Press

Collaborative Exhibition

Gallery NuLu proudly announce their latest show, a two-woman effort from Louisville-based artists Ashley Cecil and Sarah Lyon!

Opening: August 1st, 2008 Through: August 30th, 2008

Both artists offer eloquent portraits of life in Louisville and what it means to those that live there.

Cecil's "Women of Mass Construction " tells the triumphant stories of females making their way with the help of local charities.

Of her latest series, Cecil says, "Art highlighting social and political leaders is abundant. However, the work of these social justice pioneers is rarely expressed through art portraying individuals they impacted. I've been incredibly fortunate to meet so many amazing people as a 'painting activist,' and through this series I'm honored to introduce you to a handful of them."

Lyon's "Louisville Portraits, 2003 – 2008 " document individuals experiencing various locales throughout the city.

"While the locations (in Lyon's work) incorporate some elements that seem to resist change, the inhabitants of these vignettes observe us, or their surroundings, with a light and sober grace. Each frame offers us a new scene to consider with its own small story. Some locations divulge their own secrets." - Erin Fletcher, independent curator. Louisville KY.

Lyon's portraits, while "[e]voking something lost, … also act as a testament to a living landscape, to the changing sense of place that accompanies these locations. Suggesting a space of "what was" and "what could be," they become representations of optimism, speaking of the city not as a ghost but as a place that is vital and alive." - Julien Robson, The Speed Museum's Curator of Contemporary Art.

Download the press release

Enough is Enough

by Diane Heilenman

"Enough is Enough" is likely the largest pencil drawing you've ever seen.

It took 70 wooden pencils and 600 leads for a mechanical pencil to cover 208,605 square inches. That is precisely the size of the wall space, floor to ceiling, in three rooms at Gallery NuLu, according to Louisville artists Jacob Heustis and Thea Lura. They should know because they covered the rough, white walls with consistently random marks over 120 hours.

The notion behind the tedious process -- in itself a bit of private performance art -- was to transform "space into sculpture." This they did in the sense that, as they minimized and obscured the subject (which is, both literally and figuratively, the rooms and the rooms as expected backdrops to an art exhibition), the work becomes about how removal of the expected can produce unexpected, rich results.

"Enough is Enough" unavoidably reminds you of the transformative private performance of the late Robert Rauschenberg, when he obtained a drawing from Wilhelm de Kooning and erased it laboriously over two months. "Enough is Enough" is almost a self-destructing artwork that, as it is erased or painted over, it becomes a cloudy part of the history of the space and, eventually, disappears -- yet remains more tangibly than any prior art exhibitions in the space.

The Louisville artists take it one step further to underscore the temporal quality of their art project. They document it in three books, with pages scaled to equal the square-inches of the rooms, and with each page filled with the even abstraction of marks.

At some point, the mental process behind this work becomes tortuous and you may be excused if you indulge in a fly-by viewing.

But if you stay awhile, you will find that the experience is meditative, soothing. It is, if you give it enough time, like standing in a vast meadow of swaying grass, staring at the sky or floating on an ocean. It is purist in the same way that furniture or buildings with self-evident construction are pure, or the way the experience of a single (pure) color or sound can create a new space for new thoughts on the part of the listener or viewer.

Enough is Enough

Gallery NuLu proudly announce their latest show, “Enough is Enough”, a collaborative
effort from Louisville-based artists Jacob Heustis and Thea Lura!

Opening: June 6th, 2008 :: Through: June 28th, 2008

At first glance the gallery appears completely empty, but further inspection reveals that each inch of the space has been tediously tended to. By using traditional materials and obsessive markmaking, the artists attempt to transform the gallery space into a sculpture of its own.

Heustis's raw and bratty approach is loaded with detailed documentation of process and time. Often sparse and with a sense of immediacy, his work has become increasingly self-referential.

Lura's work deals with how we imbue objects with meaning and how these objects change in significance without physically changing. In 2007 she was awarded an Artist Enrichment Grant from KFW, and her most recent project Now Is Not Enough is showing at the New Center for Contemporary Art.

Both artists have exhibited their work in group and solo shows. This is their first collaborative show together.

Download the press release

By Diane Heilenman • dheilenman@courier-journal.com • April 6, 2008

The design for a $4.2 million hot-arts studio complex near the Clark-Floyd Landfill in Southern Indiana has been quietly unveiled in Louisville.

We should all get fired up.

When completed, the Ohio Valley Creative Energy complex will doubtless be a national landmark and an inspiring destination for people interested in the interrelated nature of green engineering and exciting architectural design.

