Charles Matson Lume Invokes Poet Gustav Sobin

Lumes Light Filled Installation Transforms Walkers Point

Aug. 06, 2012

1:36 p.m.

Brightly colored paper drink umbrellas hang from the East Gallery ceiling of Walker\'s Point Center for the Arts. The novelties immediately draw one\'s eye up, towards their expansive configuration being hung for an art installation. Some of these tiny umbrellas combine with common drinking straws, others hang alone, and before the week concludes, there will be literally 100\'s of umbrellas hot glued to the ceiling. The umbrellas represent only one element in a new installation Charles Matson Lume prepared in the gallery for the opening of the exhibition “air, once, analogous (for Gustaf Sobin)" on July 13. The Twin Cities artist was also building a wall in front of the gallery\'s window to control the natural light, separating proofing paper to be placed on the floor and instructing his assistants on where to place those paper umbrellas. When there\'s time away from creating his light filled installations, Lume teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Stout as an art professor after graduating with an MFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. So the Minnesota based artist knows Wisconsin well. He paused for few minutes to chat about the installation based on the ancient cave paintings in France, a place he visited with Gustaf Sobin, the poet and writer he dedicated this exhibition to.<o:p /> You dedicate each installation to a poet. How does this influence your installation?<o:p /> I had traveled with Sobin {before he died in 2005] to the cave paintings [in France] and the cave paintings were absolutely beautiful. This space [the WPCA gallery] has a cave like quality. So, while the experience inspired the artwork, the poets often become the fulcrum for the piece, provide the kernel from which the installations grows, to make something more meaningful. Sobin was lyrical in his poetry, observed nature with playfulness. He wrote three books about archeological finds and how cultural artifacts from particular eras intersect, what could be read from them poetically, as a cultural text. I reconfigure them [the cultural artifacts] t o make a new idea, using the origins from which they came and how that intersects with light. <o:p /> How do the cultural artifacts play with this installation?<o:p /> I use the proofing paper, readily available to anyone, a common ordinary material that transforms the space and communicates something different [other then what it would be used for]. The paper umbrellas represent that cultural artifact, too, used for something other than their original purpose. The ordinary has the ability to say something surprising, under specific circumstances, these common materials surprise me with what they convey; what will eventually be the \'surprise\' in this gallery. All the materials I use come from the immediate culture, similar to the Neolithic cave paintings, which used ochre from the surrounding mines [to make the drawings].<o:p /> What will be the surprise in this gallery?<o:p /> By controlling the natural and ambient light and placing the metallic proofing paper on the floor [in the gallery], the paper umbrellas [their image] will be reflected on the floor, on the proofing paper. A fluorescent pink line will divide the space, placed on the gallery wall. In the cave, the painting has a dotted line that went through the painting. The line divided the space where objects above the line were alive, below the space, dead. In this gallery, the paper umbrellas are a very real object, alive so to speak [on the ceiling], yet their reflection on the floor is an image, like a dream. Is their reflection on paper alive, too? Is that reflection as \'real\' as the umbrellas above, what is above? Are they both alive or are they both inert? As we [society] continue to progress into a virtual world, on line, what do we consider real and alive, or not? How alive is one\'s experience in that space [virtual or online]? What provokes one to fall into these categories, the virtual and the real? How do we access both worlds and find a balance?<o:p /> Those are very thought provoking questions. How does the light contribute to this surprise?<o:p /> The light reflects on the floor and the wall [at the window]. This creates a secondary image that mirrors the entire space. At different times of the day, in the morning, this piece [installation] will be on fire. And in the afternoon, it will quiet down and be variable. Life is like that, full of prolific amount of variables, some with less control available, others with more. I generally work with light, one of the most common things around us. Light is quicksilver, and there are boundaries with the light to be pushed against. Then I am interested in [for the installation] how the ambient light and these common materials interact, the relationship between the two, the ordinary material or cultural artifact and the light. And the great thing about that intersection is that there are always new materials coming into the culture. Which creates [in the installation] the intersection between these two, the light and the cultural artifact. The interesting intersection is that the materials are ephemeral, constantly changing with technology. The light has been with us for ages, universal and sustaining, instead of being ephemeral. So this opens [the experience and following installations] to new interactions and intersections similar in culture itself.<o:p /> Walker\'s Point for the Arts present Charles Matson Lume and Cathy Breslaw in two exhibitions featuring contemporary installations through August 25. For more information, <a href=\"http://www.wcpa-milwaukee.org\">www.wcpa-milwaukee.org</a> or for more information on Lume, thedrawingcenter.org, whitecolumns.org (a New York Gallery) or www.cathybreslow.com The gallery hosts an opening reception for the dual exhibition on Gallery Night, July 27, 5:00-9:00 p.m. with a gallery talk by Lume beginning at 7:00 p.m. <o:p /> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p>

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