A Limited Anthology of Edits: Anna Gray & Ryan Wilson Paulsen
Please join the PDX artist duo Anna Gray & Ryan Wilson Paulsen for a lecture about their work, and more specifically, the new book they just completed called A Limited Anthology of Edits. It will take place on Friday June 25th at noon in the New Video Gallery at Portland State University. The talk is a part of the completion of the artists' MFA degree and is happening in conjunction with their MFA thesis exhibition, which is currently on view. See below for more information.
A Limited Anthology of Edits
Anna Gray & Ryan Paulsen
PSU Contemporary Art Practice MFA Thesis Exhibition
June 16 – June 30, 2010
Closing Reception: Saturday, June 26, 2010 | 6-8pm
New Video Gallery | PSU Art Building Lobby | 2000 SW 5th Ave. | PDX, OR 97201
Statement:
A Limited Anthology of Edits is an exhibition happening in conjunction with the launch of a new book by Anna Gray and Ryan Wilson Paulsen. The book, A Limited Anthology of Edits, is an annotated reader that brings together a variety of texts and artworks, which illuminate or at least dimly reflect on the subject of editing. The act of editing, which seems at first to be a straightforward, exclusively retrospective, utilitarian act, confined to the world of writing and publishing, can be expanded to include much more. It can be the taking apart and putting back together of a clock, the cleaning of an aging fresco, the making of a mix tape, the amendment of a history book, the evolution of a recipe, the creation of an exhibition or the reading of a text. At the heart of our interest is the relevance of editing to art and art-making. As discussions about authorship and curatorship have evolved over the last 50 years, it seems increasingly important to talk about editorship and to look at analogues between the disciplines of literature and fine art. As readers and as writing artists, whose body of work relies on both an artistic tradition of literate artists and a literary tradition of artistic writers, this text offers us an opportunity to synthesize the projects we have been producing over the past few years.
Biography:
Anna Gray and Ryan Wilson Paulsen have been working together for the past five years. Their idea-based practice fuses history, fiction, and artistic commentary into a wide variety of material works: from poster projects, sculpture, and multi-media installations, to video jokes, indexes and performative lectures. Their work often focuses on the activities of reading and writing, drawing extensively from literature, philosophy and philology without neglecting other forms of knowledge such as those acquired from watching youtube or from talking to the cashier at the corner store. Their work has been shown and published nationally and internationally. The pair currently live and work in Portland, Oregon where they are represented by PDX Contemporary Art. They each hold a BFA in Intermedia from Pacific Northwest College of Art, and an MFA in Contemporary Art Practice from Portland State University.