RESORT, a collaborative video with Susanne Slavick, screened in this festival October 9-16, 2021
The sculpture CHOKE: Witness for Peace is included in this group show curated by Raul Zamudio.
Opens March 20, 2021. at Empty Circle, 499 3rd Ave, Brooklyn NY
AGENT PROVOCATEUR AT EMPTY CIRCLE
Choke: Witness for Peace, 2017, Wooden baseball bat, epoxy filler, glass eyes, 33 x 3.5 x 3.5 inches
Optional info: (Original 1998, reconstructed version, 2017)
On June 17, 1999, National Public Radio reported on British paratroopers who had found a baseball bat in a torture chamber in Pristina, Kosovo. The bat was inscribed with the label "mouth-shutter.”
The existence of torture and its tools persists, despite so many eyewitness accounts and exposes. It is practiced before, during and after wars, overtly and covertly. Those it would harm flee if they can, joining refugees who seek a fundamental safety that home and state no longer provide. Borders define who lives and dies as we watch, eyes wide open. Witnessing without action is the choke—vision squandered and humanity abandoned amongst rhetorical handwringing.
“But witnesses incur responsibilities, as anyone who has ever seen a traffic accident and had to go to court to testify, knows. In the new world of globally televised war crimes, the defence of 'not knowing,' or neutrality, will dissolve for everyone. To be a witness or bystander is not a value-free choice but, inadvertently, a moral position; and in this sense the 'guilt' of people who live with the memory of crimes committed by members of their families, or communities, has been unwittingly extended to everyone who watches appalling pictures on the news.”
― Erna Paris, Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History
"VERY WELL, THANK YOU": THE ARTS AS A MEANS TO WELL BEING
Northern Illinois University Art Museum
March 26 – May 15, 2021
Insurrection is included in this group show that investigates the unique role and way the visual and performing arts assist in maintaining social, psychological and physical health and happiness.
Featuring artists: Jan Bolander, Cynthia A. Boudreau, Zachary Cahill, Donna Castellanos, Whit Forrester, Jeanne Garrett, Maria Gedroc, Jessica Gondek, Andrew Ellis Johnson, Judith Joseph, Savannah Jubic, Cleo Krueger, Dean Krueger, Lim Sieu Lian (SLim), Christina Loraine, Julie A. Mars, Benjamin Merritt, Taweesak Molsawat, Alfred Stark, Linda Stein, Veronica Storc, Rhonda Wheatley and Unidentified.
Insurrection, 2020, Ink on Paper, 50 x 113 inches
FOUNDER at DOWD GALLERY
A solo show at Dowd Gallery, SUNY Cortland, March 15 - April 15, 2021
Related Programming (including Clint Smith)
FOUNDER
noun: founder
a person who establishes an institution or settlement.
he was a founder of the nation
verb: founder
(of a ship) fill with water and sink.
Five drowned when their frigates foundered
(of a plan or undertaking) fail or break down, typically as a result of a particular problem or setback.
the talks foundered on the issue of abolition
FOUNDER refers to both an agent and an action, the establishment and the breakdown—of a vessel, society or state. FOUNDER includes works from several series that re-examine the ideals and aspirations that our country claims—and that have been so selectively enacted or attained.
TALL TALES was begun after the 2017 ’Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, joining a larger response to the economic deprivation, structural violence and endemic racism that has persisted for centuries. Images like Thomas Jefferson’s wig ignited with a Tiki Torch explore the myths, distortions and unmet promises of American hegemony and history. Drawings of the felled horses of Confederate Generals speak to the ongoing controversies regarding who and what we choose to memorialize and the malignant consequences of a Civil War that remain unresolved.
FLAYING FATHER, an ongoing cycle, reappraises the ‘founding’ figures and principles of our nation, specifically the five presidents who owned slaves during their presidencies: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and Andrew Jackson. The faults of our typically revered ‘founders’ are often justified or excused as norms of their times. But other founding fathers like John Adams, abolitionists across races, and the enslaved themselves rejected slavery as a barbaric institution. The capitalist ownership of human beings was never acceptable except to those driven by greed, profit and power—and the acquiescent.
The ‘flaying’ refers to the hubris of the mythological Marsyas, who competes with and offends Apollo by playing his flute and whipping everyone into a frenzy—an apt metaphor for the incitement of demagogues, then and now. Accounts of his penalty vary—between having his flayed skin nailed to a pine tree or converted into a wine sack. His cruel fate warns against the self-congratulatory myths and actual practices of our nation—and their ominous repercussions.
The American eagle appears throughout, pronouncing the myth of might and its duplicity. Distorted eagles in the ETERNAL FLAMES series suggest warped perceptions of our virtue and contorted rationales for the denial of liberty and abrogation of so many human rights.
