Window (re/production|re/presentation) five-year celebration, July 26

Press release from Window (re/production|re/presentation):

Aaron McIntosh

July 16 – October 26, 2018
54 Broadway, Asheville, NC

FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
Reception With the Artist + Sidewalk Art Talk
July 26th, 2-3 pm

Window (re/production|re/presentation) is pleased to host the work, Road to Tennessee, by Richmond, VA artist Aaron McIntosh, coinciding with Scale Up: 10 Years, 10 Fellows, 10 Projects at The Center for Craft (closing July 28 and including work from McIntosh’s Invasive project). This exhibition marks our 5-year Anniversary and will include an afternoon reception with aperitifs and a sidewalk art talk with the artist followed by time for questions and conversation on July 26, from 2 to 3 p.m.

“Road to Tennessee is composed equally of a photographic image and a patchwork quilt. Such dualities find their way into my work from many angles. Flipping through a gay erotic magazine, the image of a man amid a woodland scene caught my eye and instantly reminded me of the shallow creek beds and wooded foothills of my idyllic childhood in rural Tennessee. In stark contrast, the nude man at the center of this scene confronts my adult sexuality. The image is complex for me and begs an intervention: the porno guy is cut away so I can be filled in. His absence leaves only the echo of landscape, and here I embed unfinished patchwork, both a marker of my traditional craft background and a symbol of my own pieced-together identity. Aptly named “Road to Tennessee”, this specific quilt pattern has a cage, or net-like appearance, which I cannot help but connect to my own feelings of being trapped in my personal journey to/from home.” (Aaron McIntosh)

About the Artist

Aaron McIntosh is a cross-disciplinary artist whose work mines the intersections of material culture, family tradition, sexual desire and identity politics in a range of works including quilts, sculpture, collage, photography and writing. His exhibition record includes numerous solo and group exhibitions, most recently The Embedded Message: Quilting in Contemporary Art at Richmond’s Visual Arts Center. He is the recipient of two Windgate Fellowships in 2006 and 2015, a 2017 CultureWorks Grant for his Invasive Queer Kudzu project, and a 2018 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship. He has held residencies at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. His critical writing has been published in the Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, the Surface Design Journal, and the Journal of Modern Craft. He currently lives and works in Richmond, VA, where he is Assistant Professor and Fiber Area Head at VCU.

About the Project

Conceived of as a site-specific minimalist exhibition space, Window is a long-term public art project that aims to stimulate thoughtful discussion around timely issues of re-production and re-presentation within contemporary art in the local community and beyond. The primary focus is upon works that repurpose found or archival source materials; challenge notions of originality and authenticity; stimulate perceptual phenomena through reiteration or duplication; implement re-photography as a critical component; or embrace re-production as essential to the work. Window is generously hosted by Henco Reprographics, 54 Broadway, Asheville, NC, 28801. Throughout 2016, Window produced Window | National, a yearlong multi-city project made possible in part by an Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation McKean Grant.

For more information visit http://windowcontemporary.org/