Tag Archives: Contemporary Art Purchasing Program

Contemporary Art Purchasing Program (CAPP), Current Exhibition, Uncategorized

Unpacking Climate Anxieties With A Dinosaur

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What We Do After from August 28th to September 30th, 2023, at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Ellen Zhang

Among the various pieces on display in the Gallery’s latest exhibition What We Do After, I find myself especially captivated by Rachel Garber Cole’s Questions for a Dinosaur. This body of work consists of a 9-minute video in which Cole role-plays various personas while asking an unresponsive dinosaur a series of questions. Accompanying this video are 52 digital and silkscreen prints of the artist posed as the dinosaur.

Rachel Garber Cole, Questions for a Dinosaur (2017/2020), 9-minute video.

The reason why What We Do After resonates so deeply with me is the way in which Cole poses her questions in the video. They are short, blunt, and disconnected in a way that frames the questions as a series of inquisitive tangents. It is slightly chaotic and, because of this, extremely relatable. As I grow older, the list of questions in the back of my mind piles on in a similar manner: How do I file taxes? What career path is the best fit for me? Is it time to be fiscally responsible and stop spending money on coffee? How can I advocate for the political issues that I am passionate about? Like Cole’s questions, these internal thoughts have no rhyme or reason. Instead, they stay nestled within my mind and exist in a somewhat arbitrary arrangement, lacking structure and order. 

While there is little flow between each of Cole’s questions, there is a common theme that all of her questions touch on directly or indirectly: mass extinction triggered by climate change. Some of her questions that are presented on the digital prints, such as, “Are we currently living through a mass extinction?”, allude to the increasing occurrences of life-threatening climate disasters. In other words, are these wildfires, droughts, floods, and deterioration of air quality a collective indication of us living through a mass extinction? Other questions like “How powerless am I?” probe the level of control and responsibility an individual has in mitigating the impacts of climate change.

Rachel Garber Cole, Questions for a Dinosaur (2017/2020), 52 digital and silkscreen print portfolio.
Rachel Garber Cole, Questions for a Dinosaur (2017/2020), 52 digital and silkscreen print portfolio.

Cole’s use of unorganized questions accurately reflects unspoken fears about climate change. By vocalizing these overwhelming questions in a way similar to how we internally think about them, she encourages the audience to discuss fears that feel too terrifying to bring up openly. 

In the video, Cole is also seen playing different personas as she asks questions to a nonreactive dinosaur. It’s clear why the artist has selected a dinosaur, of all things, to ask; as an extinct species, they are experts in the matter. Additionally, incorporating a silent dinosaur makes the topic of mass extinction a little less frightening. There is a clear dichotomy between the profound nature of Cole’s questions and the funny-looking dinosaur, thus making the topic of extinction and climate change more approachable. Likewise, on the surface, Cole’s different personas – girl scout, housewife, meteorologist, and more – are certainly humorous and captivating. However, the multiplicity of identities represented also reveals how climate change and extinction are shared worries. She breaks down barriers of entry to conversations surrounding climate-induced mass extinction by reassuring individuals that they are not alone in their anxieties. 

Cole’s Questions for a Dinosaur is certainly a new take on expressing the impending doom of climate change through artwork. Rather than using jarring and fear-mongering pictures, she opts to captivate the audience’s attention through humor, without undermining the urgent and dire nature of climate change. The ability to balance the two is what I find so fascinating about Questions for a Dinosaur. Through serious but playfully staged questions, Cole transforms the Gallery into a welcoming space for raw and unfiltered dialogue on climate change. 

Rachel Garber Cole’s work is included in What We Do After at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from August 28 to September 30, 2023. 

Artist Interviews, Contemporary Art Purchasing Program (CAPP), Current Exhibition, Explore

Mentorship Behind the Making of The Royal Blue Series (and more from the series)

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What We Do After from August 28 to October 6, 2023 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Isabella Chilcoat

“Life is about give and give, not give and take.”

Beverly Price
(Beverly Price, conversation between the artist and the author on 9/12/2023).

There’s something about Beverly Price’s Royal Blue Series that takes the photographs beyond the wall. Judging from the insights Price shared this past February, during the CAPP cohort’s visit to the community focused artist residency program, the Nicholson Project, as well as recent discussions we’ve had, it is clear that the Royal Blue Series is significant for its impact on the subjects and the awareness it draws to DC neighborhoods. 

Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Beverly Price has centered her art practice  and her education so far within the D.M.V. area. The artist studied business, organizational leadership and liberal arts at Georgetown University, and later, she completed a Master of Fine Arts in photographic and electronic media at Maryland Institute College of Art. She has exhibited and featured works at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (museum shop), Anacostia Art Center, Maryland Institute College of Art, American University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and more (courtesy of the artist’s website). 

Price’s career as both an artist and an activist hold firm roots within youth and community advocacy and involvement. Over the last five years, she has served in a variety of agencies and institutions throughout Baltimore City and her home, Washington D.C., as an empathetic educator and resident artist. You could trace her footprints to the American University, the Latin American Youth Center, Forest Park High School (Baltimore), and Charles Hart Middle School (Washington, D.C.) to name a few. Furthermore, Price instructed a Teen Residency Workshop Series at The Nicholson Project, where she was also an artist in residence until March of 2023 (courtesy of the artist’s website).

Price’s fervent investment in D.C. communities, observable in her Royal Blue Series, stems from her own experiences with loss of innocence and its impact on her life. In 2002, Price was sentenced to five years in prison as a senior in high school. When she returned home from prison at age 23, she decided to dedicate her life and her art practice to her continued growth and to the benefit of her community (courtesy of the artist’s website). Describing her experience teaching and working with youth in D.C. neighborhoods, she said, “life is about give and give… not give and take.” She expressed how giving is a key takeaway she wants to leave with younger generations, especially in underserved communities.

The Royal Blue Series dives into the heart of a D.C. neighborhood to demonstrate not only how children are directly affected by cycles of violence, but also how art can channel those experiences into healing with the opportunity for restoration and compensation. Price set out to explore adolescence and Black boys’ experiences growing up in D.C. at the onset of the project, and found motivation in uncovering ways to protect the innocence of Black boys in America. To create this series, Price collaborated with a group of adolescent boys in 2019, facing the aftermath of a murder of their brother and friend, 11-year-old Karon Brown. In the wake of this trauma, Price photographed the boys playing and hanging out – gathering in shared spaces like the playground. While building a relationship with them and taking their photos, Price also compensated the boys for their participation.

In Long Live Baby K, 2019, the child on the left is seen wearing a shirt in remembrance of Karon Brown. 2022 Silver Gelatin Print (Pearl), 11x14in. (courtesy of the artist’s website)

Price emphasized that she wants to show the boys that they can and will be compensated for their work in the art world. She hopes to impart on them that creative work, especially photography, can be an alternative source of income in addition to being a creative outlet as they work through their emotions. 

Accordingly, on one of her 2022 visits with the (now) teenage boys, she spent a day teaching them how to take photos and letting them use her camera to photograph each other. Over the course of the Royal Blue Series’ movement through exhibitions, art collections, publications, Price has endeavored to share this journey with the boys however she can, and to be a resource to her young collaborators in their creative development. The series photograph, Ray, 2022, depicts one of the children handling Price’s camera and peering into the lens. 

In Ray, 2022, The adolescent boy (left) is seen handling Price’s camera and peering into the lens. 2022 Silver gelatin print (pearl), 11x14in. (courtesy of the artist’s website)

Price is finding ways to keep the next generation’s attention by sharing creative practices that can engage emotions while generating an income stream. Now, when I view Price’s photography, I am hearing her voice play in my head, “give and give…not give and take.”

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Beverly Price’s work is included in What We Do After at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from August 28  to October 6, 2022.

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RESOURCE(S):

  1. Price, Beverly, “Meet Beverly,” 2023. Artist Website, 2023. https://www.beverlypricephoto.com/royal-blue-the-essence-of-innocence 
  2. Price Beverly, “The Royal Blue Series (The Essence of Innocence), 2022. Artist Website, 2023. https://www.beverlypricephoto.com/royal-blue-the-essence-of-innocence 
  3. Price/Chilcoat Discussion, September 12, 2023.
  4. Artist Talk with Beverly Price for CAPP, at the Nicholson Project, February 2023.
Contemporary Art Purchasing Program (CAPP), Current Exhibition

Behind the Scenes: Understanding the Contemporary Arts Purchasing Program and Its Role in ‘New Arrivals’ Through Committee Advisor Cecilia Wichmann

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As New Arrivals 2017 winds to a close, I’d like to explore the exhibition’s beginnings.