Altogether, FOUNDER exposes a false hagiography, through the viscera of avarice, organs of oppression, cavities of omission, tumors of hubris and sinews of hatred. Multiple operations are necessary to make us whole, with sutures of reparations for an authentic justice.
STORIED REFERENCES at NIU Art Museum
The Closed Mouth and Found No More are included in this group show at Northern Illinois University Art Museum , January 12 – February 26, 2021.
The Closed Mouth, 2003, study, gouache and mixed media on paper, 19.5 x 21.375 inches
Found No More at All (II), 1998, wine, gouache, human blood, mold-Korean paper, 35 x 23_1-2 inches
The Closed Mouth at NIU Art Museum
Storied References at NIU Art Museum
INSURRECTION IN QUARANZINE AT IMRC
QUARANZINE: An Artistic Collaboration in the Time of Covid-19
A collaborative publication project by Marc Fischer
On view at Innovative Media, Research and Commercialization Center (IMRC) at University of Maine, Orono, October 9 - November 13, 2020.
THE PLAGUE REVIEW
Carrier is included in The Plague Review: For the Sheltered in Place, October 2020
Published by Rotland Press, Edited by Ryan Standfest
INTERVIEWS with cartoonist Hugleikur Dagsson + artist Christopher Sperandio. COMICS by Hugleikur Dagsson + Jesse Duquette + Mr. Fish + Ben Jones + Christopher Sperandio. SKETCHBOOKS by D.B. Dowd + Sophie Eisner + Michael Garguilo. POETRY by Martin Rowson. ART by Marc Brunier-Mestas + Amze Emmons + Bill Fick + Jochen Gerner + Rebecca Gilbert + Matti Hagelberg + Sophy Hollington + Andrew Ellis Johnson + Sarah Randles + Mats Stromberg + Refael Idan Suissa + Piotr Szyhalski + Ashley Taylor.
Carrier, 2020, Ink on paper, 50 x 115 inches
Cover by Christopher Sperandio
Carrier, 2020, Ink on paper, 55 x 115 inches
QUARANZINE #79
INSURRECTION, 2020, ink on paper, 50 x 113 inches and poem, FALLOW TRENCH
GALLERY AL-QUDS 100th SHOW: ART IS NOT OPTIONAL
January 25—February 28, 2020
Featuring the artists, poets and musicians presented in 100 exhibitions curated by Dagmar Painter over her career at The Jerusalem Fund & Palestine Center in DC.
The gala evening on January 25, 5-8pm, will feature live music and the work of 57 artists in all media, with sales benefiting the artists and the charities of The Jerusalem Fund & Palestine Center.
2425 Virginia Ave. NW, Washington DC 20037
Image: Andrew Ellis Johnson Eternal Flame, 2010, cast cultured marble
LITEN
"Liten" (Norwegian for small), organized by Laura Sharp Wilson, invites 23 artists from across the country to respond to the idea of human feelings of smallness and how that impacts the way we treat our planet and each other.
Bountiful Davis Art Center in Utah
September 27 - November 1, 2019
From PIPE DREAMS 2017
Baby shoes altered with lead
ONCE UPON A TIME. ALL AT ONCE.
Once Upon a Time; All at Once: Contemporary American Narrative Painting: Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, Lecture May 30, 2019
GETTING THERE
Andrew Ellis Johnson and Susanne Slavick
Schmucker Art Gallery at Gettysburg College
September 4 - December 6, 2019
Catalogue available with poems by David Hernandez, Maria Melendez Kelson, Blas Manuel De Luna, Dunya Mikhail, Prageeta Sharma, Warsan Shire, and Wisława Szymborska; an essay by Suketu Mehta; and texts by Vu Tran.
______________________________________________
Getting There is aspirational; it implies a destination, marking progress toward some kind of goal. Getting There is a burden, but also a dream of many migrants and refugees. We cannot speak for those in flight, in hiding, and in desperate hope. But we can speak to the contradictory fears and hypocrisies, ignored histories and punitive policies that we as a nation hold and enact here.
We are all from somewhere else. At some point in our family lineage, someone has crossed a border. Escape, expulsion, exile, exodus and emigration are integral to human history. Today, there are over 65 million refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people around the world, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. They are driven from their home by persecution, conflict and violence, or human rights violations.
Driven or displaced, cut loose or set adrift, or simply seeking safety—all are precarious states of passage. The decision to leave home may be voluntary or involuntary, arising from desperation or anticipation. Those of us not needing to flee live in comparative luxury. Yet many Americans choose to feel invaded, believing our jobs are threatened or our culture diluted or even contaminated.
