Page 28 - the NOISE August 2015

storY BY geronIMo schWartZ
the snake gulch project
How six Artists from new york found Themselves in the Middle of nowhere
acloud of dust rises over a dirt road in the early morning light a few miles outside Fredonia, Arizona. A ’95 silverado loaded with artwork, camping gear, cameras, and
supplies lurches along with eight men and women in its cab and bed. They are heading to snake Gulch canyon in search of ancient art. six of them, artists Ryan Chin, Ida Badal, Ingrid Hansen, James Miller, John Szlasa, and Michael uttaro, came 2,200 miles from new york City to be here. Their guides, Travis Iurato and Allison Klion of new Age Drinks, are bringing them to this remote rock art site for their artworks to be “temporarily placed, hung, draped, danced, and projected amongst the rock drawings at snake Gulch,” as stated by Mr. Chin during the planning stages of his project. what are new york artists doing in a pickup truck in the middle of nowhere? And what do they want to achieve?
In January 2015, New Age Drinks sent out an open call to their network of artists across the country asking for project proposals. The call provided some information about the geography and ancient history of northern Arizona, a bit about the history of Jerome, and opened the floor for artists to propose any type of project they wanted to work on. The goal of the open call was to bring alternative modes of artistic practice to rural Arizona and the Verde Valley.
Ryan Chin, one of Mr. Iurato’s art school peers, responded to the call early and enthusiastically. He was intrigued by the ancient history of the southwest, and proposed a site-specific installation of mesh fabric paintings at a remote ruin. Mr. Chin has spent the majority of his life in new york City, but felt an attraction to a specific idea of the southwest. He wrote some weeks ago to new Age Drinks, “I have always been enamored with the southwest and have been convinced that it is a place with inherent spiritual properties — as if I am going to stand in the middle of the desert and feel something and see the world completely new.” He articulated the mythological allure of the southwest that has drawn artists and non-artists alike to this part of the country. Many come looking for change or healing, or to be moved by the sheer vastness and ancientness of a landscape completely alien to densely populated, developed cities on the eastern seaboard.
Mr. Chin’s original proposal evolved over a period of months, resulting in the first iteration of the new Age Drinks northern Arizona Residency Program: The Snake Gulch Project. He assembled a group of artists and invited them to participate in an intensive weeklong residency at the home studio of new Age Drinks in Rimrock. The six artists arrive in Arizona on July 25 to produce artwork and learn about the culture and environment of the southwest. All of the artists involved are under 35 years old and live in the new york City area. some are lifelong new yorkers, while others migrated there sometime in their adult life to study or work in the vibrant, progressive art community. They all tackle a variety of mediums in their practices and produce work that
is thoughtful and conceptually rigorous. They often explore the impact of digital technologies and interfaces on visual culture and the experience of seeing, but that by no means comprehensively defines the work that any of these artists will make during the snake Gulch Project. The project is a natural extension of the new Age Drinks mission to bring young, contemporary artists to Arizona as a catalyst for meaningful exchange between the artists, the environment, and the people of the region.
Mr. Chin is particularly interested in the potential of bringing together a specific group of artists to a specific place at a specific moment in time. each artist arrives with their own ideas about art and Arizona, as well as their own personal artistic practices, interests, and goals for the project. Mr. Chin is certain that magic will happen when they all come together in this new, unfamiliar environment and work as a group. They will visit a number of sites around northern Arizona, including Jerome and snake Gulch, and will spend time in the studio working on paintings, sculptures, drawings, and video. By immersing the artists in the environment, the hope is that it will in turn inform and imbue their work with the spirit of the place.
The artists’ lack of preconceptions or expectations for what the snake Gulch Project will ultimately manifest into is exactly what the residency program is all about. Mr. Miller says he expects the project to be a “week of hardcore experimenting.” And there will be no time for one of Mr. Uttaro’s intricate dyed- paper collages, a series of abstract paintings by Mr. Chin or Ms. Hansen, or a large wooden sculpture, perhaps, by Mr. szlasa. Instead, the aim of the project is not necessarily to produce any conventionally beautiful, salable objects, but rather to demonstrate that art can happen on the fly and be presented as is, even unfinished. The art of the snake Gulch Project exists in the exchange of ideas between the artists and in the intense, focused energy they put into a week of work.
In snake Gulch, they will confront art that was made for reasons wholly outside a commodities-driven art market. The creative and communicative spirit that characterizes all rock- art of the southwest will probably be an immense influence on the artists. In fact, both Ms. Hansen and Mr. Uttaro cite the opportunity to see firsthand these ancient cultural artifacts as the major motivating factor for participating in the snake Gulch Project. Unlike some residency programs which focus on providing artists with space and time to work on whatever projects they choose, the snake Gulch Project specifically asks artists to engage with Arizona. Mr. Uttaro explained in a recent e-mail why the petroglyphs and pictographs are so important to his experience of Arizona:
“The rock drawings interest me the most because they are the start of the story, and if you are to come close to understanding something it’s probably best to start where it begins, and what is shared with that start, e.g. the landscape,
the climate, the flora and fauna.” In this sense he suggests that the petroglyphs act as a portal to another time, and only by actually visiting them can one begin to understand humankind’s impulse to communicate and make art.
On the other hand, Mr. Chin’s interest lies more in the documentation of their visit and the making of the work than in the final artworks everyone will produce. By building a website, making books and broadcasting aspects of the week to social media, he hopes to historicize the project for the artists and their audiences. The visit to snake Gulch will follow the strictures of “leave no trace,” existing only while the artists are in the canyon, and in documentary images and video produced on site. Unlike the rock paintings that have been there for hundreds, even thousands of years, these works will live ephemerally in the canyon, briefly intermingling with the unique site. Mr. Chin knows that no one but the eight people involved will witness the
“exhibition” in the canyon, and presentations made about the project in the future will be the only way to show what was accomplished during the residency. He recalls that similar art projects of the past, whether exhibitions, galleries, or installations in remote locations, now exist only in whatever documentation survives. Realizing how few people will experience the snake Gulch Project firsthand, he wants to thoroughly document this moment for the future, creating a historical reference point for all the artists involved.
The snake Gulch Project will culminate in a special one- night-only exhibition and presentation of the video and photographic documentation of the project, facilitating an exchange between the artists and local audiences. There will also be a short talk and Q&A session for the public to engage directly with the artists, providing essential feedback about the work from outside the insular bubble of new york City. And by experiencing the work of visiting artists, Arizonans can see their home from the fresh perspective of an outsider. The artists have put themselves out there: they will have traveled 2,200 miles to be here. They will have sweat in the wilderness, spent the night in a canyon making art, DJ’d at a party at a local bar, and stayed up all night hanging their work in Jerome.
“The Snake Gulch Project,” presentation occurs in conjunction with the First saturday Jerome Art walk on August 1 at Spook Hall, on Hull Avenue just below Main street in Jerome. The exhibition will be open all day on saturday, August 1, and the artist presentation will begin at 6PM. NewAgeDrinks.org/SnakeGulchProject 928/821-4601
| geronimo schwartz wants to know on a scale of 1-10, “How new Age are you?”
28 • august 2015 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us