Behind the Curtain

"Minimalism in the mundane, elegance in the shattered, and light in the dark."

-Nathan Lee via the Whitney Museum of American Art

If you've come into the gallery lately, you might have wondered: "What's behind the black curtain?" or "Where are those strange noises coming from?" The answer to both is Gretchen Skogerson's video piece DRIVE THRU. Described by the artist as "a landscape of incomplete signs," the piece depicts storm-ravaged fluorescent signage in Miami in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan.
Betraying the striking similarities between this piece's underlying issues and those of Christina Seely's Lux, also currently on display at CCAS, Chris Stults of the Wexner Center for the Arts writes of DRIVE THRU, "What chance does light have against the darkness? The history of illumination is a story of miracles conjured to stave off the devouring night. As if at war with darkness, the modern metropolis has conquered the night and obliterated the sky." Yet the remnants of signs and streaks of fluorescent lighting in Skogerson's piece do not "obliterate" the black night surrounding them, but rather "engage in a dialogue" with the darkness.
Some of Skogerson's shots in the roughly twenty minute video are abstract light compositions--drawing comparisons to Dan Flavin--and some are more representational, incorporating passing cars and shadowy human figures. They all, however, point subtly to devastation, whether that of Miami post-Ivan or that of the earth via consumerism and energy usage. Writes Stults, "their form has become their content," and indeed, these sad, empty signs end up carrying deep meaning thanks to Skogerson's framing and her mix of ambient and recorded noises in the soundtrack. They also, surprisingly enough, become objects of beauty--"accidental works of art" barely noticed along the side of the road.
But Gretchen Skogerson noticed them, and now we invite you to notice them too. Come and see some or all of DRIVE THRU at CCAS, and then come hear Skogerson's lecture on February 10th at 7pm to learn more about this enigmatic piece.

CCAS in collaboration with Lumens Light + Living presents: Chrome-A-Zone

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                     MEDIA CONTACT

January 1, 2011                                                                                                   Mariana Moscoso

Lumens Light + Living                                                                        Telephone:  916.444.5585

2028 K Street                                                                       E-Mail: lumens.artoflight@gmail.com
Sacramento, CA 95811

Showroom Hours:  Mon – Fri 10am-6pm; Sat 10am-5pm

The Art of Light: Chrome-A-Zone

January 3, 2011 – February 28, 2011

Lumens Light + Living and The Center for Contemporary Art, Sacramento’s Gallery Associates Mariana Moscoso and Stacey Wong are pleased to present Chrome-A-Zone, a photography exhibition by the Sacramento photographer Donald Satterlee. In this series, Satterlee’s photographs of custom classic automobiles recontextualize the curves of ornate fenders and hood ornaments into an anthropomorphic experience.

Donald Sattlerlee works as a commercial advertising photographer in the Sacramento area and produces many of the images seen in ads, brochures, annual reports and billboards around Northern California. In Satterlee’s Chrome-A-Zone series, he challenges our perception of custom cars by capturing the classic lines of polished chrome and the shimmer of metallic paint and transforming them into anthropomorphic figures.  The way light reflects on the automobiles’ surfaces is emphasized by sensuous curves, animating the images and bringing them to life.

About the “Art of Light” series:

Lumens Light + Living has invited Mariana Moscoso and Stacey Wong from The Center for Contemporary Art, Sacramento to collaborate on a series of exhibitions called The Art of Light.  In this yearlong series, we will explore how artists have taken the concept of light, to create a unique visual experience using both traditional and nontraditional media.  The visual possibilities of light are infinite and only limited by the artists’ unique experience.

Opens Monday, January 3, 2011

Closes: Sunday, February 28, 2011

Artist Reception: Thursday, February 10, 5 p.m. – 7 p.m.