There is real fear and fabricated fear. Both are fierce and ubiquitous. There is the natural fear of the unknown, shared by the vulnerable and those made to feel vulnerable. How are the vanquished so easily demonized into a formidable foe by the rhetoric of demagogues and the media that serves them? Why do alarmist claims of invasion and infestation persist despite the evidence, and despite the abusive history of such language? The “other” is imagined as larger than life—and worse, fueling the dangerous perception that “the thing that is lower than I, makes me bigger.”
Such assumptions and attitudes insist that is not enough to be strong; those perceived as weak and powerless must be punished with deportation, incarceration, and separation from those they love. They must be dehumanized and denied rights to asylum and autonomy. They must remain invisible. The works in Getting There question these manufactured imperatives and expose the consequences of our resentment or fear of “the stranger.”
The USA is a nation of immigrants and used to lead in resettling refugees. Today, with far fewer resources, Turkey and Pakistan now host the most refugees. Our current administration is slashing admissions to its lowest point in 40 years. Immigration policies have hardened, vilifying and incarcerating people who legally seek asylum. Outrage and soul-searching followed the separation of children from parents at the border, but the fury has failed to stop their indefinite detention in unprecedented numbers, against international law.
Being a refugee is not a choice. Those of us who are settled may never know the anxiety, risk or terror of those uprooted, the profound loss of what is left behind, and the daunting uncertainties ahead. Through these works, we explore encounters, intersections and perceptions between radically different worlds—between security and insecurity.
We are moved by images. We are moved by words. We are grateful to novelists, poets, anthropologists and journalists who have informed our projects and whose words we have included or cited. Among them are Jenny Erpenbeck, Lev Golinkin, Eliza Griswold, Mohsin Hamid, David Hernandez, Ali Johar, Maria Melendez Kelson, Jason De León, Blas Manuel de Luna, Suketu Mehta, Dunya Mikhail, Yasser Niksada, Prageeta Sharma, Warsan Shire, Wisława Szymborska, and Vu Tran.
Getting There suggests movement—but more than the literal movement of migrants and refugees. We hope that Getting There advances an evolving ethos, a humane reception, an empathic embrace—and movement of our own consciences.
RESORT SCREENS AT FILE SAO PAOLO 2019
RESORT, a video by Andrew Ellis Johnson and Susanne Slavick screens at FILE (File Electronic Language International Festival) Sao Paolo 2019 at Centro Cultural FIESP in Brazil.
June 26 - August 11, 2019
VIRTUAL PALESTINE
QUENCH, a collaborative video by Andrew Ellis Johnson and Susanne Slavick screens in Virtual Palestine at P21 Gallery in London on May 8, 2019.
Curated by Dagmar Painter.
SCREEN | ANDREW ELLIS JOHNSON + SUSANNE SLAVICK | RESORT + QUENCH
Center for Maine Contemporary Art
March 16 - June 16, 2019
RESORT and QUENCH are two recent collaborative video works by artists Andrew Ellis Johnson and Susanne Slavick that frame the global refugee and migration crisis through the lens of the sea.
Still from RESORT
Still from QUENCH
SOMEWHERE OVER THE BORDER
ANTI-NOSTALGIA
A group show of manipulated found photographs
Curated by Olivia Huntley and elin o’Hara slavick
The Carrack / 947 E Main Street / Durham, NC / 27701
October 4-21, 2018
Opening Reception Friday, October 5, 7-9:30pm
Gallery Hours: Thursdays-Sundays 11am - 5pm and Wednesdays by appointment
Image: Andrew Ellis Johnson, Over There, 2011, archival digital print on Hahnemühle paper, 72 x 27 inches
Ben Alper, Andy Berner, Michael Barefield, Becky Brown, Allison Coleman, Diego Camposeco, Martha Carter, Joy Drury Cox, Meredith Emery, Jon Feinstein, Ashley Florence, Victor Foster, Adrian Garcia, Raymond Goodman, Beth Grabowski, Rachel Greene, Sharon Lee Hart, Brenda Miller Holmes, Peter Hoffman, Olivia Huntley, Michael Itkoff, Ellie Ivanova, Andrew Ellis Johnson, Ann Pegalow Kaplan, Siri Kaur, Michael Keaveney, Angela Kelly, Jasper Lee, Susan Alta Martin, Cathy McLaurin, Lindsay Metivier, Joy Meyer, Deepanjan Mukhopadhyay, Susan Mullally, Annika Nordenskiold, Ashely Oates, Lesley Patterson-Marx, Kelly Popoff, Samprati Prasad, Bill Santen, Leslie Sheryll, Annie Simpson, elin o’Hara slavick, Susanne Slavick, Leah Sobsey, Cindy Steiler, Liz Steketee, Bill Thelen, Hong-An Truong, Amy White, Laura Sharp Wilson
Workshop / Panel
October 7, Sunday, 2-4pm with Michael Keaveney – Transforming the Photographic
October 21, Sunday, 2-4pm
Panel discussion / gallery talk with curators Olivia Huntley and elin o’Hara slavick and local artists in the exhibition, including Ben Alper, Deepan Mukhopadhyay and Ann Pegalow Kaplan
Desire has no history. – Susan Sontag
Anti-Nostalgia is a group exhibition of artists invited to create works utilizing found photographs. Artists explore: our relationship to the photograph as an object; memories and sentimentality; history and the familial; the vernacular and the archive; and alternative and interventionist narratives. A photograph provides both a historical and unattainable reality. Anti-Nostalgia investigates how our attraction to and/or repulsion by found photographs does not come from nostalgia, but comes from a desire to confirm, deny and transform a reality. Theorists argue that nostalgia can be a form of fascism - a longing for a glorified past that leads us down an authoritarian path. Anti-Nostalgia is a topical and critical approach to our current global situation, an attempt to draw attention to the way we read, feel, understand and use imagery in the name of ideology and personal whim.
