"Artspeak Incinerator" Project
A commission for the (un)Scene Art Show, Armory Arts Week
March 4-8, 2015
PRESS RELEASE
"Artspeak Incinerator" Project
A commission for the (un)Scene Art Show, Armory Arts Week
March 4-8, 2015
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, March 1, 2015 The (un)SCENE Art Show is pleased to announce the commission of “Artspeak Incinerator”, an interactive video installation and series of mixed media artworks by New York artist Bill Claps that are executed by combining a number of mediums, including video, photography, painting, drawing and printmaking.
The “Artspeak Incinerator” installation investigates the use of language in contemporary art journalism and critique, interrogating and digitally incinerating the art world’s coded language, releasing it into the atmosphere in an altered and purified state. Throughout Armory Arts Week Claps will be sourcing examples of artspeak from various art fairs, art publications, and institutions throughout New York City, utilizing a technology interface to translate that language into Morse code, and projecting and digitally incinerating the output on the facade of the (un)SCENE show building and other art institutions throughout the city. The project utilizes Twitter and croudsourcing to generate content. To incinerate particularly egregious artspeak, tweet the text using the hashtag #artspeakincinerator. This prompts the language to be instantly projected onto the facade of the show building, translated, and then digitally incinerated up the side of a metaphorical chimney.
Additionally, several of Claps’ artworks from his two most recent series, “Artspeak” and “It’s all Derivative”, will be featured in the show. The “Artspeak” works turn the unintelligible language of the art world into an art form, creating beautifully gilded and textured art objects from Morse code. The “It’s All Derivative” series comments on the practice of appropriation and veneration in the art world, combining borrowed imagery from the past with the visual language of Morse code. The artworks playfully and subversively appropriate the appropriators, questioning the notion of originality in art. Iconic images become gilded icons, contemporary art objects presented like medieval tapestries and ancient scrolls.
About the (un)SCENE Art Show During New York Armory Week a new project will challenge the art fair status quo with a redefined concept of exhibiting work. Celebrating passion over fashion, the (un)SCENE will create an immersive environment where the work over 90 artists - ranging from new media, to performance, to kinetic sculpture, and contemporary to Old Master painting - will be integrated into an installation that is part Happening and part museum installation, which will be staged in a fallow factory in Hell’s Kitchen, a single block from The Armory Show.
The (un)SCENE empowers and challenges its guests to experience art in a visceral way. There are no booths, instead there will be striking juxtapositions, performance art, and participatory activities that are blended with traditional media that invite contemplation and celebrate the spirit that underlies the creative process. Each day at the (un)SCENE brings new surprises.
About Bill Claps Bill Claps’ paintings and drawings have been featured in solo and group exhibitions in galleries, institutions, and art fairs throughout the U.S. and Europe. In the U.S.: Salomon Arts Gallery (New York City), Priska C. Juschka Fine Art (New York City), Henry Gregg Gallery (New York City), and Rush Arts Gallery (New York City), Aspen Fine Arts Gallery (Aspen, Colorado), Bendheim Gallery (Greenwich, Connecticut), Kismet Gallery (Westport, Connecticut), and Exhibit Gallery (Tulsa, OK). In Europe he has shown at Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Palazzo Corsini (Rome), Artgeneve (Geneva), Art Monaco (Monaco), and Evartspace (Geneva). His works are in private collections and foundations in the U.S. and Europe. www.billclaps.net
For press inquires: Z Nelson, The (un)SCENE Art Show, zfnx78@gmail.com, Tel. 347-693-8271