Apr 5, 2011
Mar 29, 2011
Feb 23, 2011
Feb 17, 2011
Dec 4, 2010
Oct 26, 2009
Oct 15, 2009
A Micro/Macroscopic look at the world of Rodolfo Rojas-Rocha
by Donna Rae Kessinger
P.O. Box 30325 NY, NY 10011
Rodolfo Rojas-Rocha and I met at an art opening at the Miami Art Center (800 Lincoln Road Gallery) during Art Basel-Miami Beach 2007. He is a prolific painter, professor and community educator. Rojas-Rocha (1968) was raised in Costa Rica and he has had 20 solo shows and more than 90 national and international exhibitions (New York, Mississippi, Cartagena, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador among other countries), is a member of Costarrican Visual Artists Association (ACAV), and serves on the Ministry of Education and PROCESOS as an artistic education Consultant. Remarkably, seven months from Art-Basel, I found myself exploring the Arts and Culture of San Jose, Costa Rica. I spent ten days meeting with contemporary Costarrican Artists in local galleries and in their studios. I quickly found myself in a world that appears quite different from mine on the surface, but when it comes to being Artists, we are of the same heart.
I asked Rodolfo to describe his upcoming mural / drawing project scheduled at the Media Project Space, Gallery Aferro in Newark, New Jersey, Zoomitograhy Rhizome:
I am interested in doing a performance that challenge(s) the audience to think about the rhizome drawing and consider ‘what art is’…I would like to improvise and incorporate sounds while I am drawing. The performace might be a series of intimate gestures taken from action drawing.
The installation will be a combination of conceptual maps, handmade media combined with cognitive thinking, theory of art, performative elements, along with innovative lighting techniques.
When asked to describe his work he replied, (It is) the way to think about nature around me, related with the micro and macro world. Since the space between rain forest to the sky.
Rojas-Rocha incorporates non-linear and rhizomatic images in collage with relationships and patterns cultivated from nature. He works in oil, acrylic, mixed media and site-specific drawing layered with natural imagery found in the rain forest. A common theme in his art is the examination of a simultaneous microscopic and macroscopic reality that is based on human anatomy, muscles, fiber of animal, vegetable and mineral elements, along with ideological aspects of the Costa Rican mythological, including pre-Columbian symbols. His works on canvas bring to mind the early biomorphic paintings of Terry Winters, while crossing the territory between human anatomy, nature and Costa Rica mythologies. His paintings explore a deep exchange of color taken directly from the palette of the Costa Rican Landscape.
Rojas-Rocha is not afraid to use applied technology in his work, whether in the classroom or exhibiton space. He employs 3-D Google Maps teach Design History alongside his Janson, Art History Book, and the Metropolitan Museum’s Timeline of Art History; http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/
He pulls the combined media together to bring innovative methods of learning to his students. This reflects his approach to his own art. He uses conceptual maps to think forward about his creative process, in order to help better organize and visualize ideas, or topics. A conceptual map is a special form of a web diagram for exploring knowledge and gathering and sharing aesthetic information.
Rodolfo: In my work drawing a concept mapping is the strategy employed to develop Art. A concept map consists of nodes or cells as rhizomatic links, which contain an image, words and lines. The links are labeled and denote direction with an arrow symbol related with muscles and organization structure. The labeled links explain the relationship between the nodes. The arrow describes the direction of the relationship and reads like a visual sentence.
Rojas-Rocha adds, I am interested in hybridized culture… an approach to the contemporary artistic image. Culture means transform(ing) nature; I transform culture with a rhizomatic drawing. My drawings have fibers, nodes, buds, and tiny figures that will create a composition along the wall. The rhizome is a pattern of life…a fleshy stem that grows horizontally, as a food-storing organ, beneath the surface of the ground, and enables a plant to reproduce. The wall is the surface where I will draw the process as stem. Lines and forms will be visible and will grow as a plant in a forest
Rodolfo Rojas-Rocha’s solo Exhibiton in Gallery Aferro’s New Media Project Space will open the last weekend of October in 2009, and will correspond with, The Open Doors Artist's Studios and Available Space Tour, an annual event organized by the Newark Arts Council. The Tour features a number of curated and juried exhibitions featuring Art from Newark and surrounding areas while showcasing available artists' space; performance art. Check out http://www.aferro.org and www.newarkarts.org, for workshops and related events. Also see Rodolfo’s website http://www.rojasrocha.com for images of his work and updated exhibiton information. Gallery Aferro can be found at 73 Market Street, located in Downtown Newark. Newark has a rapidly growing art scene that is less than thirty minutes from Manhattan by train, and is within walking distance to the world famous Iberian culinary delights of the Portuguese / Spanish neighborhood known as the Iron Bound.
