with/in: blurring the line between art and education

Art League Houston is excited to present with/in: blurring the line between art and education, an exhibition organized by Art League Houston’s Education Programs Director, Zachary Gresham. Exhibition Dates: August 5 – September 17, 2016. Opening Reception: 6 – 9 PM Friday August 5, 2016.

The exhibition features work by Andres L. Hernandez (Chicago), Hannah Jickling and Helen Reed (Canada), Christopher Lee Kennedy (New York), and Patricia Vázquez Gomez (Portland).

The exhibition, which includes documentation and works across a range of mediums,  aims to challenge the dichotomy of physical and conceptual space while exploring socially-engaged work centered on pedagogy to incite individual/communal action, response, contemplation, resistance.

with/in employs both an exhibition and a publication to examine the process, practice, and identity of socially-engaged artists who blur the lines between art and pedagogy. The exhibition presents the work of Andres L. Hernandez, Hannah Jickling and Helen Reed, Christopher Lee Kennedy, and Patricia Vázquez, all artists who utilize education as a medium in their work. The publication, designed by local graphic designer, Roby Fitzhenry, shows their work alongside Houston artists Saxton Fisher, Ayanna Jolivet McCloud, John Pluecker, Ruth Robbins, and Alex Rodriguez.

The artists included are radically redefining and reimagining what art education can be – often in stark contrast to the public’s perception of visual art instruction. Whether their work is situated in schools, in the community, or in relation to other education institutions, each of these artists takes a unique stance on how they integrate ideas, models, and/or theories of education into their art practice. It seems fitting – intuitive – that this project would emerge from these overlays in the venn diagram of thoughts on art, education, and art and education.

The publication is neither extension nor accompaniment but rather a continuation of the exhibition that lends the textual format as means of relating the work of the exhibiting artists to that of Houston artists. The Houston arts community is comprised of many individuals who have challenged the standards of education by blurring the distinction between art and education.

By exhibiting work from both groups in this publication, with/in localizes and globalizes the dialogue – engaging, inspiring, and mobilizing the Houston audience to reconsider the place of and distinction between both art and education.

EXHIBITING ARTISTS

Andres L. Hernandez is an artist and educator who re-imagines the environments we inhabit. Through collaborative, community-based work with youth and adults, and independent, studio-based practice, he explores the potential of spaces for public dialogue, community building, and social action. Hernandez is co-founder of Revival Arts Collective, a network of citizen activists using arts and culture as a catalyst for community redevelopment in Chicago, and is an Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and workshop faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Christopher Lee Kennedy is a teaching artist and organizer who works collaboratively with schools, youth, and artists to create site-specific projects that investigate queer identity, radical schooling, and urban ecology. These projects generate publications, research, performances, installations, and ongoing exchanges that celebrate the collective knowledge of a place and its forgotten histories. Kennedy was born in Ocean County, New Jersey and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He has worked collaboratively on projects shown at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, the Levine Museum of the New South, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, the Queens Museum, and Ackland Art Museum. Kennedy holds a B.S. in environmental engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a M.A. in education from NYU, and a PhD in education studies from the University of North Carolina. Kennedy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Design Education at Pratt Institute.

Helen Reed and Hannah Jickling have been collaborating since 2007. Their projects take shape as public installations, social situations and events that circulate as photographs, videos, printed matter, and artists’ multiples. They are currently fascinated with the “contact high” intrinsic to collaborative work, especially in their recent projects with children. Giant vegetable growers, orienteers, lesbian separatists and therian teens also feature in their work. Helen and Hannah have exhibited and performed internationally, with both individual and collaborative work appearing in such venues as: The Portland Art Museum (OR), The Dunlop Art Gallery (SK), Smack Mellon (NY), The Yukon Arts Centre Gallery (YT), YYZ Artists’ Outlet (ON), Carleton University Art Gallery (ON), Dalhousie University Art Gallery (NS), The Vancouver Art Gallery (BC), The Power Plant (ON) and Flat Time House’s first issue of NOIT (UK). They currently teach at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, Canada.

