5/28: NO BALL PLAYING: OBJECTS OF REBELLION AND CONTROL // new works by MARIAN APRIL GLEBES
NO BALL PLAYING: OBJECTS OF REBELLION AND CONTROL
new works by MARIAN APRIL GLEBES
May 28-29
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 28, 5-8
Open hours: Sunday, May 29, noon-4
Mess Hall
6932 N Glenwood Ave
Untitled (Whitewashed), 2011, hornet and acrylic paint
In NO BALL PLAYING: OBJECTS OF REBELLION AND CONTROL, the dandelion, the paper airplane, the water filter, the insect, are objects that are at once subversive, but contain potential proactivity, they are humble and monumentalized, playful and precious. Using labour-intensive yet whimsical gestures infused with childlike wonder or scientific inquisition, Marian April Glebes attempts to control the uncontrollable.
The insect repairs from the series Misplaced Altruism/Vanities of Aid are grotesque mortuarial attempts to preserve or mend, meticulous gestures executed on found carcasses, symbolic of an impulse to restore order in a fragile environment and to fill a void created by patheticness in form. This adornment or patching of battered insect bodies is misplaced altruism, which quells the vanities in aid or pity by indulging the most absurd and effete of generosities: squandered restoration and functionless beauty. The youthful naivete of bottling butterflies or lightening bugs for collection is replicated in Glebes’ process here as fruitless containment and embellishment.
The seemingly benign dandelion is similarly sterilized and preserved via misplaced altruistic protective gestures that either attempt to permanatize ephemeral moments or protect from perceived and circumscribed threats. Simultaneously terrorist of the front lawn and childhood plaything, the dandelion is used here to symbolically dissect the fragility and absurdity of our received suburban values.
Like the insect and the dandelion, the paper airplane is object of both rebellion and control. It is a classroom revolt, is exactitude and precision. The paper airplane’s inherent dichotomies again erupt as toy becomes precious object, and failures of construction erode sculpture into plaything. Through the dandelion, the paper airplane, and the other objects, No Ball Playing: Objects of Rebellion and Control flirts with obsessive structure to address issues of the urban and suburban environment, the character and power of the artist, and the potential agency of the art object as a tool for social change.
MARIAN APRIL GLEBES is an emerging conceptual and mixed-media artist whose installations and sculptures are built of the remnants of elaborate processes that are futile or ridiculous, metaphoric, and temporary. Her works address issues of the urban/suburban environment, the character and power of the artist, and the use of site-specificity and the art object as a tool for social change. Glebes has exhibited in Baltimore, Washington DC, New York City, and Chicago galleries, including Heaven Gallery, Gallery Four, Salt Gallery, the Creative Alliance, Silberg Gallery at Goucher College, Area 405, MICA, Greenbelt Arts Center, Anne Arundel Community College, and the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture at UMBC. Having received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute, College of Art in 2004 and her Masters of Fine Art from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 2009, Glebes has made her home in Baltimore, and currently facilitates commercial, cultural and community development in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District. She curates for a number of Baltimore venues including Artscape, Transmodern Festival, The WindUp Space, and the Metro Gallery, and is co-curator of The Design Conversations, which received a Confetti Grant from the Baltimore Community Foundation in 2009. Glebes presently serves as Treasurer for D center Baltimore, for which she also participates as Chair of the Programing and Curatorial Committee, Chair of Governance, and heads the Design Conversation Task Force. For these efforts, Glebes and her collaborators were awarded an Operation Storefront Grant from The Downtown Partnership of Baltimore to open D center @ MAP in Spring 2011.
More information about Marian April Glebes can be found at www.thingsonshelves.net