*Donna Rae Kessinger is a working Artist and Curator, based in the New York Metro Area, whose focus is mainly on projects that encourage collaboration between emerging artists and communities, resulting in a marriage of art and commerce in the form of a possible intervention / performative work, public art project, or traditional gallery exhibition.*
Oct 2, 2009
Sep 15, 2009
Una Mirada al Mundo de
Rodolfo Rojas-Rocha
por Donna Rae Kessinger
Este mes, El Playero les presenta a Donna Rae Kessinger, quien escribe sobre el artista Rodolfo Rojas Rocha de Costa Rica. Donna Rae Kessinger es Artista y Curadora, con base en el Area Metro de New York y enfoca sus proyectos con el propósito de estimular la colaboración entre artistas recientes y las comunidades.
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Conocí a Rodolfo Rojas-Rocha en el Centro de Arte de Miami durante “Art Basel-Miami Beach 2007”. Pintor prolífico, Rojas-Rocha ha exhibido sus trabajos nacional e internacionalmente y es también profesor en la Universidad de Veritas y en la Universidad de Costa Rica. El es actualmente consultor en Educación de Arte en el Ministerio de Educación de Costa Rica. La exhibición “Zoometría del Rhizoma”, mural dibujado por Rodolfo Rojas-Rocha, empezará a ser exhibido el último fin de semanas de octubre en el “New Media Project Space” de la Galería Aferro, en Newark, New Jersey. Describiendo este proyecto, Rodolfo dice: “Estoy interesado en hacer una impresión que rete a la audiencia a pensar sobre el dibujo del rhizoma y que consideren ‘qué es arte…Me gustaría improvisar e incorporar sonidos mientras dibujo” La exhibición incluirá una combinación de diagramas de ideas generales, pinturas de murales “airbrushed”, la actuación de elementos y técnicas innovadoras de iluminación. El trabajo que él crea tiene su foco visual y emocional en “… el espacio entre el bosque lluvioso y el cielo.”
Rodolfo explica además, que su trabajo es una reflexión de la manera que él piensa sobre cosas pequeñas y grandes en naturaleza. El incorpora “dibujos rhizomáticos sin líneas, imágenes de plantas en colage con relaciones y patrones derivados de la naturaleza. Sus dibujos acodados con la imaginación natural que se encuentra en un bosque pluvial. Su trabajo lo hace al óleo, en acrílico y mezclando medios.
Un tema común en su arte es el examen de la simultánea realidad de lo micro y macroscópico percibida a través de la anatomía humana, de fibras de animales y de elementos tales como vegetales y minerales. Su trabajo también muestra imágenes de la mitología costarricense y de símbolos pre-colombianos. Los cuadros de Rojas Rocha son réplicas tomadas de los pinceles que pintan los paisajes costarricenses.
Para ver imágenes del trabajo de Rodolfo, visite su website: www.rojasrocha.com. La Galería Aferro está en 73 Market Street , Downtown Newark, New Jersey.†
Este artículo fue escrito en ingles por Donna Rae Kessinger video@donnakessinger.net P.O. Box 30325, NY 10011
Dec 31, 2008
interview in village voice 1999 - Eathon Hall ... Alanna Heiss
From: Public access by Gilman-Sevcik, Frantiska; Gilman-Sevcik, Tim
Source: The Village Voice, 8/10/1999.
Via: 
Copyright Village Voice Dec 10-Dec 16, 2008
Jul 9, 2008
NETWORKED link to Galllery Aferro in Newark
Artist's websites from the show are linked from this page - under NETWORKED!
hiroshi kumagai : artwalking bedford
plastic lunch 08, originally uploaded by Hiroshi Kumagai Current Works.
Plastic Lunch 11, originally uploaded by Hiroshi Kumagai Current Works.hiroshi kumagai : artwalking bedford
Studio Tour 2008 - artists from WACK! @ PS1
the walking tour
P.S.1 WACK! Open Studio Tour on Monday February 18, 2008 2 - 6 pm
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, the first comprehensive, historical exhibition to examine the international foundations and legacy of feminist art.
The presentation of WACK! at P.S.1 offers a timely opportunity to tour the studios of some of the featured artists. View 70s and current work while gaining a deeper understanding of the depth of production of these artists within their own environment. SoHo is where the feminist revolution in New York City began and flourished, and eventually became a magnet for feminists around the world.
