Collage Night in Durham, NC and Deadline for collages

For the next issue of la colle, the collage zine, there will be a... Collage Night in Durham, NC at the Golden Belt artist studios (Building 3- Studio 131) on Friday, December 19 from 6-9 PM! Details here: http://www.goldenbeltarts.com/newsEvents_Details.php?event_id=28
Address: 807 East Main Street, Durham (Main Street through downtown, turn left on Morning Glory on the left, soon after JC's Kitchen on the right).
Collage Night encourages people to take up scissors and glue and create. Source materials including paper, scissors, and glue will be provided, but participants are encouraged to bring additional materials. Julie will be collecting collages for her zine's 6th issue, with a clothing + fashion theme. Anyone who submits a collage for this issue will receive a free copy. Stop by Studio 131 and make a collage!

If you can't make it to collage night, I encourage you to make a clothing (and/or fashion) themed collage and send it my way for the next issue of la colle! I have already received some exciting contributions and I think it might be the best issue of la colle yet! I would like to try to collect all collages by December 20th, but if you need some extra time just let me know. Additional details are here http://www.lacolle.blogspot.com/ or you can contact me through my yahoo account, juliejeanus

Call for Collages- Clothing is the theme for Issue 6!

Clothing is something we encounter everyday. It can allow us to make statements (personal or even political), sometimes we us it to differentiate ourselves from others, while other times it aligns us and allows for group identification. The way clothes are made and who makes them, how and with what materials are also related issues that this theme allows one to explore. Maybe one of your parents sewed clothes you have worn or maybe you sew your own. Anything in this broad-ranging theme of clothing allows you to explore these and even other issues and ideas.
To parallel my own thoughts and investigations into clothing the next (the 6th!) issue of la colle, the collage zine, will be devoted to clothing. This year I am trying to sew any new clothes or purchase them from companies with fair trade policies after reading about the GAP’s use of slave labor to make skirts this past fall. Maybe you’ll just make a collage, but maybe this theme will bring to your attention larger themes related to clothing.

Does fashion factor into this theme? It can if you want. As Radu Stern has written in the fabulous book Against Fashion: Clothing as Art, 1850-1930, "...fashion appears to be not just a consequence of capitalism, but one of the factors that contributed to its rise." (some additional excerpts from the fantastic book are posted here)

Here are some related links and books related to this theme that I’ve come across lately that might offer some inspiration:
Andrea Zittel’s Smock Shop http://www.smockshop.org/
Lisa Anne Auerbach http://www.stealthissweater.com/
Jean Shin, Projects 81 http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2002/projects/projects81/81_current.html
Cat Chow http://www.cat-chow.com/
Garment/research http://www.garmentresearch.org/wpress/
The Object of Labor Art, Cloth, and Cultural Production Edited by Joan Livingstone and John Ploof

When preparing your submission keep in mind that the zine is photocopied in black and white on legal paper. While there is room for one center-fold (or I guess two if you think about the cover) 8 ½ x 14 other collages will be reproduced on 8 ½ x 7 spaces.This issue will come out sometime this winter, so submit you clothing collages by December 1, 2008. You can send your collage (a hi-res, 300 dpi image) to my yahoo address juliejeanus or if you prefer to mail it, e-mail me and I’ll send you my mailing address.

Also feel free to pass along any clothing-related songs, books, exhibitions, websites or exhibition reviews you’ve written along. If you submit a collage you will receive a free issue of la colle in exchange for your contribution.

la colle issue #5- MAPS- now out!

The 5th issue of la colle is now out!

Exploring maps in 28 pages, issue 5 includes:

• collages by 10 artists from Michigan, Illinois, Oregon California and North Carolina
• questions answered by cartographer and collage artist Denis Wood
• lists of intriguing books about maps
• artists who work with maps
• a list of maps in songs.
• Current and upcoming collage and map exhibitions (also listed below).

If you submitted a map collage (THANK YOU!), your complimentary issue will be mailed soon.

If you would like to purchase this new and exciting issue it will be posted shortly on http://www.juliejean.etsy.com/ and will also be available at Quimby's in Chicago (http://www.quimbys.com/). Only with your support and/or collages will la colle continue to exist.

The next issue of la colle will be assembled sometime in Winter 2008 or early 2009. The theme will be Clothing (which could also, but does not have to, include fashion). More details to follow.

Collage and/or Map Exhibitions
Maps: Finding Our Place in the World
March 16 – June 8, 2008, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MA
http://www.thewalters.org/maps/finding.html
Baltimore, like Chicago, is also having a Festival of Maps, March 16 - June 8, 2008 http://www.baltimorefestivalofmaps.com/

The Story of This Place: Charm City Remix, Kianga Ford, Contemporary Museum, Baltimore http://www.contemporary.org/exhibitions.html#kianga
http://www.contemporary.org/kiangafordfile.php

Jasper Johns Gray, Through May 4, 2008, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/jasperjohns/works.html

Collage: The Unmonumental Picture, The New Museum, NY
Exhibition closed March 30, 2008 but an exhibition catalogue was published. Images and audio available online. I was particularly impressed by Mark Bradford’s work, a dramatic presence when one stepped off the elevator, Martha Rosler’s series Bringing the War Home and John Stezaker’s Film Portraits. http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/5

Far From Home, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, through July 13, 2008
Includes the brilliant work by Jane Benson, Mirror Globe (Map of the World), 2006, who plays with the idea prevalent in older maps that they present an accurate reflection of the world, Benson updates this notion, using such a map as the base of her work, with a disco ball, reflecting, but only pieces, of the viewer and the immediate in front of the map. http://ncartmuseum.org/exhibitions/farfromhome/art.shtml and a second link about Benson’s Mirror Globe http://janebenson.net/disco_globe/discoglobe5.html

