TCNJ News
For Immediate Release
January 22, 2010
Multimedia artists deliver Art & Interactive Multimedia building’s inaugural exhibit
EWING, NJ … The first art gallery exhibit to be held in The College of New Jersey’s new Art & Interactive Multimedia building opens Jan. 27 at 5 P.M.., and will showcase a thematic assemblage of photographic, conceptual and video-based projects.
“Inherited Traits” will feature six diverse installations crafted by award-winning artists Nina Katchadourian and Heidi Kumao. Each of the pieces illuminate a different facet of the “family” theme the Committee for Cultural and Intellectual Community has chosen to explore during the 2009-2010 academic year.
The exhibit begins Wednesday night with an opening reception and runs until March 3. Both of the artists will be in attendance for the opening, and will give a brief talk at 6 P.M.
One of the works, Kumao’s “Trace,” will be making its debut at the College. In this piece, the artist produces a representation of a womb or shelter that allows for individual growth, ultimately as a celebration of Fredrick Douglass’ intellectual escape from the bondage of slavery.
The new installation, which incorporates an open book and the shadow of a house in its symbolic message, is only one of several that play with the spatial arrangement of objects. Her “Translator,” for example, faces a couple of projector-fitted reclining chairs against an entreating, aluminum robot “girl,” creating a dynamic that suggests familial, political or intrinsic conflict.
Katchadourian’s works, by contrast, focus largely on human faces, forming “a combination of pointed humor and everyday forms of familial representation,” according to gallery director Sarah Cunningham. In “Genealogy of the Supermarket,” she assembles a group of artificial personas (among them, Aunt Jemima) into a “family tree,” a satirical commentary on the identity-focused marketing strategies of brand-name companies.
Her other projects contemplate the more personal relationship between the artist and her own family members and utilize photography and video in the spirit of the exhibit’s multimedia experimentation.
The premier art event of the new semester, “Inherited Traits” is the culmination of a mentorship project completed by senior Karin Christiaens, art history/English double major with a minor in classics, who planned for and arranged the exhibit alongside the director. It is free and open to the College community and the public.
For more information on this exhibit, contact art gallery director Sarah Cunningham at cunningh@tcnj.edu. Learn more about The College Art Gallery visit www.tcnj.edu/~tcag
