“Land Portrait” San Antonio

Land Portrait
January 2012
UTSA Satellite Space
Blue Star Art Complex, San Antonio, TX

Opening Reception: Jan 5 & 6, 2012 (6-9 PM)

Land Portrait will feature work from Culture Lab members based upon his or her relationship with a particular place, landform, landscape, topography, or state of current residence. The works, when combined, will act as comprehensive land portraits. These translations of site are needed as societies are continually in flux and locations are fluid. Histories are waiting to be formed.

(Coordinated and Curated by Brian Jobe.)

“Response” Slippery Rock, PA

RESPONSE I & II: Culture Laboratory Collective in collaboration with Ben Lewis and Noah Simblist
Martha Gault Gallery, Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, PA
January 26- Feb 21, 2012

(curated and coordinated by Ian F. Thomas.)

Exhibition format:An outside party (Ben Lewis for Response I and Noah Simblist for Response II) proposes a theme in the form of a 12 word sentence and a word is designated for each artist in Culture Lab. The gallery will be set up to read in a linear format following the sentence structure. Each artist will be given approx. 4 feet of horizontal space in which to ‘consider’ their word.

“RESPONSE II” Cornell University

“I am writing this (self reflexive) sentence but it is writing you.”

~Noah Simblist (artist/critic/curator, Texas)

RESPONSE II: Culture Laboratory in collaboration with Noah Simblist
Olive Tjaden Gallery, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
September 26-30, 2011

“Response II: Noah Simblist,” originally displayed at Box 13 ArtSpace in Houston, Texas, will be on exhibit at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.

Exhibition format: An outside party (Noah Simblist) proposes a theme in the form of a 12 word sentence and a word is designated for each artist in Culture Lab. The gallery will be set up to read in a linear format following the sentence structure. Each artist will be given approx. 4 feet of horizontal space in which to ‘consider’ their word.

“RESPONSE II” Houston

8.6- 9.10.2011
“Response: Culture Laboratory Collective
in collaboration with Noah Simblist “
Box 13 Artspace :: Houston, TX

“I am writing this (self reflexive) sentence but it is writing you.”
~Noah Simblist

Exhibition format: “Response” is part of an ongoing series of exhibitions where Culture Laboratory invites an outside party to propose a theme in the form of a 12 word sentence. A word is designated for each artist in Culture Lab. The gallery will be set up to be read in a linear format following the sentence structure. Each artist will be given 4 feet of horizontal space in which to ‘consider’ their word. In this exhibit our sentence is contributed by Noah Simblist, Texas based artist, writer, curator and Assoc. Prof. at SMU, Dallas.

THEME: As a group Culture Lab will focus on themes of interpretation while highlighting ideas of diversity and individuality within a community.

“Co: Modify” Victoria, Tx

Co:Modify
Culture Laboratory Collective
December 9, 2011- January 22, 2012
Nave Museum,Victoria, Texas
(curated and developed by Shreepad Joglekar )

Theme: Culture Laboratory members will focus on the  idea of ‘commodification as a form of validation of life concepts.’
For example: the health care industry, or the health food industry. One can observe that for an idea of common good to be viable, it needs to attain the form of an industrial product.

“RESPONSE” Dallas

“Nowadays we must distinguish between the deeply superficial and the superficially superficial.“
~Ben Lewis (of ‘Art Safari,‘ London)

RESPONSE
Brazos Gallery, Richland College, Dallas, TX
February 03 – March 03, 2011

Exhibition format: An outside party (Ben Lewis) proposes a theme in the form of a 13 word sentence and a word is designated for each artist in Culture Lab. The gallery will be set up to read in a linear format following the sentence structure. Each artist will be given 4 feet of horizontal space in which to ‘consider’ their word.

In this exhibit we have been provided with a sentence by outside party Ben Lewis, an award winning director, writer, and interviewer based in London. In his acclaimed contemporary art series, ‘Art Safari,’ Lewis has interviewed internationally recognized artists Matthew Barney, Sophie Calle, Santiago Sierra, and Maurizio Cattelan. He has recently released a new documentary titled “The Great Contemporary Art Bubble.”

THEME: As a group Culture Lab will focus on themes of interpretation while highlighting ideas of diversity and individuality within a community.

Concept: The exhibit involves relational aesthetics, pinpointing the individuality of the artists and our localized attempts to remain a part of the group discussion.  Each artist is naturally unique, so the idea is to promote an artist group that does not attempt to homogenize it’s member’s but allows them a voice that contributes to the vitality of the community.

“Translatory Motion” Jingdezhen

Translatory Motion
The Pottery Workshop Gallery, Jingdezhen, China
Shanghai, China
Beijing, China

The exhibit challenges conceptual and cultural translation while pinpointing identity through the objects we propose for creation by another culture.

Theme: Culture Laboratory members design images which will be hand painted as blue glaze onto porcelain tiles  by the phenomenal ceramics workers in China. Dryden Wells has been working in China for almost 3 years. He is coordinating the exhibit with stateside help from Ian F Thomas.

The exhibition entangles intention, translation, and the potential for communication into a series of finely crafted objects. The exhibit will first be shown in China and later exhibited in the US. We will post more details as they emerge.

Exhibits will continue from August until December 2011.

“So Say We All… Sort Of…” San Marcos, Tx

The Culture Laboratory Collective comprises a diverse group of artists working loosely around the question of social cohesion within the context of aesthetic fragmentation. While focusing collectively on a synthetically established social identity the work presented paradoxically strives to break free of group-think aesthetics in favor of the individual voice, the point of dissonance opposing the attempt at collaborative cohesion. Retaining a focus on craft and the object, Culture Laboratory Collective operates as an ongoing investigation in media interchangeability and aesthetic fluidity.

Our first exhibition “Culture Lab:: So Say We All, Sort Of…” was at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. A Culture Lab member, JD Durham, coordinated and curated the exhibition. On Friday, July 31st 2009 we had the Closing Reception at 5PM and the Gallery Talk at 3PM.