The Contemporary Art Purchasing Program is the UMD initiative that brought New Arrivals to life. Thanks to six incredible students (Rachael Carruthers, Grace DeWitt, Nicolay (Nick) Duque-Robayo, Kathleen Hubbard, Damon King; Sarang Yeola) and their dedicated advisor Cecilia Wichmann, the thought-provoking, compassionate works displayed in the Stamp Gallery are permanent cultural contributions to the Student Union.

To enlighten us on the curatorial process behind New Arrivals, Mrs. Cecilia Wichmann graciously offered her reflections from the year-long program.

If you could describe CAPP or your CAPP experience in 5 words, what would they be?

Elaborating an ethics, together.

What is your favorite memory involving CAPP?

Every moment that we spent visiting with artists and looking at artworks together in person was my favorite! An intriguing dynamic developed over time as we played with the balance of looking quietly as individuals and tuning in as a group, between contemplating and sharing responses to works of art in a variety of ways. We had an amazing experience early on when we visited Morton Fine Art in DC and encountered work by Nate Lewis for the first time – all of us seemed to feel personally compelled (and right away!) so it was enormously exciting to get to look closely together and share our unfolding observations live and in detail. A similar converging energy took place as we learned about Joyce J. Scott’s brilliant work with Amy Raehse at Goya Contemporary in Baltimore.

Equally exciting were the experiences in which we all had very different takes and rates of response and found ourselves puzzling through these differences together, coming back to them in some cases as their effects sunk in over weeks or months.

We had numerous unforgettable visits to artists’ studios in DC, Mount Rainier, Baltimore, and New York. We met so many wonderful people who welcomed us into their work spaces and devoted an enormous amount of time to talking with us about their ideas and processes – Margaret Boozer and Red Dirt Studios, Cheeny Celebrado-Royer, Zoë Charlton, Nona Faustine, Taha Heydari, Phaan Howng, Joiri Minaya, Jonathan Monaghan, Sophia Narrett, Liora Ostroff, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Paul Rucker,  Joseph Shetler, Jowita Wyszomirska, as well as the MFA studios at MICA Mt. Royal School of Art and University of Maryland-College Park, and Open Studios at The Fillmore School (pilot program of the Halcyon Arts Lab). So much work of many kinds goes into preparing to welcome visitors to a studio or gallery, and we felt constantly grateful for the expertise and warm hospitality that met us at every turn, including those artists and gallerists with whom we hoped to–but could not ultimately–make a visit happen.

Getting to experience so much art, in such great concentration over time and with such dedicated individuals, amounted to a rare thing — a really complex and not always verbal conversation sustained for almost a year. For me, those moments when we shared a space with artworks and each other felt magical and life-affirming, and have changed my model of a meaningful life.  

 What does contemporary art mean to you? Has your definition been shaped by your experience with the program?

For me, contemporary art — art being made by my fellow human beings in the recent past or present — invites me first and foremost to consider those people who call what they do ‘making art,’ and therefore regularly consider what it means to live and work as an artist in the world right now. The answer is not singular — I think part of being an artist has to do with putting intentional thought into that question, orienting and reorienting oneself to it over time. Exploring what this profession or vocation might mean for one’s identity and vice versa, and envisioning what kinds of social obligations might therefore pertain.  I admire and value that effort. And I admire and value the 2016-17 CAPP committee’s respect for and interest in artists,  relatively free of preconceptions about who or what  an artist is supposed to be or do.

The brilliant arts leader and advocate Deana Haggag – formerly of The Contemporary in Baltimore and now President & CEO of United States Artists in Chicago – has recently made important observations related to artists as a labor sector, including the perplexing but revealing finding of a recent Urban Institute Study that while 96% of Americans value art only 27% value artists (check out recent interviews with Haggag on this topic on the Bad at Sports contemporary art podcast, on Artspace, and on Vogue.com). My experience with CAPP taught me so much about how I might endeavor to approach my work, aware of this disconnect, so as to better advocate with and for artists.

What is the importance of featuring contemporary art in public spaces (and UMD specifically?)

