| Follow us on Twitter |
In River to Infinity-The Vanishing Points Stanislav creates a twenty-first century landscape through a series of reflective, mirrored landscape installations in which she both celebrates and questions contemporary experience. The exhibition is organized by the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program (MAEP), an artists-run curatorial department at the MIA.
River to Infinity is an entirely reflective landscape created primarily out of mirrors. The multimedia installation includes video images of mirrored obelisks, which Stanislav created and previously set in the Great Salt Flats of Utah. Projected at both ends of the "river," the videos keep the gallery space in constant motion. Visitors can enter an interactive environment saturated with reflections, sounds, and images–an experience made profoundly physical through perceptual manipulation. Stanislav describes her installations as "metaphysical journeys into contemporary science and culture, executed with both humor and a glam-rock aesthetic."
River to Infinity is an end-stage celebration of the excesses of Western culture, in which Stanislav interprets the past, present, and future. In the adjacent gallery, photographs by Edward S. Curtis of Native Americans are transformed from their sepia tones into Warhol-like "ghost" portraits, printed on reflective surfaces. According to Stanislav, these images "formally re-contextualize Curtis's subjects as celebrity icons, and comment ironically on their status as both the artifacts of Manifest Destiny and a reminder of an authentic culture that was its victim." The mirrored river creates a never-ending vanishing point, suggesting the West is no longer enough.
One of the influences on Stanislav's artwork is her experience working on Matthew Barney's film Cremaster 3. Since 1990, her sculptures and multimedia installations have been exhibited locally and internationally, including site-specific installations at Franconia Sculpture Park, in Shafer, Minnesota; Wonkwang University, in Iksan, Korea; and Indiana University, in Bloomington, Indiana. Stanislav has a master of fine arts degree from Alfred University and a bachelor of fine arts degree from Art Institute of Chicago, she is currently an assistant professor of sculpture at the University of Minnesota.
An opening reception for this exhibition will be held Thursday, January 24, at 7 P.M. Stanislav will give an artist talk on Thursday, January 31, at 7 P.M. A Critics' trialogue with Christopher Atkins will be presented on Thursday, February 21, 7 p.m. All events are free. -- www.artsmia.org
Posted December 24th, 2007 by ruzik_tuzik
ES Curtis as seen by Stanislav
For anyone who might see the Stanislav take on ES Curtis in the exhibit mentioned above:
Curtis's work reverberates on through history because he knew how to capture character and soul on camera.
He has, however, turned into a subject of controversy because of the tug of war between documentary and art.
I think the images speak for themselves.
You might find it interesting that there is a film of Curtis's 'Indian Picture Opera', found on Amazon. It reflects, in his own words, about the people he spent many years observing. I think it makes his legacy less confusing, and filters out the noise of the last century.