2nd Annual Curators' Incubator Program
August 17, 2004
Art Place
By Glenn McNatt
The group show at Maryland Art Place grew out of the gallery's Curators' Incubator program, which gives aspiring arts professionals a chance to choose artists and design exhibitions of their own conception. This show brings together 19 artists organized in three shows that explore the concept of space, albeit in quite different ways.
The first show, In This City, curated by Jennifer Selden, is an array of photographs and installations by Mike Cataldi, Geoff Grace, Amanda Matles, Chuck Miller, Jared Paolini and Rick Sacchetti inspired by the city.
The most intriguing piece is Grace's beauty and nature forms of the 20th gift, a magical and magnificent wall painting of birds in flight executed entirely in clay that seems to soar off the gallery's white walls.
By contrast, All Four Corners, curated by Jackie Milad, is a minimalist experiment whose success can be judged by the fact that the five artists represented - Seong Chun, Catherine Pancake, Minna Philips, Amy Rathbone and Shannon Young - have filled the gallery with works made of such ephemeral materials that they barely seem present.
Philips' thread-and-paint installation piece Cluster, for example, limns out a totally convincing volume of vibrant geometric space in one corner of the gallery with nothing more substantial than a few lengths of string and splashes of color.
In On the Line: Machines, Maps and Memory, curated by Karey Kessler and Pat Goslee, Andy Holtin creates amazing mechanical contraptions out of such unlikely materials as wooden boxes and stethoscopes. The show includes nearly equally ingenious works by Andrew Krieger, Walter Ratzat, Scott Reynolds, Dylan Scholinski, Jen Swan, Perry Steindel, Katy Uravitch and Sylvie van Helden.
The show runs through Sept. 11. The gallery is at 8 Market Place, Suite 100. Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Call 410-962-8565 or visit www.mdartplace.org.