Contemporary artworks percolate questions, live with ambiguity, represent aspects of experience and identity otherwise papered over, invite mindful attention to the weirdness and instability of perception, engage profound ideas with humor and sly tweaking of expectations, thicken the sensory environments in which they are situated in ways that invite us to attend more carefully to the thick sensory possibilities of our own living bodies. I think these kinds of qualities make a difference to our encounters with public space, where we are more often confronted with invitations to conform to an existing plan, to accept a limited range of representations as a given or norm, and to make sense of ourselves matter-of-factly as consumers. I think it’s especially important to have contemporary artworks always on view at The Stamp – UMD’s student union – because it’s a place where we all spend time and go repeatedly to work, to eat, to connect with friends, and works of art can intersect with these contexts, calling us to slow down, return to them again and again (for a private moment or to share with someone else), to examine our own assessments of their beauty, to consider the shifting stories they might have to tell, and to register the ways in which our growing knowledge and shifting views inform these experiences as we ourselves change over time. 

 

Written by Sarah Schurman 

 

Contemporary Art Purchasing Program (CAPP), Opening Reception

Installation Revelation

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So you’re walking by the Stamp Gallery one afternoon. Peaking through the glass exterior, you see that there are boxes and packing paper scattered throughout. You see some power tools on the benches, and a ladder leaning against the corner. You notice random walls that seem to be hanging out in limbo in the middle of the space. Walking past the entrance, you find a sign taped to the door: “Closed for installation, please come back for our opening next week!”

Ever wanted to know just what goes into the installation of a gallery exhibition?

The past week at the Stamp Gallery has been quite a busy one, with the installation of our current exhibition featuring new arrivals for the Contemporary Art Purchasing Program (CAPP). As a docent, I get to take part in this installation process. As such, I thought I’d offer a little glimpse into a few of the more subtle, never-occurred-to-me-before-I-started-working-here types of things that go on behind the scenes of an installation.

Vinyl

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When you first walk into the Stamp Gallery and start reading about what the exhibit is about, you are reading the vinyl. I’d like to start off by admitting that, before I started working at the gallery, I was under the impression that someone had to come and actually hand-paint the words onto the wall…which I’m glad is not the case! After the exhibition overview is typed up in a Word doc, it is sent to be blown up in size and then printed out on a kind of sticker-like paper. Before sticking this onto the wall, we measure the length/width of the sheet, take a ruler to the wall, level it, and make light pencil marks for guidelines. Next, we peel off the outer layer of the sheet, which uncovers the sticky part that goes onto the wall. Once we have the sheet up on the wall, we smooth out any wrinkles and press it against the wall as much as possible – this makes it easier to peel the paper off without peeling the actual letters off as well. The final step is to do the actual peeling!

Walls

In the gallery, we have “moveable” walls that are stored in the back. The wall holding Titus Kaphar’s The Jerome Project (Asphalt and Chalk) XII is a moveable wall.

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These walls allow us the mobility to create new, smaller spaces within our existing gallery space. They also provide extra surface area to accommodate more pieces, draw attention to particular works, as well as provide general interest and variability to the eye. For this exhibition in particular, we added a wall behind the podium holding Wafaa Bilal’s Perseus Beheading Medusa and Pink David in order to direct focus onto the pieces, since they are relatively small objects in comparison to the space.

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Lighting

Tracks along the ceiling of the gallery provide grooves that the lights hook into. There are three tracks spanning the length of the space, and five tracks running widthwise. The lights themselves consist of a bulb attached to a frame that can be maneuvered to adjust the angle of the light accordingly. In addition, there are metal bars within the hook of the frame that conduct electricity and make the light turn on when attached to the track.                                                                                       Depending on the needs of the exhibition/pieces, the lights can be placed so that they either “spotlight” or provide a softer, glow to the work. When spotlighting, the lights are generally placed closer to the piece, which provides a very direct focus. Setting the light farther back creates more of an atmosphere and harmonization for the piece as well as the space surrounding it. Other things to keep in mind when setting up lights is reflection, shadows, and the color casted by the bulb. For the pieces that contain a glass covering, we had to consider the effects of possible reflections caused by our lighting choices. In addition, we can control the degree and location of shadows by light placement. For Ellington Robinson’s Oath of the Imperialists, we played around with the distance of the lights from the work in order to “shift” the shadows around.

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Finally, some bulbs are older than others and cast a softer, more yellow hue than the newer ones, which typically cast a very bright, verging on greenish tint. We usually try to match the shades of light throughout the exhibit.

Of course, there are many other aspects that go into a gallery installation that I haven’t mentioned here – each show is unique in terms of the methods used to bring it together. For a closer look at the results of our installation, be sure to check out the opening reception of CAPP New Arrivals 2015 this Friday, September 25th between 6-10pm.

See you there!

Carmen Dodl