The Dysfunction of Social Practice
November 20, 2021- January 14, 2022
Reception: November 20, 2021
Media:
Video of Collaborative Performance with NH Dance Collaborative
During November 2021- January 2022 Kimball Jenkins presented two concurrent exhibitions, Salon 2021, curated by Mike Howat and Fallon Rae, and the Dysfunction of Social Practice, curated by Kelley Stelling Contemporary.
These two exhibitions brought together power-house high end curatorial team, Kelley Stelling Contemporary, with an open-call community show that would be open to anyone from hobbyist to professional to students. Our hope was to bring the different art communities together for a fun pair of exhibitions where potential bridges could be built. Our goal was met. The open call Salon show exhibited 125 individual artists and more than 360 works of art. We worked with the local middle school to exhibit a group of student artwork alongside the show. At the opening reception, crowds used to seeing cutting edge professional artwork at Kelley Stelling shows mingled with the throngs of artists and their families who may be having their first gallery exhibition ever. Hundreds of people were in attendance, and both shows felt equally prominent and featured. Local bands were hired to perform, and Intown Concord lent us fire barrels to add warmth and atmosphere to the outdoor festival-like vibe. The middle school students returned for a personal tour and conversation with the Salon 2021 curators. One student said they felt like the opening reception was just as fun and important as a football game at high school.
A second event during the exhibition was held in early December in collaboration with Joan Brodsky and NH Dance Collaborative. Attendees were treated to an immersive dance performance that featured vignettes in each room of the Victorian mansion gallery. The crowd intermingled between the Kelley Stelling Contemporary curated art installations, dance performances, and friends with drinks and conversation. This event brought modern contemporary dance within feet of viewers on the same floor. It made dance feel accessible, fun, and something that can and should happen off the stage. Dance is one of the more elusive art forms in NH because it isn’t presented or supported as often as music or theater. This may be a result of lack of exposure to dance by the general public. The event at Kimball Jenkins helped to bridge that gap for many who said, “I’ve never been to an event like this.”
Press Release
Kelley Stelling Contemporary presents an installation exhibition in collaboration with Kimball Jenkins in their historic mansion in Concord NH. This show includes five NH artists who will each transform a space in the mansion. The exhibition will include painting, sculpture, and performance works, and features artists Zachary Dewitt, Emmett Donlon, Rosemary Mack, Heather Morgan, and Meghan Samson.There will be an opening reception on November 20th, 2021 from 5:30-7:30pm at Kimball Jenkins.
Zachary DeWitt is an artist interested in the expressive potential of paint and mixed media. His current body of work deals with the abstraction of landscapes from around his childhood home on the New Hampshire Seacoast. He is engaging with the memories associated with these places and although specific, the work aims to have the openness to engage with the audience and their lived experiences.
Emmett Donlon’s work consists of paintings, sculptures, and taxidermy that excavate personal and shared histories. He uses a visual language that critiques, and has been informed by mass media and the institutions that control images, references, and compositions from social media, online databases, 18th and 19th century portraiture, and personal and historical archives. He uses this language to explore topics of boredom, violence, and identity and how they interrelate.
Rosemary Mack began assembling dioramas in shadow boxes using old toys and oddball things she had around the house. The swap shop, yard and rummage sales, thrift stores and generous friends yield plenty of ephemera, dolls, cans, jewelry, toys, parts of old furniture and all sorts of discarded items. Most of her work is personal, often about her childhood, her family and her foibles. Although sometimes it’s just about tweaking things that make her laugh.
Heather Morgan’s paintings of women kick up their heels in celebration of life as they contemplate death, aware of the tragic absurdity of our situation. Morgan's sultry and damaged women cavort unrestrained through opulent settings with commanding self-possession. Here are lingerie and stockings galore. But these are no playthings. These women are performing their identities, and it is a tense and fevered display, aching with self-consciousness.
Meghan Samson investigates ideas of self-portraiture, using porcelain and stoneware clays. She creates forms that question and explore identity, emotions, and personal narrative. By contrasting male and female, fragmenting the body, and personifying clay objects, she is in search of self. Vernacular forms of storytelling such as folklore and childhood journals, as well as memory and imagination, inform the imagery and content of the work. Seen as a whole, her artworks form an intricate connected web, performing the nuances of family, love, attachment, and self, in varying conditions.
Kelley Stelling is a project-based curatorial team headed by Karina Kelley and Bill Stelling. They host a diverse range of exhibitions and public programs in venues across New England.