The competition invited artists to propose temporary public art projects in the Eastman Reading Garden. The program commissions innovative, thought-provoking works of art that add to the library’s already broad range of educational and cultural programming. Each year, one artist or team of artists is selected to exhibit an installation from May until October in this highly visible space.

IUP Department of Art

The exhibit, “Paper or Plastic?” continues through January 16, 2010.

IUP Department of Art

A Canadian-Chinese artist, Yan states “Making art is a transmigration of my ideas, and thus my spirit, into the physical world. As an artist migrating from China to North America, both my identity and my sculpture pass through the complex filters of different countries, languages, and cultural expectations.”

Her solo exhibition, “Floating” is supporting by a grant from the Canadian Council on the Arts and the Toronto Arts Council.

IUP Department of Art

Transfer Lounge is a project that involves art professionals from Spain and the U.S.A and creates a unique opportunity for artists from different parts of the world to actively exchange their views and ideas around current issues of mobility and transition. The exhibition is in Valencia and Pittsburgh.

The Spanish part of the proposed project is principally coordinated by Toni Calderón, art critic and curator, and Ima Picó, artist and curator. Residencies, events, and exhibitions will take place in Forja ArteContemporáneo, Valencia, in September 2009. c/Lebón 19; Valencia 46023, Spain; Tel: 963-512-080; info@forjaarte.es

The opening of the event in Forja ArteContemporáneo was on September 17, 2009. The exhibition will be open until October 23, 2009.

The U.S.A part of the proposed project is principally coordinated by Carolina Loyola Garcia, artist and curator. Residencies and events will take place in Space, Pittsburgh, from October 2 to November 17, 2009.

Rash, detail, EPS Foam, wall installation, 2009, by Patricia Villalobos Echeverría

ESCaperucita & LIttle Flying Hood, detail, Digital Archival Print, 2009 by Nayda Collazo-Llorens

The exhibition, showing in the annex at 1414 Monterey Street, Pittsburgh, is guest-curated by Katherine Talcott and also features artists Stephanie Armbruster, Jeremy Boyle, Jonny Farringdon, Victoria Hruska, La Toya Frasier, Gary Huck, Andrew Ellis Johnson, Amanda Long, Lindsay O’Leary, Drew Pavelchak, Renee Piechocki, John Riegert, The Urban Gardener: Joan Kimmel and Lynne Weber, and Dror Yaron.

The exhibit opened July 24, 2009, and runs through January 10, 2010.

(Right) Patricia Villalobos Echeverría, “Parasite (40°27’25"N 80°00’48"W)”

This is a site-specific installation that alludes to contaminants and occupied territories. The architectural site becomes a “host” to elements that protrude from the walls as a metaphor to symbiotic and parasitic relationships. The work references camouflage, intrusion, and disease, where both the host and its appendage transform into a new hybrid site/being. Parasite (40°27’25"N 80°00’48"W), detail, installation, EPS Foam, Wexler apartment and building façade, dimensions Variable, 2009

(Above) Nayda Collazo-Llorens, “Unfolding the Triangle”

A mixed-media wall installation, 2009. This site-specific project explores location as an imaginary, physical, geographic, and psychological territory. The Bermuda Triangle, an area that encompasses the artist’s native Puerto Rico, becomes distended, its coordinates stretched and its area unfolded into her current site. A series of connections, multiple narratives, and images are interwoven into a visual structure that explores navigation and displacement. (Image: source material/archive)

The exhibition is curated by Raúl Quintanilla and Rodrigo Gonzales and will be part of a conference that speaks of the state of the environment globally.

The Kerameikon International Competition is one of the most prestigeous venues for the ceramic artist. This year, 170 artists from forty-three countries were accepted, and it is the first first year any artist from the USA was juried into the exhibition. Turner was one of only fourteen USA artists accepted. Out of fifteen awards announced at this year’s competition, Turner’s work received an Honorable Mention and was the only award received by an artist from the USA.

Please visit the Kerameikon International Competition website.

IUP Department of Art

Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s department of art is partnering with the Indiana County Recycling Center for “Animals in Your Trash,” an exhibition of art made from recycled plastics.

The exhibition is on display at the Indiana County Solid Waste Authority’s recycling center at 1715 Route 119 South, Homer City, through Nov. 21. The center is open to the community from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. There is no admission charge for the exhibition.

The project is directed by Steve Loar, a faculty member in IUP’s art department and director of IUP’s Center for Turning and Furniture Design. The artwork on display was created by 21 students who completed Loar’s three-dimensional design course in 2007.

The class emphasized creative problem solving with skills in cutting and building methods. Loar asked the students to translate the idea of bird or dinosaur by using primarily postconsumer waste plastic, most coming from detergent bottles.

The items were created with simple tools like scissors, hole punches, pinking shears, pop rivets, wire and screws, nuts and washers.

Loar’s work with David Edgar, a visiting artist at IUP in November 2007, was the impetus for the “Animals in Your Trash” exhibition. Edgar is known for his creation of artwork from recycled materials in the form of fish and other animals.

“As a teacher of three-dimensional design, I have been experimenting for years with student assignments that used recycled materials, but without great personal satisfaction. When I stumbled upon the new work of David Edgar, whom I had previously met in 1999, I had a true ‘a-ha’ moment,” Loar said. “It seemed that all the hopes of my previous attempts were embodied in his one plastic fish.

“The (2007) IUP common freshman reader, ‘Field Notes from a Catastrophe,’ added fuel to my longtime interest in physically heightening my students’ awareness of our planet’s limited resources, our country’s nonchalant view of waste and the creative individual’s potential role in initiating action.”

Loar’s students began work with the recycled materials by making a fish brooch, followed by the creation of a fish using Edgar’s basic procedure. Students in Loar’s fall 2007 class were asked to create birds, and the spring 2008 class was asked to create dinosaurs.

“The assignments were not about making a model of a real dinosaur or making a true likeness of a bird, but rather to attract the viewer, activate their imagination and have them understand the idea without being told,” Loar said.

For information about tours of the recycling center, contact Vikki Saltsman at (724) 479-0444 or via e-mail at vikki76@gmail.com. For information about the exhibition, contact Loar at (724) 465-0758 or via e-mail at slowtech@iup.edu.