Bluu and Ragu were stitched together just in time for their debut appearance at the 2013 Carnegie International Family Day on January 20th. The two made appearances in the Wade Guyton coat room installation, the Hall of Architecture and the Heinz Galleries at the Carnegie Museum of Art.
Filed under Puppets
Hugo Ball & Emmy Hennings traverse the battlefields of the Great War.
On January 16th, I presented a new show with collaborator Michael Cuccaro at the Carnegie Museum of Art, as part of their Culture Club programming for the 2013 Carnegie International. The fifteen-minute, Dada-inspired show was performed toy theatre-style in the Museum Café with a cast of newly crafted puppet characters including Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Tristan Tzara and a drone. Sets for the production included a battlefield scene, the interior of the Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich, Switzerland, 1916 and Hugo Ball’s bedroom. The Carnegie Café was transformed into an installation for the International, making it an interesting venue for the event. Also performed that evening was Museum Piece: For Margo Lovelace, a puppetry performance by Paulina Olowska, performed by Kristen Barca and Joann Kielar.
Emmy Hennings performing a dance at the Cabaret Voltaire.
In the fall of 2012, I met Polish artist Paulina Olowska. She was visiting to plan her 2013 Carnegie International installation for the Carnegie Café. We talked about the beginnings of the Dada movement at the Cabaret Voltaire and her plans to transform the museum café into a cabaret atmosphere. When Olowska later invited me to work on the performance piece for her project (and exhibit a collection of my puppets), I began thinking about creating a show about the ideals of early Dada artists.
Dada founders Tristan Tzara and Hugo Ball at the Cabaret Voltaire.
It’s difficult to think about the trauma experienced by European artists living during World War I. What were artists to do at a time when humanity was pushed to the edge? The reality of war and suffering permeated everyday life. New, more efficient weapons, tanks and gasses were implemented. What were artists to do in this time of trauma? The Cabaret Voltaire was an outlet for artists and intellectuals to express their disgust, their needs and their aim to redefine art.
Tristan Tzara delivering his Dada Manifesto at the Cabaret Voltaire.
Today, wars are often managed by drones controlled from locations far from the battlefield. We watch football, go to the movies and get into arguments at the supermarket as wars are being waged halfway around the world. In developing this new puppet show, I thought about the iconic figure Hugo Ball, dressed in a shiny cone-shaped bishop’s outfit. I wondered what Ball, his wife Emmy Hennings and other Zurich Dadaists of 1916 would think about the world and warfare today.
Bedroom scene, as Ball is about to be visited by an errant drone from 2016.
The puppet show, Flight Out of Time (after Ball’s diaries), recreates the scene of The Cabaret Voltaire. A fantastical ending suggests a prophetic element in Ball’s prose. The show includes an adaptation of Tristan Tzara’s Dada Manifesto as well as a reenactment of Hugo Ball’s sound poetry.
A drone “flies out of time” from 2016.
A collection of thirty puppets and puppet show props that I made and used in performance from 1997 though 2013 is currently on display as part of Paulina Olowska’s cabaret installation Puppetry in America in Truly a Lonely Craft in the 2013 Carnegie International. I met Olowska and co-curator Daniel Baumann in November of 2013, when the artist visited the Carnegie Museum of Art to plan the transformation of the museum’s Carnegie Cafe into a cabaret installation inspired by puppetry and the legendary Pittsburgh puppeteer Margo Lovelace. I shared my collection of puppets, props and posters, and was later invited to participate in the project.
Aside from the collection, I also organized a performance for the opening day of the International with Pittsburgh puppeteers Kristen Barca and Joann Kielar. Based on Olowska’s cabaret concept, the performance titled Museum Piece: For Margo Lovelace involved Barca and Kielar manipulating marionettes on a sculptural stage to a piano and accordion score. The piece, which is now on view as a video recording, played to a packed crowd on opening day.
Yawny
Puppets made from fabric, wood, paint, hardware and found objects.
Monster Burger looks out at diners in the Carnegie Cafe.
Pittsburgh in the Year 2050, oil on canvas (2-panel), 288″ x 84″, 2006
Like Nostradamus, my predictions have been slightly off. I predicted a giant Mallard, not a rubber duck floating in the Ohio River. I predicted a renewed interest in drilling for oil, not gas. I thought a Pittsburgh casino would be in Station Square rather than the North Side. I predicted that the Steelers would be hovering over water in a flying stadium. Flying over the Atlantic to play in London is a bit of a stretch. But then there are the drones!
