New Audio Commentaries with Maria Bevilacqua

I’ve recently recorded two new audio commentaries for the films Gladiator and The Wizard of Oz. These commentaries were recorded with Maria Bevilacqua and will be featured in her upcoming show at the William and Nancy Oliver Gallery in Tampa. There will be a reception on Janurary 14th from 7 to 9pm, stop by if you can.

I’ll be adding some clips of the commentaries in the coming weeks.

Glory Hole 2000

As part of the exhibition Conceptual Distraction, a mini-golf themed art exhibit put on by Putt Plug, I created a mini-golf hole reminiscent of a truck stop bathroom, complete with a working tampon machine and (you probably could have guessed it by the title of the piece) a glory hole. [April 2010]

Like carnival games, Fladry’s bathroom wall gives the illusion of winnability. We never actually saw anyone make it in, so we’re going to continue to call it impossible. However, the video screen inside the hole may provide frustrated players with a slight release of their built-up tensions, though their ball will never actually have access to the hole. Surprisingly, there were fewer complaints graffitied on the wall than we would have expected. (excerpt from Putt Plug review)

“Day One” – an Exhibition

The Master of Fine Arts Organization at University of South Florida is holding a group exhibition of new works by second and third-year MFA candidates at the USF William and Nancy Oliver Gallery, August 9-20, 2010. The William and Nancy Oliver Gallery is located at 3801 Holly Dr, Tampa 33620, in the FAS building. The opening reception is Friday, August 13, 2010, 7-9pm. Admission is free, and refreshments will be served. Gallery hours are by appointment.

Exhibiting artists include Maria Bevilacqua, Biff Bolen, Robb Fladry, Ryan Foster, Zak Hemsteger, Megan Hildebrandt, Jay Hollick, Sarah Kelly, Lin Li, Forrest Macdonald, Fran Marquez, Justin Martin, Cindy Mason, Shane Mayberry, Bruce Monroe, Daniel Moore, Ellen Mueller, Chris Otten, Taylor Pilote, Scott Rosenberg, Serhat Tanyolacar, Jordi Williams.

disLocation Tampa

disLocation Tampa was a collaborative exhibit with Justin Martin in February of 2010 at the William and Nancy Oliver Gallery in Tampa, Florida. At the center of the exhibition are 1600 photographs, all pulled from the photosharing site Flickr, all triggered from the keyword Tampa. Each photograph, printed at the common four by six inch size are placed on the wall in stacks. The viewer is invited to remove, replace and reorganize the photos creating new compositions. At the same time, video projections of YouTube videos and current Twitter feeds around the central theme of Tampa are being displayed on the walls. A blank map of Hillsborough County Florida was also on display, viewers were invited to mark on the map in any way they felt necessary in order to respond to the exhibition.

A Twitter Feed and Tumblr Blog were set up for the exhibition as well. [February 2010]

Greed is Good.

A collaborative exhibition as part of [ fladry + jones ] dealing with corporate greed, corruption, and the coming collapse of America as we know it.

At the center of the exhibit was the speech from the 1997 film Wall Street. The speech was slowed down to about 50% of what it was originally recorded at. In doing this, it was hoped that the listener would get a sense of fatness from the speaker, commenting in an undefined way on the greediness that exist in corporations. The far wall of the exhibition space was covered in offest prints of $2 bills. These two-dollar bills were absent of text, heavily stylized and the face of President Thomas Jefferson seemingly scratched out; the color of the bill was red instead of green and yellow instead of white. The $2 bill was chosen because of its uncommon existence as common currency. There was also a stack of these posters sitting on the floor when you enter the space, as viewers were allowed to take home a piece of this currency.

Fifty one dollar bills were placed on the walls of the exhibition space and were marked with a corporation name and the dollar amount of a fine or settlement that the company was forced to pay because of unethical business practices. A PowerPoint presentation of companies’ names and fine amounts were also shown in the space. Lastly, a video of Bernie Madoff being escorted to a police car in handcuffs accompanies the Greed is Good speech. Madoff being the poster child for corporate greed, helped to put a face to the exhibition. [September 2009]