SD Art Prize 2017 at the Athenaeum and 2018 announcement

by Patricia Frischer

SD Art Prize Artist for 2017 and 2018 with some of their local art professional champions and the SD Art Prize Committee: (Left to Right) Mathew Rich, Victoria Fu and baby, Alexander Kohnke, Rizzhel Mae Javier, (back) Cy Kuchenbaker, Bob Matheny, Max Robert Daily, Debra Poteet, (front) Erin Dace Behling, Anne Mudge, Erika Torri, Ann Berchtold, Lynn Susholtz, Jacqueline Silver, Patricia Frischer (photo by Kaz Maslanka and Patricia Frischer)

San Diego Visual Arts Network  celebrates the fine art of Cy Kuckenbaker and Alexander Kohnke,   Victoria Fu / Matt Rich (FU/RICH) and Rizzhel Mae Javier  SD ART PRIZE recipients 2017. This is the  eleventh year of the prize which is at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library from May 12 to June 9 (1008 Wall St. La Jolla, 92037)  More info:press@ljathenaeum.org 858.454.5872)

We are pleased to announce the support of the art professionals that are championing these artists in the 2017 SD Art Prize Catalog with their words of support: Julio Romero, artist for Rizzhel Mae Javier,  Deborah Klochko, Museum of Photographic Arts for Cy Kuckenbaker,  Hugh Davies, PhD, Director Emeritus, The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego for Alexander Kohnke  and Katie Clark, artist for Victoria Fu / Matt Rich

Rizzhel Mae Javier presents a card catalog of flip books, some of the drawers with additional sounds recordings. Each little story brings to life the use of this now low-tech way to find information. Javier says about this artwork, "This piece is part of my Move(meant) series, it’s the second Chapter called US. In my first series, I created flipbooks based off of my memories. For the library show, I interviewed 15 women of color and created a flipbook based on the memories they shared. Each of the drawers represents one of the very important women in my life that have empowered and inspired me to make the work that I do."

Close up of recording device and flip book

Cy Kuckenbaker created a small plaster  reproduction of a airline carrier. The carrier symbolizes the nuclear power of our society manned by the armed forces. A 3-D video image of regular people involved in daily activities is a reminder that we are all armed forces within society...and that the armed forces are all regular people.

Close up

underbelly of ship

A 3-D video image of regular people involved in daily activities is a reminder that we are all armed forces within society...and that the armed forces are all regular people. These people are actually moving around on the flight deck!

3-d glass for viewing Cy's video

 Victoria Fu / Matt Rich present photographic collages and fabric constructions whose images were generated in part by projecting Fu’s film stills onto Rich’s painted materials in the studio. The fabric compositions are functional riffs on aprons, a merging of these utilitarian and painting-like objects for both home and studio.

Alexander Kohnke  presented a series of  26 black and white portraits each with braille dots for each letter of the alphabet. This work is elegant and very professionally produced, intriguing, odd at the same time. Braille dots that are not raised but just printed can not be read by blind people, after all. The whole wall can be translated and it is the opening paragraph of T.C. Boyle’s novel “World’s End”

We announced at the opening reception of the 2017 artists,  the four artist recipients of the 2018 SD Art Prize. Each established artist has chosen an emerging artist to share the exhibition in 2019 at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla. Established artist Anne Mudge with emerging artist Erin Dace Behling and established artist Robert Matheny with emerging artist Max Robert Daily

Four local art professional are championing the 2019 artists: Lynn Susholtz, Art Produce for Anne Mudge, Jacqueline Silverman, director San Diego Art Institute for Erin Dace Behling, Dave Hampton, curator for Robert Matheny, Jill Dawsey, PhD, Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego for Max Robert Daily

Anne Mudge creates ethereal environments of complicated wire works that looked amazingly fragile but turned out to be as resilient as its creator. Tension wire and physics keep these very organic works afloat. Mudge says there are challenges and, "...magic moments of discovery." Erin Dace Behling shares geometry and repetition of form as elements in her furniture design. They are both creating landscapes because they are arranging biological components into a sort of scenery but Behling is using a wider variety of materials and her work are functional. She uses very familiar components but in unfamiliar ways.

  

Robert Matheny has played with every medium and combines strong conceptual art ideas with a tangible product which is almost never functional. He is a master trickster with a sense of humor of the cynical variety and the constant surprise of never knowing what he will do next.  His choice of Max Robert Daily makes so much sense once you know that Daily is a butcher and puppeteer and art installer by trade and the proprietor of Oslo sardine bar, really an art installation at Bread & Salt in Barrio Logan. For $25, you and three paying friends get tins of sardines, a couple beverages to rinse them back and, if you tip accordingly, god knows what else.