INFINITY
PACE, a video collaboration by Andrew Ellis Johnson and Susanne Slavick was included in INFINITY, a Skowhegan Alliance Video Screening in NYC on October 14, 2018.
RESORT : ANDREW ELLIS JOHNSON AND SUSANNE SLAVICK
The McDonough Museum of Art at Youngstown State University
September 7 – October 26, 2018
Public Reception, Friday, September 7, 5-7pm
Gallery Talk, Friday, September 7, 5 pm
New Immigrant and Refugee Visions screening, 6-7pm
The John J. McDonough Museum of Art, on the campus of Youngstown State University opens the fall season with RESORT, a traveling exhibition of works by Andrew Ellis Johnson and Susanne Slavick. It accompanies Sanctuary, an exhibition of paintings by John Guy Petruzzi. Both shows will be on view in the galleries September 7 – October 26 with an opening reception on Friday, September 7 from 5-7pm. Susanne Slavick and Andrew Ellis Johnson will give a gallery talk on the evening of the reception beginning at 5pm.
In addressing RESORT Slavick and Johnson comment: “Driven or displaced, cut loose or set adrift, or simply seeking safety—all are precarious states of passage. The decision to leave home may be voluntary or involuntary, arising from desperation or anticipation. RESORT, as a title, reflects that duality. To flee is a last resort. The destination is often another shore, literally or figuratively. The shore can also be a place for a benign kind of escape—an actual vacation resort. Some European vacationers have actually watched refugees wash ashore, from vessels both intact and capsized. We have similar scenarios on land at our own borders, worsened by recent separations of children from their families. RESORT explores the intersection of these two worlds—of security and insecurity— and our responses to those caught between them.”
In conjunction with RESORT, there will be several screenings from New Immigrant and Refugee Visions, produced by Community Supported Film. A preview screening will take place on Friday, September 7, 6-7pm. Additional screenings will take place from 12:30 to 1:30pm on September 11,14, 25, 28 and October 9, 12, 23 and 26. New Immigrant and Refugee Visions is a collection of documentary films made by new immigrants that provide unique insider perspectives on both the challenges of integration and the contributions immigrants make to our culture, economy and social fabric.
McDonough galleries are open Tuesday through Saturday from 11am until 4pm.
Office hours are Monday through Friday from 8am to 5pm.
The Museum is open to the public and admission is free.
Somewhere Over the Border, 2018, detail from middle panel, ink on paper
ARTISTS WHO TEACH
Westmoreland Museum of Art, Greensburg PA
August 25 - November 25, 2018
Andrew Ellis Johnson will join other artists for gallery talks on Wednesday, September 12 > 5:30-7pm | RSVP
The Cantilever Gallery at The Westmoreland is brimming with contemporary artworks created in a broad range of mediums—painting, sculpture, photography, video, stained glass, installation and mixed media.
While the works themselves explore diverse themes using various techniques and materials, each of the artists in this exhibition share one thing in common—they all teach at one of the numerous colleges and universities in our region.
Artists Who Teach celebrates the incredible talent and broad range of art making in this region today. The 58 artists in this exhibition are all inspiring the next generation of artists by teaching at Carlow University, Carnegie Mellon University, Chatham University, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Robert Morris University, Seton Hill University, Saint Vincent College, University of Pittsburgh/University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg and Westmoreland County Community College.
One Tiki, Two Tiki, 2017, ink and charcoal, 75 x 42 inches
Tall Tails, 2017, ink, 74 x 42 inches