Patricia Vázquez is an artist, educator and community worker originally from Mexico City and based in Portland OR. She holds BAs in Graphic Design and Education and a MFA in Social Practices from Portland State University. Her practice includes a range of media, from painting and murals to video and socially engaged art projects, and it is deeply informed by her experiences working in the immigrant rights and social justice movements both in content as well as in the methodologies she uses. Her work has been shown at the Portland Art Museum, the Reece Museum and the Autzen Gallery at Portland State University, but also in more accessible spaces as apartments complexes, community based organizations and schools; reflecting her commitment to a practice that makes art available to diverse audiences. She is the recipient of the 2013 Arlene Schnitzer Visual Arts Prize and has received grants from the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC), the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), Portland’s Jade and Midway Districts and the Oregon Community Foundation.

PUBLICATION ARTISTS

Saxton Fisher is a seventeen-year-old graduate of the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.  He has worked primarily in found object sculpture, sometimes in combination with other materials. In the fall Saxton will begin attending Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where he will likely major in Environmental Studies. He is considering going into marine conservation as well as being a practicing artist. Saxton’s other interests include philosophy, mathematics, cosmology, oceanography, and queer activism. www.saxtonfisher.wix.com/portfolio

Ayanna Jolivet McCloud is an artist based in Houston, Texas. Her work takes on many forms including sound, writing, and painting. While minimal, her work often explores sensation, physicality, and materiality. She has participated in exhibitions and residencies throughout the Caribbean, Latin America and in the U.S. She is the founder of labotanica, which is scheduled to relaunch this year.

John Pluecker is a writer, interpreter, translator and co-founder of the language justice and literary experimentation collaborative Antena. He has translated numerous books from the Spanish, including Antígona González (Les Figues Press, 2016), Tijuana Dreaming: Life and Art at the Global Border (Duke University Press, 2012). His most recent chapbooks include An Accompanying Text (She Works Flexible, 2015). His book of poetry and image, Ford Over, was released in 2016 from Noemi Press.

Ruth Robbins is an artist and educator currently living in Houston Texas. She holds a MA in Social Practice from California College of the Arts. Her practice currently includes images, sound and text that explore sensations of loss, embodiment, pleasure, delight and desire. Her work has appeared in numerous publications and she was commissioned to participate in dOCUMENTA13. Ruth’s most recent work ‘A Lexicon of Dusk’ can be seen at the Blaffer Museum of Art and on Tour with the exhibition Time/Image through 2017.

Born and raised in Houston, Texas, agender artist Alex Rodriguez’s work, primarily in video, installation, performance, and sculpture, explores communication through significant objects and memories connected with a variety of personal relationships. Alex is a recent graduate of the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA) and has attended the early college program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston employs Alex as a Teen Council member where they work on projects such as CAMH Teen Music Fest, art markets, curated exhibitions, fashion shows, film screenings, and poetry readings. Alex will start attending San Francisco Art Institute in the fall of 2016 for Studio Arts and New Genres. They plan to take curatorial courses to work their way up to becoming an art curator as well as an exhibiting artist.

ORGANIZER

Zachary Gresham is an arts administrator and educator who currently serves as Education Programs Director at Art League Houston. Zachary holds a BA from Lamar University, and completed his MA in Arts Leadership and M.Ed in Curriculum and Instruction – Art Education from the University of Houston. He is an adjunct lecturer in the College of Education and the College of the Arts at The University of Houston, where he teaches Art in Elementary Schools, an art education course for upper-level education majors and Technology in the Arts, a graduate seminar in the MA in Arts Leadership program.

Press Image: Hannah Jickling and Helen Reed with Dakota, Karyl, Kurtis, Kia, Jackie and Savana, Tall Tale Postcard, 2016, digital collage, 5 x 7 in. (detail above, full image below).