Time is Of the Essence: Contemporary Landscape Art, Asheville Art Museum, NC
Through June 22, 2008
Includes Maya Lin’s Altered Atlas, 2007, made from a recycled atlas and a photomontage by Ken Fandell.
http://www.ashevilleart.org/current-exhibitions/time-is-of-the-essence-contemporary-landscap.html

Julie Mehretu: City Sitings
Previously at the DIA in Detroit (closed March 30, 2008)
April 19–July 27, 2008, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA

August 17–November 30, 2008, NC Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
http://www.wcma.org/press/08/08_Mehretu.shtml
http://ncartmuseum.org/exhibitions/upcoming.shtml

Call for Map Collages- Issue 5 of la colle, the collage zine!

“A map is a dream, an idea, an action, an emblem of human endeavor. It instigates adventures... Careful perceptions of our surroundings have always been matters of life and death.” -From Vincent Virga's Cartographia
Virga has also said, “The science of mapmaking is still alive, but we’ve lost the art.”

This is a call to put the art back into maps!
Maps are fascinating and powerful.

A map is an abstract conception of a place. The person who made had to make choices about what to include as well as what to leave out. Each map is thus a reflection of its maker. While maps are made by people working for corporations these are tons of individuals making maps right now that are staggering, mind-blowing, poetic, helpful, revealing, beautiful, not interested in aesthetics, life-changing and more.

In my new-found love and fascination and excitement about maps, the next (the 5th!) issue of la colle, the collage zine, will be devoted to maps.

Below are some artists, maps, exhibits, projects and websites that I have come across recently and they may help challenge your notion of a map.

When preparing your submission keep in mind that the zine is photocopied in black and white on legal paper. While there is room for one center-fold (or I guess two if you think about the cover) 8 ½ x 14 other collages will be reproduced on 8 ½ x 7 spaces.

This issue will come out sometime this spring, so submit you map collages by March 31, 2008. You can send you map collage (a hi-res, 300 dpi image) to my yahoo address juliejeanus or if you prefer to mail it, e-mail me and I’ll send you my mailing address. Also feel free to pass along any map-related songs, books, exhibitions, websites or exhibition reviews you’ve written along. If you submit a collage you will receive a free issue of la colle in exchange.

Here are some ways other people have approached maps lately (some collage and some not) to inspire you:

Get Lost! Artists Map New York City- Francis Alys, Marcel Dzama, Thurston Moore and so many more!!!!
http://www.newmuseum.org/assets/general/getlost/index.html

'Cartographia' Showcases Maps as History, Art
Vincent Virga's Cartographia- where the quote above came from.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17173936&ps=bb2
and an interview with Vincent Virga http://www.timeout.com/newyork/articles/around-town/24170/i-am-legend

An Atlas of Radical Cartography
http://www.an-atlas.com/

Lia Perjovschi’s Globe Collection and Mind Maps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMkcZQEkIQ4 and
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/learntoread/artistinfo.shtm

elin o’hara slavic- Protesting Cartography or Places the United States has Bombed
http://www.unc.edu/~eoslavic/projects/bombsites/index.html

Saul Steinberg’s View of the World from 9th Avenue
http://www.saulsteinbergfoundation.org/gallery_24_viewofworld.html

3CS: Counter-Cartographies Collective
http://www.countercartographies.org/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/

subROSA- Can you see us now?
http://canuseeusnow.refugia.net/

Creative Mapping- A blog dedicated to the creative use of maps in art!
http://creativemapping.blogspot.com/

Festival of Maps- A whole festival of maps in Chicago! Started in November and continues into 2008
http://www.festivalofmaps.org/index.aspx

Fallen Fruit- Maps can feed you!
http://www.fallenfruit.org/maps.html

This American Life of course has also been interested in maps:
Episode 110- Mapping- the episode where I learned about Dennis Wood’s book, The Power of Maps.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=110
You can see images of Dennis Wood’s maps of pumpkins! Manholes! And street lights! http://www.flickr.com/photos/thisamericanlife/sets/72157602618985796/

Also, Episode 136 You are Here
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=136

Guillermo Kuitca (go in a few pages of his work to find his maps)
http://www.speronewestwater.com/cgi-bin/iowa/artists/record.html?record=6

Map This!- Exhibition at the Chicago Architecture Foundation January 10– March 21, 2008
http://www.architecture.org/exhibitions.html#buck

I am America. (And So?)
By Wyatt Mason, December 2, 2007, NY Times Magazine
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/magazine/02wwln-lede-t.html?_r=1&ex=1197262800&en=9e9b87bdcecb1a62&ei=5070&emc=eta1&oref=slogin

Mapping the Self- November 3, 2007 - March 2, 2008, MCA Chicago
http://www.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/exh_detail.php?id=166

Making Maps- deals with questions like What is a Map? And Why are you making a map?
http://makingmaps.owu.edu/

And best of all, the fabulous map you are going to make.

Collage lecture with 3 artists in NYC!

Collage lecture in NYC- Saturday January 19, 3 p.m.

Mark Bradford, Christian Holstad, and Wangechi Mutu discuss “Collage: The Unmonumental Picture”
Free with Museum admission*
Chief Curator Richard Flood leads a conversation with three artists from “Collage: The Unmonumental Picture.”
New Museum
http://www.newmuseum.org/events/116

An exciting talk to coincide with a collage exhibition I can't wait to see!
The exhibition, Collage: The Unmonumental Picture is on view January 16, 2008 - March 30, 2008