world. With this in mind, Bruised takes on the position of hibernation or a sleep-like state. The fan generating its ability to hold form and continue its own life creating the silent sound of breathing. Bruised embodies an energy related to that of a living being. Claire Ashley's forms reach beyond the realm of an object, they are as much us as we are them. 


-Marisa Boyd