Thank you to all who attended the SOHO walking tour. It was a wonderful success. We appreciate everyone who came and made it a wonderful day. Please click on selections on the map to view images and video from the tour.
artwalking bedford : jeffery gibson
screened short video at spikehill as part of artwalking bedford
sponsored by the brooklyn rail magazine
Jul 8, 2008
NETWORKED : CFDB
dare gallery
THE COALITION FOR DARING BEHAVIOUR (CFDB)
Launched in January 2008, The Coalition for Daring Behaviour is an on-line artist project that strives to facilitate a global exchange of dares, double dares, and possibly triple dog dares. An ever-expanding network of international artists/daredevils, the CFBD promotes creative collaborations of a spontaneous, non-traditional and, most importantly, daring nature.
The CFDB's website serves as a virtual gallery and as an archive of all dares submitted and executed over the course of the project.
Artists / daredevils wishing to join the CFDB are warmly invited to propose a dare.
ROUND #1 - Spring 2008
CLICK ON ANY DARE TO VIEW
I dare you to sell your soul on Ebay.
I dare you to make me laugh. !!!
I dare you to make a stuffed version, from felt and only felt, of your spirit animal and depict it dying due to a flood.
I dare you to take all the kitchen knives you can find, (buy them from a dollar/pound shop if you must) and hand them out to random people on the street. Don't say a word, just stand there, handing out large, sharp knives.
I dare you to write an anonymous seven-sentence confession and print it onto seven posters and put those posters up at seven bus stops and leave space on the posters for seven comments and then document the results after seven days.
I dare you to make your earliest childhood memory a tangible experience for another. !!!
I dare you to enter the ATM section of a bank after hours and, in the open space, perform and document a two-minute dance piece, playing for the security camera as your audience. Try to get access to the tape afterwards by talking to security.
I dare you to make a puppet with your hand (the kind where you make a fist and your middle thumb becomes the mouth and you'd draw the eyes on the side of your pointer finger) and go to a bar... [more]
I dare you to brush a stranger's teeth. !!!
I dare you to show up to an exhibition opening at a prominent art gallery, either provincial, university or parallel, with measuring tape and notepad/clipboard/paper... [more]
I dare you to completely read and digest (through oral consumption, of course) any reading material (of at least 20 pages) by Greenberg... [more]
I dare you to spend an entire 24 hours drawing... [more]
I dare you to write a submission (artist statement and/or a proposal, along with all the accompanying documentation) in sonnet form (or with some kind of rhyming scheme so that's easily sung)... [more]
I dare you to save the world. !!!
!!! = DARE COMPLETED
Press Release : networked @ Aferro
Networked
New Media Room
April 17- May 17, 2008
Curated by Donna Kessinger
The world of networked art is expansive and constantly evolving daily with new technology and applications.
Networked is an effort to take into consideration both literal and physical interpretations based on an open call for networked art on a local and international level. This small group survey is an attempt to look at the manifestation of net-based interactive projects, and physical attempts to escape from virtual realities, resulting in work with a more personal connection - going back to an idea of networks having to do with people and the way we live and work, both alone and in community.
Submit or accept a dare with The Coalition for Daring Behavior, or hear Disembodied Voices by Jody Zellen
Artists: William Brovelli, Doris Caçoilo, Beatrice Coron, The Coalition for Daring Behavior, Sean Hovendick, Visakh Menon, William Oliwa, Gunter Puller, Katherine Sweetman, Amanda Thackray, Michelle Wilson, Jody Zellen
Donna Rae Kessinger is a video artist and independent curator. She was the Installation Coordinator of the Greater New York Show, 1999, at PS1 Contemporary Art Center. She produced the Collaborative Arts Projects (CAP), Bronx Museum of the Arts, emerging artist residency program with Eathon G. Hall Jr., Director of Education; as well as developing curatorial, education and public programs for Aljira, a Space for Contemporary Art, including the acclaimed Young Curators program. She was on the BRIO panel for video in 2007. Most she recently co-developed and produced the PS1 Wack! Soho walking tour and interactive media map with Mary Beth Edelson and GAIA Studios. She is currently curating a video event, and community based Art show called: Walking Bedford Avenue with eyewash Gallery Director Larry Walczack, Spring 2008. Her media work les biens inc, has been cloned into Rhizome's Artbase, and has been screened at the Jersey City Museum of Art.
May 20, 2008
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