The big dream comes from, mostly, young artists and designers playing on a virtually untapped treasure field, where a year's worth of landfill gas -- now being burned off just to get rid of it -- can be worth $1 million.

OVCE's ambition to cover the normal $80,000-per-year energy costs for a single studio have dovetailed into aspirations of the first landfill-to-gas project in the U.S. The idea is to create electricity for 1,000 Southern Indiana homes from the landfill and donate excess gas from the home-use power grid to OVCE for its arts campus. Artists will pay about $300 per month for a studio and energy.

The design by (fer) Studio of Inglewood, Calif., is a deft visual summation of the client, Ohio Valley Creative Energy, and its mission for green design, creative leadership, energy efficiency and the promotion of art businesses.

Elements of the long complex that will enclose an existing 100-year-old farmhouse begin with a source pipe of excess methane at Wilson Switch Road in Borden, Ind.

The complex ends with a cylindrical "energy silo" that will recapture excess heat from the excess methane and use this extra energy to heat cooler areas, including a working greenhouse.

The heart of things is, of course, the pipeline.

It will be elevated and both marked by and mounted to a large rammed-earth wall created by an antique reinforcing construction method. And the wall will shoot through the complex like an arrow pointing to the sustainability goal that has been the core of OVCE since it began in 2005.

Architect Doug Pierson explained his design in a recent e-mail interview.

The narrow 10-acre site "only strengthened the design intent to emphasize the path of energy" from landfill to kilns and foundry, he said.

And the practical device of mounting the raised pipeline on an earth wall creates a visual path, a "natural way-finding guide" that will orient resident artists and visitors.

Plus, an existing farm pond will be used to help cool and recycle wastewater.

But, Pierson said, he is really excited about the rammed-earth wall. It will be partly made of artists' recycled materials that will give it rich color and texture. And, he said, he loves it because a rammed-earth wall is "one of those rare conditions where modern technology catches up with history." What started as a bright idea by an art student -- Lori Beck -- to figure out how to get around $30 to $70 an hour to lease studio time has transcended self-interest.

With like-minded artists and others, OVCE was formed. It has grown in a grass-roots manner, funded by producing a Rooftop Concert series at Louisville's Glassworks building and through gifts, sponsors and grants of $25,000 from Caesars Indiana and $15,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts.

"I feel so lucky," said Beck. "I just try to find people to help out. That's all I can do … it's not me … I don't feel like it's my idea anymore. … Somewhere in this process, I let that go."

The budget is still tight, and much of the work is hands-on. To avoid shipping costs, Beck is on the road now with a serendipitous free ride to California to pick up the three-dimensional model (fer) Studio built. It will eventually be on display at the OVCE office, 611 E. Main St., Louisville.

Sometimes progress seems so slow, said Beck. "The first e-mail went out in late 2005."

But by 2006 there was a brainstorming design session with 11 architecture students at Miami University of Ohio. Last year these models were displayed at Louisville's Cressman Center for Visual Arts, and Beck was asked to curate an exhibit about sustainability for Gallery Nulu, which is itself expanding to a renovated warehouse being redone to green standards by (fer) Studio.

Costs escalate way too fast, she said. "This $3 million project has quickly turned into a $4.2 million project. … We need $750,000 to get started and $1.6 million to build the studio. … We want to have two years' operating costs built in."

But, she said, "operating costs won't include much in the way of energy. That's the whole idea."

Explore

Leah Tinari
by Stephanie Brothers

Leah Tinari’s rap sheet speaks for itself. Having spent face time in Elle, Lucky, Spin, The New York Times Magazine, and the UK Adbusters, she gets around. She’s also a regular (and acclaimed) contributing illustrator for The New Yorker, having put her touch on such bands as The Faint and Supergrass.

Tinari turns everyday snapshots into art, making permanent events that might normally become forgotten digital files—or accidentally deleted. Her vibrant, salacious paintings are based on bleary nights out with girlfriends, raucous family get-togethers, and—most recently— wild masquerade parties.

Her new show, “These Squares Certainly Sabotage the Stereotype”, is at Gallery NuLu through May 31st. It documents a recent benefit for The Riverkeeper, a member-supported, nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to defending the Hudson River and New York City’s water supply.

“It was fabulous” Tinari reported from her Brooklyn studio, “all my Jersey friends, fantastic dresses, a limo, champagne, masks….” A New Jersey native, Tinari was schooled at the Rhode Island School for Design, before settling down in Brooklyn. While not creating her own art, she teaches students at Parsons School of Design.

Although she has never been to Louisville before, “It just feels right to bring this work there for the Derby. From what I’ve heard,” she laughs, “you guys know a thing or two about a great party!”