Free

Lecture Highlights

Missed Christina Seely's lecture? Can't decide if it's worth it to sit down and listen to the mp3? Here are some highlights to spark your interest.
Seely started her lecture by discussing the NASA photo that inspired her project, saying: "About 5 years ago I became kind of obsessed with this map, really intrigued by it and interested in it…the information on it is unique in that it’s us--in the form of light." She went on to point out that though the concentration of light in the US, Western Europe and Japan (the three regions on which her project is focused) indicate the creation by those regions of half the world's CO2 and consumption of two-thirds of the world's resources, it is also, indisputably, a beautiful image.
This is partly because "since the dawn of electricity, man-made light has represented hope and ingenuity and romance and progress and basically fundamentally positive and hopeful things." Speaking of the history of man's use of electricity, Seely used a photograph of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and a small-town newspaper description of the wonder of streetlights, demonstrating some of the historical research behind her project.
Having laid the groundwork, Seely moved on to discuss the details of Lux, which she shot using an old analog camera complete with "dark cloth" over her head and exposure times of 1-4 hours. Utilizing a somewhat archaic form of photography to capture the effects of modern technology is part of the "tension" and "back-and-forth" to which Seely returned at many points in the lecture and sees as fundamental to her project.
Viewers might be interested to learn that there is absolutely no extra lighting or daylight involved in her images and that they are lit by the cities' ambient light and moon/starlight alone.
Seely spent the last part of her lecture discussing individual images in the Lux project, but you'll have to listen to the full lecture to hear her interesting and sometimes hilarious anecdotes about her adventures in shooting.
As part of her efforts to get viewers to think about these metropolises in different ways, Seely avoids identifying which photo is of which city and including iconic buildings or monuments too prominently in her images. For instance, she shot New York from Hoboken, New Jersey instead of using the iconic postcard shot that the view from Brooklyn provides.
See if you can spot Edinburgh Castle, Brussels' Justice Palace, Berlin's Potsdamer Platz, St. Louis' arch or D.C.'s Capitol Building. All are somewhat visible but not obvious in Seely's photographs.
Other interesting points to note are the streaks of planes landing at Newark airport in the New York image, the moon going in and out of clouds in Paris, a Christmas star in Phoenix, the streak of a passing ferry in Seattle and a graveyard in Yokohama City.
While only 10 of Christina's 45 Lux photographs are on display at CCAS, you can get a sense of the others on her website.
The final audience questioner made the point that for all that the project draws attention to energy use and man's effect on the planet, in Seely's beautiful photographs "it doesn’t look like something you would want to turn off." It a tension that Seely acknowledges and welcomes.
There are many more insights into the images and Seely's work in general to be gained from listening to the lecture, so be sure to check it out if you want to know more. And of course, come down and see the show in person at CCAS!

Christina Seely's Lecture

Did you miss Christina Seely's lecture on Thursday? No problem! Lucky for you, we have an mp3 of the lecture. Click here to listen to this wonderful lecture where Christina Seely discusses her Lux series in depth and tells about her other collaborative project Civil Twilight.

Now Open on Wednesdays+Christina Seely's Lecture

Starting today, we are expanding our hours to include Wednesdays from 12-5. Come by and see us!

And don't forget, photographer Christina Seely will be lecturing at CCAS tomorrow, Thursday January 13th, at 7pm. The lecture is free to current CCAS members and students and general admission is $5.

Seely's current show at CCAS, Lux, consists of nighttime photographs of some of the world's largest metropolises, demonstrating the vast amount of artificial light emitted by large human settlements. Based on a NASA map of the night earth (see it here), Lux focuses on cities in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan.

Writes Seely, "For most of human history, man-made light has signified hope and progress within local and global arenas. In this project, light also paradoxically denotes regression or transgression--an index of the complex negative human impacts on the health and future of the planet."

Come to the lecture tomorrow night at 7pm to hear more about this intriguing project.

Light Matters Opening

Light Matters 

A Two-Person Exhibition of Photography and Video by Christina Seely and Gretchen Skogerson

Opening at CCAS this week

Christina Seely

Both artists take the artificial light of the nighttime urban environment as a primary inspiration for their projects. Christina Seely's LUX, a large-scale photo series, features nighttime photographs of cities in North America, Western Europe, and Japan. Her beautiful and haunting representations of these cities brings us an awareness that this illumination comes at a high cost to our environment and urges us to reconsider the way of living that contemporary society has created. Gretchen Skogerson's Drive Thru is a single channel high-definition video that looks at the impact of natural disaster on the man-made environment. Drive Thru presents nighttime views of shattered illuminated commercial signage from the aftermath of 2004's Hurricane Ivan in Miami.

Come and see us!

Second Saturday Opening Reception
January 8/ 6 - 9 pm

Christina Seely Lecture
January 13 / 7 pm*

Gretchen Skogerson Lecture
February 10 / 7 pm*

Second Saturday Closing Reception
February 12 / 6 - 9 pm

* Free to current CCAS members and students/ general admission $5.