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Every artist works with cardboard at some point. College art students build models and larger than life copies of everyday objects. Extreme examples of hyper-real cardboard fabrications often appear in gallery shows. The work of East Pittsburgh artist Doug Hill stands apart from the work I have seen, as Hill is more concerned with the mechanical gadgets he creates than the viewer’s awareness of cardboard as medium. Hill creates gears, gadgets and tools with cardboard as a portrait artist would sketch with pencils. He never measures his materials. He cuts, bends and folds as he realizes the mechanical objects in his mind. Hill has been making work for many years. In 2008, I curated a show of his work (along with the work of Dorothy Williams) at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Hill has been showing his work in the shop at PCA since that show. His sculptures have also been featured in shows at The Brew House, The Irma Freeman Center, FE Gallery and at The Tom Museum, my installation project at the Mattress Factory. Hill was a regular visitor there on Saturday mornings, conducting demonstrations and greeting visitors. I did a studio visit with Hill last week. He is testing some new designs and is looking for another show opportunity.
Studio visit with Doug Hill, September 18th, 2013. Battery-powered clock device.
Doug Hill talking about his work at Binding Forces, Pittsburgh Center for The Arts, Winter 2008.
Doug Hill demonstrates a robotic hand design at Binding Forces, PCA 2008.
Opening of Binding Forces, work by Doug Hill and Dorothy Williams, curated by Tom Sarver, PCA 2008.
Installation shot, Binding Forces, TS 2008.
To inquire about the work of Doug Hill, please contact me at tomsarver@gmail.com
Filed under Art
Here are some images from the show Crowdsourced at SPACE gallery Pittsburgh, which ended on September 1st. A child in the audience for the opening night performance named the piece Asittle.
I started the day with a well-organized table of supplies.
One of the items delivered to me during the day.
View from the rounded window.
Kinetic installation at the end of the day.
Visitors watched as the installation was constructed.
Daytime view.
By September 1st, the kinetic elements no longer functioned.
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“What are your fears?”
“You may enter!”
On Friday, September 13th of 2013 from 9 PM to 10 PM, twenty people experienced the Serra Site for End Times Therapy.
Tom Sarver with Daniel Baumann, Tobias Madison and Flavio Merlo in front of the Carnegie Museum of Art.
“What are your fears?”
the essence
Before entering, participants were asked to reveal their fears.
Check out more photos HERE.
Filed under Art
A few years ago, Robert Raczka invited me to participate in 8 – Hour Drawings, a show at Allegheny College that involved artists creating their works directly on gallery walls as visitors watched (and sometimes participated).
In 2011, Raczka brought the idea to SPACE Gallery in Downtown Pittsburgh, orchestrating a Gallery Crawl night frenzy of performance and audience interaction.
This Friday, July 12th at SPACE, the newest manifestation of the art making marathon will happen as Crowdsourced. I will be participating along with eleven other Pittsburgh artists (Kim Beck, Matt Forest, Casey Droege, Corey Escoto, Gabe Felice, Lori Hepner, Renee Ickes, William Kofmehl III, Maritza Mosquera, Shaun Slifer, Barbara Weissberger and Paul Zelevansky). I don’t foresee a lot of traditional drawing happening at this one. Whatever is made, it is best to see it live. The event is free and open to the public from 1:00 PM to 10:00 PM.
For my project, I’ll be developing a Duchampian wall of modified “everyday objects.” Sixteen people will be delivering junk objects throughout the day. Objects will arrive every hour. I will not know ahead of time what is being delivered. I’ll have a small workbench and tools to modify objects. The resulting pieces will be arranged on the walls. At the end of the night, I aim to have a collection of sixteen objects. The results of the Friday event will remain on view as an exhibition through September 1, 2013.
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I spent ten days in April in residence at a public school working with second graders. We brainstormed ideas for an installation, working with the theme: maps and globes. Fifty students participated in the project. Each contributed a small model of a city or building made with paper mache, paint, found packaging materials, fabrics, glitter and beads. The small models were attached to a giant globe model with a cave-like entrance on one side. Visitors could enter the installation, which resembled a model of the earth turned inside-out.
Earth Installation and Sculpture
Close up view of installation
One of the fifty individual parts added to the structure
Filed under Art
I’m working with Mike Cuccaro on a puppet show performance of the ancient Greek comedy Peace. We played a few scenes of the show at Modern Formations Gallery on April 12th and at the Carnegie Museum of Art on April 27th. We hope to have a complete production ready by the end of the year.
Tom Sarver and Mike Cuccaro performing in the Hall of Architecture at the Carnegie Museum of Art. Photo by Stacy Hoffman.
Trygaeus flying on his beetle in the Hall of Architecture at The Carnegie.
Tom Sarver 