Gallery NuLu proudly announce their latest show:

Leah Tinari’s “These Squares Certainly Sabotage the Stereotype”!

Opening: April 4th, 2008 from 5-8 pm
Through: May 31s t , 2008

Brooklynite and celebrated New Yorker illustrator Leah Tinari makes her first trip to Louisville with her outrageous, sumptuous paintings. Tinari celebrates and puts her personal touch on the everyday snapshot by turning it into art, permanently recording her boisterous nights out and family gettogethers in our ‘snap it, delete it, and retake it’ society. Tinari’s illustrations regularly accompany The New Yorker’s Goings On Around Town Section, putting her touch on bands like The Faint and Supergrass.

Her work has also snagged the cover of the UK’s Adbusters, as well as coverage in Elle, Lucky, Spin, and The New York Times Magazine. She teaches a drawing and painting class at Parsons School of Design as well. Whitney May of The New York Arts Magazine sums it up: “Here, youth, laughs, tequila, and a digital camera are everything; neither politics nor the rest of society pose any significant roadblock.”

[read press release]

Through March 29

'Boys Don't Cry'

Video artist Valerie Sullivan Fuchs hasn't had a solo show in five years. That makes her current exhibition "Boys Don't Cry" one-stop shopping for all things Fuchs.

The long wait produced a variety of photographs and videos. Her latest project, "The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors" (that great title is borrowed from a work by Marcel Duchamp, one of her favorites), consists of photographs of strip mining in Eastern Kentucky. This show's title comes from a collaborative video she did with David Ingram and Ben Sollee (she also worked with Sollee on "Western/Western"). The Louisville Ballet is the focus of another video, as well as the thermal metal prints of selected ballet scenes.

May her next five years be as productive.
—Jo Anne Triplett

Gallery NuLu  
632 E. Market St., upstairs
502-561-1162

Gallery NuLu proudly announce their latest show,

Valerie Sullivan Fuchs’ “Boys Don’t Cry”!

Opening: March 7th, 2008
Through: March 29th, 2008

Described as a “prominent video artist” by Julien Robson, The Speed Museum's Curator of Contemporary Art , Fuchs offers her first solo exhibition in five years.

Fuchs has exhibited her work throughout the US, including Louisville’s 21C and Speed Museums, twice at the Santa Barbara Center for Contemporary Art, and several galleries in Chicago. Fuchs has also shown her work abroad, most recently in Estonia at the Parnu Film and Video Festival, as well as in Austria and Serbia.

Fuchs is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council, multiple Artist Enrichment Grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and a grant from the Sony Corporation. In 2003, she won a Prague Quadrennial Award for Video Design. In 2005, the Louisville International Airport commissioned the creation of her ‘Zero to Sixty’ project, on permanent display in the terminal.

She received a Bachelors in Architecture from the University of Kentucky, and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her latest collection offers several new video pieces, as well as other works.

[read press release]

Christopher Hauck :: Identity Crisis

Feb 1 - March 1, 2008
Opening Reception
February 1, 2007
5-9pm

"Who Are You?" is not just the title of a Who song for former Louisvillian Christopher Hauck. He has seen people having identity crises all around him, and as an artist, his job was to create images that express that dilemma. Combine that with the concept of branding, and the result is his "Identity Crisis" series.

The person as product is not a new idea; just ask Paris Hilton. Hauck's paintings, assemblage, video and installation focus on who we think we are and how we want to be perceived. Self-help books express these sentiments all the time. Artists also know it's an area ripe for expression; just not many of them attach a bar code to drive the point home.

"Identity Crisis" is not having a crisis of its own. It's been shown in London, Berlin, Los Angeles and Hauck's current home of Atlanta. The work will be shown in Chicago and Boston after it leaves here. Hauck returns to Louisville in September as part of the Idea Festival.

—Jo Anne Triplett

[visit artist's site]

Who are we?

By Diane Heilenman
dheilenman@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

Atlanta artist Christopher Hauck, a native of Louisville, is having an "Identity Crisis" in an exhibit of the same name that opens with a 5-8 p.m. reception Friday at Gallery NuLu, second floor, 632 E. Market St.

Hauck just may launch a crisis for you, too, with his stylized figures from soldiers to glamour queens disembodied as bar codes. Hauck explores what he calls "the commoditization of identity, the person as product, the branding of 'me.' " He continues in his statement: "I am a product, in the General Mills or Procter & Gamble sense, of the first generation hyper-consumers. We live in a perpetually cycling, highly mediated environment where identities are constructed, broadcast, adopted and discarded at mega-bit speeds."