Studio Art………………..Period Room

Andy Coolquitt

In Residence: May 16 – Jul 18, 2016

Exhibition: Jul 14 – Sep 11, 2016


Each spring, summer, and fall Artpace invites three artists to participate in a two-month residency, culminating in a two-month exhibition. During the two months of his Artpace residency, Coolquitt presented five ”legit” exhibitions, a term he describes as ”utilizing the prevalent theatrical configuration of the white cube to present a limited number of discrete objects.” Coolquitt will remain “in-residence” at Artpace through what would traditionally be the two-month exhibition period, extending his residency to four months.

How do you approach art making?
I think a lot about the practicalities. What is the nature of this thing? What are the logistics? In architecture practice, you would say, “What is the program?” This is both a method of avoiding a lonely studio practice focused on my problems and performing a role in society more akin to the technocrat or the soldier. It’s a boring and tedious business, but of course most people think it’s magic, so there’s that.

How do you approach a traditional residency like Artpace? Tell us about your “legit” exhibitions and what role they play in the two-month residency as a whole.
Since this residency places so much importance on the resulting exhibition, this was my first question. What is the nature of an exhibition that results from a specific residency? And since the space of the exhibition is also the space of the studio—which is key—what is the relationship between the studio and the exhibition? Why are the two given exactly the same time duration?
Can I extend the studio time into the exhibition time? Can I present exhibitions during the studio time? I became obsessed with that millisecond in which the studio space becomes the exhibition space. This was the starting point for my investigations.

How/when/why did you start collecting objects?
I started collecting things when I was a kid. My first collection was whiskey bottles. I would roam around in the woods and find these empty bottles; I guess I just thought they were pretty. And exotic. Maybe a way to escape the oppressive Baptist tedium. I guess it was a way of imagining a different life.
I would arrange the bottles against this sort of cave wall in a little crawl space off our garage. One time this guy told me that someone was looking to buy a collection of whiskey bottles and that he would pay upwards of $1,500. I was like, “Really???!!!” And he was like, “Naw I’m just yanking yer chain.”

What role does collecting play in the way you make art objects?
It’s where everything starts. Since I have all these different collections all over the place, there are always a bunch of things crowded into my space—things in clumps or rows or clusters or piles. Similar things. And I pick them up, and I tinker with them. It’s usually just a response to what the thing is, or does, or wants. How can I accommodate that thing? Sometimes it’s just like, how can I look at that?

Artist

Andy Coolquitt

Austin, Texas, USA

Andy Coolquitt was born in Texas in 1964, and currently lives in Austin. In March and April of 2015 Colquitt was artist-in-residence at Disjecta in Portland, Oregon, which culminated in the exhibition SHOWERS/GUTTERS/PIPES/ CHANNELS/DRIPS/DRIFTS/TUBES/RUNNELS/CIRCLES/SPIRALS/BOARDS/PONDS/HOSES/TUNNELS/FUNNELS/BUBBLES/ BUILDINGS/BULBS/SPEAKERS/FOUNTAINS/FLOWERS/SHOWERS. In September 2014, Coolquitt presented his fourth solo exhibition at Lisa Cooley, entitled somebody place. In April and May of 2014, Coolquitt was artist-in-residence at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, which culminated with an exhibition, Multi-Marfa Room, at the Locker Plant in Marfa. In the spring of 2014, Coolquitt had two major solo exhibitions, including This Much at Galerie Krinzinger in Vienna, Austria, and no I didn’t go to any museums here I hate museums museums are just stores that charge you to come in there are lots of free museums here but they have names like real stores at Maryam Nassir Zadeh in New York. In 2013, Coolquitt was an artist-in-residence at 21er Haus in Vienna, Austria, and opened an exhibition there that July. In Fall 2012, he presented a major solo exhibition titled attainable excellence at AMOA-Arthouse in Austin, Texas. This exhibition was organized by the Blaffer Museum in Houston, and opened there in May 2013. A full-color monograph published by the University of Texas Press accompanied the exhibition and features contributions from Dan Fox, Matthew Higgs, Jan Tumlir, and Rachel Hooper.
Coolquitt is perhaps most widely known for a house, a performance/studio/domestic space that began as his master’s thesis project at the University of Texas at Austin in 1994, and continues to the present day. Recent exhibitions include Strange Pilgrims, at The Contemporary Austin, Texas; Thief Among Thieves, at The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Denver, Colorado; Burn these eyes captain, and throw them all in the sea! at Rodeo Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey; The problem today is not the other but the self, at The Goethe Institute – Ludlow 38, New York. His work is included in the collections of the Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma; the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, Austria; the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington; and the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York.
Photo by Terri Thomas

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Curator

Dominic Molon

Providence, Rhode Island, USA

Dominic Molon is the Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art. Previously he held positions as Chief Curator at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, where he organized major thematic survey exhibitions with a broad international and historical scope such as Production Site: The Artist’s Studio Inside-Out (2010), which addressed the pivotal role of the studio in artists’ practice.

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