Press/CV
ArtBlog Shapes and Animals at Tiger and Grizzly
by Becca Kantor
Visitors to Colleen Rudolf‘s exhibit “CON · NECT [KUH · NEKT]” at the Grizzly Grizzly Gallery might feel as though they’ve stepped into a Please Touch Museum for the thinking adult. Rudolf is both perceptive and playful in contrasting animals’ straightforward and instinctual manner of relating to each other with humans’ inability to give our full attention to any single interaction. Rudolf believes that humans’ lack of focus is a recent development, due to the barrage of technological communication to which we are increasingly exposed.
Galleries: Going off script with a show called 'Scripted'
by Edith Newhall
Keyser has not disappointed. "Scripted" is a remarkable show of 10 artists whose works make ample use of the "arbitrary signifier," a term coined by the French linguist Ferdinand Saussure to describe a fragment of a work that an artist or writer might remove and replace with another, different component, creating an unnatural sequence of images or events. But even if you didn't know Keyser's theme - as I didn't when I saw his show - you would recognize that all the works he's assembled have the quality of a jigsaw puzzle in progress.
Faded meanings – Dematerialization at Pterodactyl Gallery
By Ben Meyer
The essay accompanying Dematerialization, up now at Pterodactyl Gallery in Kensington, includes the observation that “many contemporary artists and art productions have aligned with minimalist Donald Judd’s 1965 declaration of ‘disinterest in doing [painting and sculpture] again.’” In the work on display in Dematerialization, curated by Jamie Png, this “disinterest” has extended to a negation of artistic intent, narrative, and in some cases even aesthetic appeal. Many pieces conceptually show art as providing an open-ended experience, rather than an intentional creation, while others question the essential presuppositions of the art world. This type of experimentation is a delicate tight-rope for artists to walk, for while most pieces here are fresh and enjoyable, some veer too far off into the insubstantial.
Art Review: "Exposed" at Helen Day Art Center
By Pamela Polston
Colleen Rudolf’s lifelike bronze “Encounter (Wolf & Dog),” on the gallery’s front lawn, is a standoff of the two creatures that evokes surprising drama. Rudolf fashioned her dog with ears back and tail erect; the animal looks alert, uncertain, but willing to wag. The wolf’s tail hangs down as the creature gazes steadily at the dog. Not to anthropomorphize, but the expression on its face might be read as indulgence toward its more domesticated relative. Placed some 15 feet apart, the animals are locked in an evolutionary tension.