Big Openings Tonight!

Mark Motherbaugh at Andenken - starting at 7 pm.

"During his downtime on early worldwide tours with DEVO, Mark Mothersbaugh began illustrating on postcards to send to his friends and family, which he still creates, and has been creating every day for over 30 years. It’s an obsessive habit/hobby which still yields anywhere from one to a couple dozen new postcard-sized images per day

The cards were originally created as his personal diaries, and were never intended for public viewing. That all changed when Mark decided to share his postcard works in his critically acclaimed solo shows during the 1980’s & 1990’s. Since then, he launched his worldwide Homefront Invasion! tour in ‘03, and the Visual Art of Mark Mothersbaugh tour starting in ‘05.

Mark has archived nearly all the original postcard-sized works, filed neatly in spiral-bound folders at his home in Hollywood, CA. It is an astonishingly obsessive collection of private thoughts featuring Mark’s plethora of provoking & unusual imagery.

The 2009 Gallery Tour features high-resolution, limited edition digital prints of Mark’s works. Each original postcard diary sketch is scanned and altered especially for the tour, often with the addition of text, digital effects, photos, etc. Each customized image is printed on quality archival Lysonic paper in a very limited edition (usually editions of 3-20, each embossed and signed by the artist). Mark archives one of each print edition for his own archives, which further limits distribution of each postcard diary print. Mark explains, 'Usually, the only way someone can get an original sketch is if I give it to them myself. I’ve sent a few in the mail, and handed others out to friends and family. I’ve probably got around 30,000 of them filed away now….and I keep making more every day. The limited edition prints are my way of sharing these personal images with other people around the world.'"

also:

Dave Seiler
"Reduced Wholeness"
January 16th thru February 14th, 2009

For the New Year Dave Seiler fills Ironton with 5 ambitious Phrenitiscope's. These objects, akin to early pre-cinema devises such as mutoscope's also known as "What the butler saw" machines which are moving picture machines that are viewer interactive; they must be cranked in order to see the short film.

The content of the films are based on research the artist has accumulated on Jean Gebser and his writings about the history and development of consciousness. The imagery ranges from the joyful banality of everyday life to the serenity of moving landscapes, the sense of devastating decay and the surreal feelings that evokes.

These films were shot with digital video then reduced to fifteen frames per second and converted to JPEG stills, effect's were added with various photo programs and printed. the printed photos were the glued together with a stiff "backer" card between each image and assembled to a wood core. This core is then attached to the drive shaft of the machine and when cranked can be viewed.