September 2–November 19, 2011
Westmont Museum of Art
955 La Paz Road
Westmont College
Santa Barbara, CA 93108
www.westmontmuseum.org
Open weekdays
10 a.m.–4 p.m.
Saturday 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
The Westmont Museum of Art is pleased to present the solo exhibition of New York-based artists Eric and Heather ChanSchatz: Universal Platform.
The exhibition Universal Platform sites ChanSchatz’s current projects with communities and the installation of the accompanying artworks from these engagements, in relation to ChanSchatz’s development of their sculpture work and the creation of the ChanSchatz Trust.
ChanSchatz’s projects and artworks are human exchanges and markers of the artists’ own artistic production in relation to the global context of the society with which they directly interact. Based on ChanSchatz’s residencies, travels, and interactions during the past year, the on-going projects presented together in Universal Platform include War: Iraq (2006-present), Millennials (2009–present), Human Trafficking: Thailand (2010–present), and Revolution: Egypt (2011–).
Following the structure of ChanSchatz’s exhibition 10,483,200 Minutes last year at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, defined by a 20-year framework, the War, Millennials, and Revolution projects in Universal Platform mark the ten-year period defined by events from September 11, 2001 to September 11, 2011.[1]
The installation comprises an architectural space created for the main gallery, with the projects and artworks presented against this structure. PTG.228 Revolution: Egypt (Cairo) (2011) is a large-scale painting based on ChanSchatz’s interaction with artists, students, and the people of Cairo. PTG.137 APUS (2009–2010) is a large-scale painting based on ChanSchatz’s interaction with American soldiers and military personnel based in Iraq. For ChanSchatz, each painting is an event, and each artwork is an action.
The exhibition presents ChanSchatz’s poster works POS.20 War, POS.21 Millennials, POS.22 Human Trafficking, and POS.23 Revolution (2011). All four poster works were created for Universal Platform, and are available free to visitors of the exhibition. As an appendix, ChanSchatz have created the seven-part artist book project September 11, 2001 to September 11, 2011 (2001–2011).
In tandem to the first part of the exhibition, Universal Platform also presents the development of ChanSchatz’s practice focusing on their sculpture, architecture, and the conceptualization and realization of the ChanSchatz Trust. In the two-projection high-definition video work, Trust Site: Arch.03 (2010–2011), ChanSchatz have sited their large-scale sculptures SCU.09 and SCU.20 in relation to their Arch.03. ChanSchatz further site their sculptures in the architecture they have conceived in the works Trust Site: Arch.01 and Trust Site: Arch.04 (both 2010–2011).
With the Trust Sites, ChanSchatz’s painting, sculpture, film, architecture, design, drawing, narrative, and archive are brought together: located in multiple sites, they are read in a uniform context of the ChanSchatz Trust. Mirroring ChanSchatz’s global community-based projects, the ChanSchatz Trust is a unified program of artistic exploration that realizes ChanSchatz’s creation of their own platform—a universal platform—for their activities, projects, and artworks past, present, and future.
[1] “On the 10th anniversary of 9/11 we found ourselves in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt. A decade earlier, from our studio in Manhattan, we witnessed the World Trade Center collapse. From the deployment of troupes to Iraq and Afghanistan and the start of the War on Terror, to the election of Barak Obama, and most recently the Revolutions and protests in Cairo, the middle east and other parts of the world, the order of the world changed after 9/11.”
—Eric and Heather ChanSchatz, July, 2011, Cairo, Egypt
About Eric and Heather ChanSchatz
Since receiving their Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University in New York, Eric and Heather ChanSchatz have engaged in series of projects based on their interaction with communities, including American soldiers stationed in Iraq, coal miners of Somerset County Pennsylvania, the tenants of Lever House at 390 Park Avenue in Manhattan, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, museums, families, and individuals. Their artwork has been shown in museum and gallery exhibitions internationally. Currently ChanSchatz are preparing for a solo exhibition at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY. Eric and Heather ChanSchatz live and work in New York.
A fully illustrated catalog for Universal Platform will be published to accompany the exhibition.
Press contact:
Sarah Squire
Curatorial Assistant
T 805.565.6162