Come Healing of the Body, Come Healing of the Mind

7/27/2019 Come Healing of the Body, Come Healing of the Mind

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SARATOGA, Cali. Montalvo Arts Center is pleased to announce its 2013 installation o its annual Art

on the Grounds program. This outdoor exhibition, entitled Come Healing, is an invitation to the public

to be restored: to upgrade attitudes, calm turbulent emotions, and move toward wholeness, happiness,

and peace. It eatures seven works by a diverse group o international artists, each examining dierent

aspects o spiritual health, mental balance, and mindulness. It is organized by the Lucas Artists

Residency Program (LAP), and on view on Montalvos grounds every day through October 31, with ree

admission to the public.

The role that positive emotions play in aecting the biochemistry o the body to bring about healing is

well documented, said Donna Conwell, Montalvo Associate Curator, and the study o situationsthat

is, the subjective experience o spaces and placesas a means o moving people to heath and healing

is a growing area o inquiry. It is our hope that Come Healing can play a part in this evolving area o

investigation.

For Immediate Release Contact: Leah Ammon, (408) 961-5814

July 23, 2013 [email protected]

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Come healing o the body, Come healing o the mind*Montalvos newest exhibition of outdoor art aims to mend with focus

on physical health, nature, and emotional wellbeing

ABOVE: Work on view at Montalvo includes pieces by (clockwise rom top let corner) Susan OMalley, Alredo and Isabel Aquilizan, artistcollective Owen Driggs, Tiany Singh, and Chuck Ginnever. *:Leonard Cohen, Come Healing, Old Ideas, 2012.


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The works o art on view as part o Come Healinginclude:

Alredo and Isabel Aquilizan consider the connections between wellbeing and home with

their two works Dwellings: Project Another Country (Saratoga Hills)and Wing in Ground.

Originally rom the Philippines and now based in

Australia, husband-and-wie team Alredo and Isabel

Aquilizan have rst-hand experience o the themesthat permeate their work: migration, impermanence,

displacement and the multiaceted concept o home.

Their use o everyday, inexpensive and ephemeral

materials like cardboard refect these themes

while, in combination with their community and

perormance-based approach to art-making, also

suggest an anity with the modern art movement

Arte Povera.

They have created two new works or Art on the Grounds during their 2013 residency in the LAP, both

o which involved members o the local communitymostly middle and high school studentsin the

construction process. Dwellings: Project Another Country (Saratoga Hills)is part o an ongoing series

o art works involving members o the local community. During artist-led workshops participants were

invited to build their perect home rom recycled cardboard moving boxes. The artists rearranged

these handmade houses, incorporating moving pallets and packing tape, to create an installation that

resembles an improvised migrant settlement.

For Wing in Ground, the Aquilizans partnered with two members o the South Bay community to ashion

an airplane wing rom recycled cardboard moving boxes. Representing homes and buildings, thecardboard boxes are arranged to resemble the urban topography o the region. The artists eventually

intend to create an entire airplane rom cardboard boxes and then cast it in concrete or aluminum.

Artist collective Owen Driggs explore the relationship between the environment and human

health with their project Mapping Biotintimacy.

Owen Driggs is the collective identity o Matthew

Driggs and Janet Owen. Individually experienced

artists, educators, and curators, Janet and Matthew

began their proessional collaboration in 2007, ater

the spectacular success o their rst major work,

their son Theo. Together, as Owen Driggs, their

practice ocuses on the production o space and the

impact o spatiality on action and discourse.

They argue that or well over our hundred years,

Western thought has striven to separate human

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beings rom the natural world. Crediting the original break to have come as a consequence o the

Scientic Revolution, they lament the act that humans experience nature as the ultimate other, to

be tamed and used. To gently combat this alienation, Owen Driggs proposes to advance the cause o

Biointimacy, a term rst coined by artist Lauren Bon.

Their project Mapping Biointimacy, supports experiences o the natural world as a network o intimate

relationships. The artists invite visitors to explore the historical, medicinal, culinary and culturalsignicance o plant, tree and animal species at Montalvo. Through community workshops, a mobile

app, new signage or Montalvos grounds, and a guided walk, Owen Driggs provide experiences that

underline the interdependence o the natural world, and shed light on the intimate relationship between

the health o our environment and individual wellbeing. Inormed by proximity, eeling, and knowledge,

encounter by encounter, intimacy can grow.

