For Immediate Release
August 20, 2006
WHAT: Exalted Trash is an art exhibition that uses what is most commonly considered "trash" and redefines it as Art.
Paper is cheap, abundant and disposed of almost too easily. Patrick Miceli's art installations are comprised of fast food packaging -- one of the most abundant paper waste products in our culture. As such, it is a relic left in the wake of our consumer society. Flat boxes made from terracotta are arranged on the floor to define a circle. Viewed from this context each box is a piece of a puzzle containing a scrap of paper. Each scrap of paper can be seen as an archeological keepsake or fetish item in its own reliquary or time capsule.
Paris-based artist Bruno Richard has been publishing books and magazines of graphic drawings, text and photo-based work since the late 1970s. He and Marc Fischer, Chicago-based artist and member of the groups, Temporary Services and Mess Hall, have engaged in mail correspondence since 1998, resulting in a mountainous barrage of detritus that Fischer has received from Richard. Fischer's archives of Richard's multitudinous mailed packages have swelled beyond reason. The scraps of paper, pieces of film, book layouts, photocopied drawings, give-away postcards, used envelopes, receipts and clippings from newspapers and obscure sex journals that provide the source material for Richard's work, give the impression of a manic energy. This is, however, a controlled concern with one's obsessions; an aesthetic contrivance that has not lost its authenticity.
WHEN: October 7 - December 9, 2006
WHERE: Columbia College, Center for Book & Paper Arts
1104 S. Wabash, Ave., 2nd floor
COST: Free and Open to the Public.
INFO: 312.344.6630 or www.bookandpaper.org
Media Contact: Elizabeth Burke-Dain 312.344.8695