GOLDEN opportunity
OVAC’s 2018 ‘Momentum’ exhibit moves into iconic dome
Once a staple of office desks everywhere, Rolodexes have fallen out of favor as smartphones have risen in prominence.
But when Chris Shultz was looking for a creative way to catalog small objects he found while revisiting his old neighborhoods, the artist came back around to the rotary card files and gave them a new spin.
“You hadn’t heard the name ‘Rolodex’ in years, I’m sure, but when I was thinking of how I’m going to compile this data, I figured this was the most practical way I could do it. The motion of just spinning that Rolodex, it’s endless. … And I wanted to compile a series of data that didn’t necessarily have a beginning and an end— and a Rolodex just fit that," he said.
A senior at the University of Central Oklahoma, the art major said his
impending graduation gave him a nostalgic urge to revisit the Oklahoma City neighborhoods he has lived in throughout his life.
“I decided to pick up scraps I found on the street and document those,” Schultz said. “Folks had left behind receipts, wrappers, cigarette cartons. They all have their stories … so it felt really personal. Compiling them into the Rolodex was also a personal experience. They all have these plastic sleeves and I had to put these little bits of paper in there really delicately … so it was an interesting process.”
From gum wrappers to grade-school tardy slips, the Oklahoma City artist’s Rolodexes full of the mundane debris of life have been collected into the installation “Neighborhoods,” an art piece that delves into the nature of urban communities.
“Neighborhoods, they’re public spaces, but they’re also not. If you live there, you can kind of do whatever you want within the realm of reason. Even though I used to live in these places, I felt like I didn’t have that same freedom that I did when I lived there,” he said.
“With this, I’ve had a lot of interesting experiences with place and time.”
Those interesting experiences will move to a new place this weekend as his “Neighborhoods” project is spotlighted in the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition’s 17th annual “Momentum” exhibition.
The nonprofit organization’s two-night event showcasing Oklahoma artists 30 and younger is debuting Friday and Saturday in the historic Gold Dome.
“As soon as we walked in the space, we knew it was going to be perfect,” OVAC Executive Director Krystle Brewer said.
“I had never been inside of it before because it’s been closed to the public for some time now. I think a lot of people will be excited to also enjoy this amazing piece of architecture, as well as all of the art that will be there for ‘Momentum.’”
Making ‘Momentum’ weird again
Nearly50 Oklahoma artists from across the state will show about 90 diverse works of art at this year’s “Momentum.” Although OVAC in the past arranged two “Momentum” exhibits a year in different parts of the state, the organization now is narrowing it to just one a year. Sterling Smith, OVAC programs and events manager, said nearly 200 artists applied for this year’s “Momentum,” and each could submit three pieces for consideration.
“Our curators actually had almost 600 individual pieces to sort through and to select the show from,” Smith said.
“Going through the submissions, it’s really cool to see artists like Marissa Raglin, who’s the artist in residence at the Skirvin (Hilton Hotel), and then you also see artists that are maybe 17 years old and in high school or 14 years old and in junior high. It’s really cool to see that age range of artists applying. And I think that’s why ‘Momentum’ is so important because there aren’t a lot of opportunities for exhibition at that age.”
Katherine Brodbeck, the Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art, curated this year’s “Momentum.” Bianca Martucci-Fink, a graduate art history student at Oklahoma State University, worked alongside her as emerging curator.
For many “Momentum” participants, the show is the first chance they have to exhibit their work. “Artists that are first starting out, they’re still trying to find their visual voice and experiment, trying different mediums, different subject matter,” Brewer said. “It’s really a venue that rewards creativity and experimentation. The weird is definitely welcome.”
Although “Momentum” always features an array of artwork— including paintings, photographs, film, ceramics, performance art, new media and installations— Smith said the committee this yearwanted to “make ‘Momentum’ weird again” byemphasizingcuttingedge pieces.
“We want the crowd to have some kind of experience,” she said. “We don’t want it to be just like walking into a white-cube gallery and looking at contemporary paintings.”
That attitude extended to the entertainment booked for the two-night event: Samuel Regan and Haniwa will make live music Friday night, while Saturday’s edition will include a performance by Jarvix, as well as Original Flow and the Fervent Route. Brewer said she thinks hosting the event in one of OKC’s most iconic buildings will only add to the enthusiasm.
“We want it to have kind of more of a grassroots, younger, more energetic feel … by having it in vacant spaces throughout the city. And then it also changes the exhibition because each location that we’re at has its own personality that’s reflected through ‘Momentum,’ “she said. “I think a lot of people are very interested in getting inside the Gold Dome.”
Gathering into the Spotlight
The metallic interior of the geodesic do me won’t be the only thing shining at “Momentum.” Each year, the curators select three Spotlight artists who each receive $1,000 and three months of guidance to create ambitious projects just for “Momentum.” Along with unveiling the projects during the event, the Spotlight participants get the chance to give artist talks during free Sunday gallery hours.
Starting this year, OVAC is giving Spotlight artists even more opportunities to show their work. The “Spotlight Project Exhibition” willbe on display Tuesday through March 30 at UCO’s Mitchell Education Center, and the Spotlight artists have an exhibition of their previous work on view through June 22 at 21C Museum Hotel.
“‘Momentum’ being up only for a weekend I think really captures this kind of young energy. It has a little bit of grit to it,” Brewer said. “But our Spotlight artists have worked for months now … and this gives audiences another opportunity to go and see their projects.”
While Schultz is showcasing the beauty of everyday items he has collected with his “Neighborhoods” Spotlight project, Raglin’s project “Nesting” is inspired by bird’s nests, pack-rat collections of odd imagery, the 1950s domesticated woman and the inclination-people have to ask women of childbearing age when they are going to have children.
Stillwater-based Spotlight artist Brenna Baer focuses on themes such as individuality, beauty standards, and people’s relationship to modern surroundings through the largerthan-life paintings in her series “Synthetic Flesh: The Body as Irregular Terrain,” which she creates on plywood with acrylic paint, pigmented glue and silicone.
“I’ve always kind of wanted to put regular people in positions of power … so I have a diverse range of people that have modeled for me,” the 2017OSU graduate said.
“I think it’s interesting to take that tradition of making a figure very large or putting them above you and then giving that to somebody who is just a regular person or somebody who isn’t the prettiest girl in school— people that don’t get that sort of recognition in day-to-day life, but why shouldn’t they?”