HAND/MADE

Jan 15, 2015

HAND/MADE

Opening Reception Friday, February 6th, 5:00 – 8:00pm

MICA’s Decker Gallery, Fox Building, 1301 W Mount Royal Ave, Baltimore, Maryland 21217

Icon: Sam the Eagle, marble, 19 x 12 x 12 in.

Icon: Sam the Eagle, marble, 19 x 12 x 12 in.

Sebastian’s recent work, Icon: Sam the Eagle, will be on display with the tools and models used for it’s creation.

MICA’s Exhibition Development Seminar (EDS) students present HAND / MADE, an art show juxtaposing an original 19th-century marble sculpture by artist and former MICA student William Henry Rinehart with 3-D, performance and video works by contemporary sculptors and interdisciplinary artists. Exhibited in MICA’s Fox Building: Decker Gallery (1303 W. Mount Royal Ave.) from Friday, Jan. 30-Sunday, March 15, HAND / MADE makes vital connections between traditional methods employed by artists working with 19th-century studio artisan teams and collaborative practices in contemporary studios. A reception will take place Friday, Feb. 6, 5-8 p.m.

“HAND / MADE explores how sculptures are seldom the result of a simple transaction between a single artist, an idea and a given medium,” said EDS co-curator and class spokesperson Adenike Adelekan ’15 (art history, theory, and criticism). “The methods and practices that are sometimes used when creating a sculpture can involve multiple people beyond the artist. This can cause tension regarding the complex issue of authorship. Our exhibition aims to investigate this on-going discussion.”

The EDS class will show work from six contemporary artists, all with ties to MICA, of which five have been commissioned for new work. Fiber faculty member Annet Couwenberg,Nancy Daly ’11 (Photographic & Electronic Media), Director of the Rinehart School of Sculpture Maren Hassinger, Richard Vosseller ’95 (general fine arts) and Megan Van Wagoner ’00 (Mount Royal School of Art) are creating works that respond to Rinehart’s most reproduced sculpture, Sleeping Children. Each artist has been asked to reflect on the relationship between individual creative expression and artistic collaboration-and what it means when others’ labor is required to realize an artwork. MICA’s own Sleeping Childrenwill be displayed alongside the commissioned pieces, allowing the audience to draw connections from the past to the present. Also on display will be contemporary marble work by Sebastian Martorana ’08 (Rinehart School of Sculpture), with his tools and maquettes (or scale models) to help viewers visualize the traditional carving process.

 

A New Icon: Sam

Dec 4, 2014

Icon: Sam the Eagle, marble, 19 x 12 x 12 in.

Icon: Sam the Eagle, marble, 19 x 12 x 12 in.

I was recently asked by pair of supportive collectors to revisit a series I began a few years ago.

The latest in the Icon Series is based on, American Icon and Muppet, Sam the Eagle.

Sam occupies a unique place in the wacky crowd that is the Muppets. He stands in as the ironic voice of conservatism and reason against the backdrop of frenetic chaos.

Some of my first memories of the Muppets involve Sam as a disgruntled participant  in the Tit Willow song, deadpanning the part of the Dicky Bird — I had it on vinyl for my Fisher Price turntable.

I feel that Sam was kind of the vehicle for the writers to speak slyly against censors and non-progressives in a way that was smart, funny, wry satire before The Daily Show and, ultimately, The Colbert Report perfected it.

In a double-headed manner Sam expounds the necessity of “the noble eagle, the good old values, the wisdom of the Founding Fathers” in a way that is seen by certain political groups– albeit with out the irony.

Icon: Sam the Eagle, marble, 19 x 12 x 12 in.

Icon: Sam the Eagle, marble, 19 x 12 x 12 in.

Throughout Sam’s tenure as a kind of disapproving-uncle-figure he avoided ever becoming a villain (more recently playing the role of a hero in the latest Muppet movie). So I chose to depict him in the style of Emperor Hadrian, one of the more benevolent (relatively speaking), if not initially bumbling, rulers of the Roman Empire.

Sam actually appeared for the first time in 1975 in the second Muppet Show: Sex and Violence, the series’ second pilot. Note: in the background, often over Sam’s right shoulder, there is a marble bust that is conspicuously attired with random bits of costuming each time it appears in the shot — hah!  Classic!

 

Icon: Sam the Eagle, marble, 19 x 12 x 12 in.

Icon: Sam the Eagle, marble, 19 x 12 x 12 in.