Atrium Gallery
September 2 – September 20, 2008
Andrew Kaufman
Frostic School of Art Video and Sound Art Series
Adriane Little, curator
My artwork is a direct reflection of my own observations and experiences within society. Collecting these, I translate them into contemplative visual and experiential art. Since my work is driven by experience and idea, I am able to free myself from specific media concerns enabling the utilization of any medium that successfully develops my response. The multiplicity of forms I have created; which include painting, video, sculpture, and installation, are presented in such a way as to encourage the viewer to engage with them as an experience of space and form on a psychological, illusory and/or physical level.
Andrew Kaufman received his Master of Fine Arts degree in 2002 from the University of South Florida in a studio art program that emphasized the coupling of concept and form. Kaufman considers himself a convergent artist, letting idea dictate medium, which has led to a multiplicity of mediums that include video, sound, sculpture, painting and digital print. He has exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, and recently was the recipient of an Artist Trust GAP grant for visual art. Andrew Kaufman is currently an Assistant Professor of Painting at Grinnell College in Iowa.
End Trajectory (Trauma Map) and Conquest of the Air has traveled to CEPA Gallery in Buffalo NY 2.28 – 3.13.2009.
Hold On/ Hold Up
Video with no Sound
Running Time – 8:34 minutes
9.2 – 9.6.2008
Hold On/ Hold Up is a endurance video performance documenting myself struggling to hold onto a bar and hold a bar over my head for as long as possible. I understand this struggle as an allegory of the human condition, in which the changing contexts of the bar serves only as extreme ideological opposites bereft of empathy for the undertaking.
End Trajectory (Trauma Map)
Video with Sound
Running Time – 2:54 minutes
9.8 – 9.13.2008
This video maps the destruction of five drinking glasses half filled with water. The jarring sound of the rupturing glasses is meant to create a sense of unease in an often-contemplative space. The conceptual beginning of this series of investigations was the events of September 11, 2002. I have shown this video with re-assembled drinking glasses on small pedestals.
Conquest of the Air
Video with Sound
Running Time – 15:00 minutes
9.15 – 9.20.2008
Conquest of the Air is a short video performance documenting a collaborative effort to create a simple paper airplane. The video shows a close up view of a pair of hands trying to navigate a set of simple decisions to produce a paper airplane. The visual awkwardness that sometimes ensues is because one hand is mine and one hand is from a collaborator. Concepts such as invisibility, perception, collaboration, transformation and fun were the impetus for the performance.