Chuck Ginnevers installation Rashomonchallenges viewers to question their perspective,

suggesting that our experiences are shaped by how we view them.

Hailed by art critic Kenneth Baker as one o the

most signicant and little-celebrated innovations

in late 20th century art, Rashomonis an

installation created by artist Chuck Ginnever. A

contemporary o artists Sir Anthony Caro, John

Chamberlain, Mark di Suvero, and Eva Hesse,

Ginnever is a prolic and engaging artist known

primarily or his large-scale abstract sculpture

in welded steel and bronze. Ginnevers work

directly engages with notions o subjectivity and

perception, and questions our presuppositionsabout rationality and universal views.

The installation consists o 15 identical geometric orms, each three eet tall, with 15 unique sides and

eight balancing points. Fashioned out o bands o steel, the pieces have been made without right angles

or parallel lines. The title o the work is borrowed rom Akira Kurosawas 1950 lm o the same name

in which the mutually contradictory testimony o our eyewitnesses to a violent crime demonstrates the

inherent unreliability o subjective experience. For the viewer, the pleasure o experiencing Rashomon

is a two-old exercise in challenged perspective: moving through the installation, shiting vantage points

cause one to read orms alternately as two-dimensional shapes with fattened planes, and three-

dimensional objects in space. The viewer is urthermore challenged to weigh the perception o the

individual pieces as unique objects against the intellectual knowledge they are exactly identical.

Rashomonis organized by the San Jose Institute o Contemporary Art On the Road Series. Viewed in

the context o the Montalvo Art on the Grounds exhibition, Rashomoninvites us to consider how our

perception o the places we inhabit and experience is subjective, shaped by our mood, health, and

predispositions.


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Susan OMalley presents A Healing Walk, which guides visitors through Montalvos orest

trails with inspirational signage.

As both an artist and curator, Susan OMalley has

participated in programs and exhibitions throughout

the San Francisco Bay Area and internationally

in Denmark and Poland. In her socially-based

projects, she uses simple and recognizable tools oengagementinstalling roomuls o inspirational

posters, distributing fyers in neighborhood

mailboxes, conducting doodle competitions at

high schoolsin order to oer entry points into

the interactions o everyday lie. In shiting these

otherwise mundane exchanges into heightened

experiences, OMalleys projects rely on the back-and-orth between hersel and others in the creation

o the artwork. Ultimately, her projects aim to incite hope, optimism, and a sense o interconnectedness

in our lives.

Examining the power o natural places to elevate and enrich human experience and health, OMalleys A

Healing Walkguides visitors through Montalvos orest trails with text-based signage reminding hikers

to practice mindulness and appreciate the healing eects o the countryside.

Tiany Singh draws inspiration rom Buddhist practice to create a sacred space in the

Italianate Garden with The Bells of Mindfulness.

O Maori, Indian, and Pacic Island decent, Tiany Singh

draws inspiration rom her varied background to create

work consisting largely o natural mixed-media-basedinstallation and participatory community building. She

has garnered critical acclaim or her use o ceremonial

and ritualistic materials gathered rom and transcending

everyday culture.

With The Bells of Mindfulness, she proposes to deeply

examine the idea o sacred spaces. Drawing on the

Buddhist tradition o using temple bells as an aid or

mindulness, she has suspended 1000 bells and 1000

paper cranes attached to brightly colored ribbons rom

a persimmons tree in Montalvos Italianate Garden,

creating a tranquil space or rest and refection.

Her project unolds over time: rst, she greets visitors

under the bell-covered tree, inviting visitors to make origami paper cranes and discuss peace,

community, and wellbeing. At the end o the summer, she will give the bells as gits to participants

who will carry them to places they consider shared spaces o calm and peace. Documentation o these


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spaces will be uploaded onto an interactive web-based map, creating a complex portrait o what sacred

space means to us today.

Singhs work will also be the ocus o Montalvos July Final Friday Celebration on July 26 rom 6 to

9pm, eaturing ood trucks, live music and dance perormance, and an LAP artist art sale. For moreinormation about the evenings line-up, visit montalvoarts.org/events/nal_ridays_0713/ .

Christine Wong Yap demonstrates the healing orce o community and gesture with her

Irrational Exuberance Flags.

Christine Wong Yap is an interdisciplinary artist

whose installations, sculptures, multiples, and

works on paper explore the power o optimism and

pessimism. Her work examines the paradox that

mundane materials or situations can give rise to

irrational expectations, emotions, and experiences.

Major touchstones are language, light and dark, and

psychology.

Her Irrational Exuberance Flagsare a spirited

declaration o unabashed communal enthusiasm, and an examination o the power o ceremony and

positive thinking. A member o the public is designated weekly to select one o Yaps brightly colored

hand-made fags, proceed in an ad hoc procession down to the Lucas Artists Residency, and hoist the

fag up a fagpole.

Flourish: Artists Explore Wellbeing

Come Healing, the 2013 installation o Art on the Grounds,

is presented as part o Flourish: Artists Explore Wellbeing,

Montalvos latest multiyear programming theme, organized by the

Lucas Artists Residency Program in collaboration with Montalvos

Education Department. Through exhibitions, conversations,

perormances, and workshops, Montalvo explores the question,

How can we live meaningul, happy, and healthy lives? For more

inormation, please visit montalvoarts.org/fourish .

Art on the Grounds o Montalvo: A History

Sculpture has been an important element in Montalvos gardens and grounds ever since it was built as

a private residence in 1912. Still, the organization did not begin ormally experimenting with outdoor

sculpture installation until 2000. In 2010, Montalvo ocially launched its Art on the Grounds program

under the direction o Kelly Sicat, Director o the Lucas Artists Residency Program. Envisioned as a

laboratory or artistic experimentation, the program seeks to oer emerging and established artists

many o whom may have never worked outdoorsthe unique opportunity to test out new approaches
http://www.montalvoarts.org/events/final_fridays_0713/http://www.montalvoarts.org/flourishhttp://www.montalvoarts.org/flourishhttp://www.montalvoarts.org/events/final_fridays_0713/


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in a non-traditional exhibition setting that includes ormal gardens, orested areas, creeks, trails, and

hideouts.

Montalvo is the only arts center in Caliornia that provides artists with the opportunity to produce

experimental works in an outdoor public park setting, and one o only a ew such institutions nationallyand worldwide. As such, the organization is uniquely positioned to oster and support a range o

innovative art practices in the public sphere. As o 2011, ormer public art director or the City o San

Jose Oce o Cultural Aairs, Barbara Goldstein, has acted as a consultant or the Program. Under

her guidance, Montalvo has made major strides toward developing a master plan to build the initiative,

ensuring that Sculpture on the Grounds will become a central ocus o Montalvos programming in the

coming years.

Art on the Grounds 2013 is made possible thanks to the generous support o Arts Queensland, Johnny

Chen, The Film Production Society at San Jose State University, Indika, James Irvine Foundation, Lynn

Kitajima, Art Okada, Mary Okin, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Santa Clara County Library

District and Dan and Charmaine Warmenhoven. It is supported in part by an award rom the National

Endowment or the Arts. Rashomonwas organized by the San Jose Institute o Contemporary Art,

Caliornia.

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Montalvo Arts Center is an estate o mind! A multidisciplinary nonprot institution, our mission

is to create and present arts o all types, nurture artists, and use our historic Villa, buildings, and

grounds in innovative ways that engage people in the creative process. Located in Silicon ValleysSaratoga hills, Montalvo occupies a Mediterranean-style Villa, built in 1912 by Senator James Duval

Phelan, surrounded by 175 stunning acres, including the campus o our international Lucas Artists

Residency Program. Senator Phelan bequeathed the villa and grounds to the people o Caliornia or the

encouragement o art, music, literature and architecture, a mandate that Montalvo has carried orward

ever since its ounding. For more inormation, call (408) 961-5800 or visit montalvoarts.org.
http://www.montalvoarts.org/http://www.montalvoarts.org/

Come Healing of the Body, Come Healing of the Mind

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