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  • Mike Richison’s Election Collection: 2004-2024

    Mike Richison’s Election Collection: 2004-2020 showcases 20 years of design and video art inspired by the presidential election cycle. Richison began working with this topic in 2004 when he created a short video loop of George W. Bush drinking water during the debates. This evolved into performances and interactive video projects that break down language into musical and abstract elements.

    The culmination of these explorations is Electo Electro 2024, an interactive installation that enables participants to produce techno-inspired beats using video clips of presidential candidates. This project combines iMacs, iPads, custom software, and the housing from decommissioned Diebold AccuVote TS voting booths. Users can remix videos from political rallies and debates in a structured sixteen beat loop. An iPad-based touchscreen design parodies the system employed by the AccuVote, a voting system that was difficult to audit and susceptible to hacking.

    As a parody, the format of Richison’s installation resembles a polling station, while the branding and graphic elements of the project hearken back to vintage electronic devices. The AccuVote debuted in the early 2000s as the poster child of the Help America Vote Act. After its widespread adoption, a group of researchers discovered a long list of vulnerabilities that can lead to stolen votes, lost votes, or a failure of the computer itself. The project deals with expectation, failure, and vulnerability

    On the opening day and throughout the run of the exhibit, Richison will perform and demonstrate this project. His goal is to “encourage users to examine media and become individuals who can control media, rather than be controlled by it.”

    This event is being held in conjuction with ArtNOW’s Mike Richison, Electo Electro 2024 on October 4 at 10:15 AM. 

    About the artist, Mike Richison: Mike Richison is a multimedia artist and an Associate Professor at Monmouth University, where he teaches motion graphics. He employs a variety of approaches to artmaking, including sculpture, graphic design, and interactive video. His work utilizes found objects, such as turntables, voting booths, and scavenged video clips as well as the Max MSP Jitter programming environment. Richison has exhibited at Autonomous Cultural Centre Medika (Zagreb, Croatia); Figment NYC and Art in Odd Places (New York); and Peters Valley School of Craft and Morris Museum (New Jersey). His projects have received attention in outlets such as Leonardo, VICE, FACT Magazine, Hyperallergic, WABC-TV Channel 7 News New York, and The Washington Post. Before moving to New Jersey in 2007, he lived in the Detroit, MI, area for several years.

  • Mike Richison, Electo Electro 2024

    Monmouth University’s Prof. Mike Richison (Graphic Design) will perform his Electo Electro 2024, updated for the 2024 election cycle. This interactive installation combines audience participation, music, news footage, and politics. The project allows participants to remix videos from political rallies, debates, and news in a structured sixteen beat loop. The touchscreen design is a parody of the system employed by the Accuvote, a voting system that is difficult to audit and susceptible to hacking. The parody continues into the format of the installation itself which will resemble a polling station.

    Richison will introduce his project, perform, and then open up his event for discussion. If you cannot make it to Richison’s live performance, stop by the Ice House Gallery to see his project on display for the semester. For more on the project, see Richison’s discussion of it in the Journal of Network Music and Arts.

    For more information, contact the co-chairs of ArtNOW, Prof. Amanda Stojanov at astojano@monmouth.edu or Prof. Dickie Cox at rcox@monmouth.edu

  • I Wish That I Had Spoken Only of It All: 20 Years of Sheryl Oring’s I Wish to Say

    Curated by Corey Dzenko, Associate Professor of Art History

    With backgrounds in journalism and fine art, Sheryl Oring began her ongoing project I Wish to Say in 2004 from a concern that many people’s voices were not being heard. She started to take dictation from the public about what they wanted to say to the (next) President. Dressed as a 1960s secretary with a typewriter, she records whatever participants say onto a postcard, making copies with carbon paper. During larger events, a secretarial bank takes dictation. Oring mails the postcards to the White House and exhibits copies. To date she has typed over 4241 postcards.

    For this exhibition, MU’s DiMattio Gallery will chronologically display hundreds of I Wish to Say postcards, photographs, and videos of performances, along with larger prints of select postcard texts. A timeline on the wall will note the presidential elections that span Oring’s project. The empty wall space for 2024 will fill as MU student-typists add postcards they collect during the current election season. The other half of the gallery will showcase a selection of Oring’s related projects that all involve a question, active listening, and a typewriter for a secretary to record dictation. These include Collective Memory (September 2011), recorded memories of the 9-11 attacks; Travel Desk (2014), travel stories that were then carved into a wooden table now installed in the San Diego International Airport; and other artworks.

    Multi-part programming will include an artist’s talk to showcase Oring’s timely and inclusive artmaking practice. MU students will participate as typists at numerous live events throughout the exhibition’s duration. MU faculty from various disciplines will hold public teach-ins in the gallery about topics related to Oring’s project. Finally, MU is collaborating with nearby Neptune and Long Branch school districts so that high school students can dictate their own postcards to the future president. As an educator, Oring has involved younger constituencies, empowering the next generation of participants in both US democracy and artmaking.

    Oring performs I Wish to Say: Thursday, September 19, 2024, 11am-1pm, Rebecca Stafford Student Center Patio

    Artist talk: Thursday, September 19, 2024, 4:30-5:30pm, Great Hall Auditorium
    Opening Reception: Thursday, September 19, 2024, 5:30-7:30pm, DiMattio Gallery, Rechnitz Hall

    About the Artist
    Sheryl Oring examines critical social issues through projects that incorporate old and new media to tell stories, examine public opinion, and foster open exchange. Using tools typically employed by journalists (the camera, the typewriter, the pen, the interview, and the archive), she builds on her experience in her former profession to create installations, performances, artist books, and internet-based works that address themes of citizenship, free expression, first amendment rights, story-telling, and activism through art. Oring received her MFA from the University of California at San Diego. She is currently a board member for the National Coalition Against Censorship. She has held several academic positions, most recently serving as the Dean of the School of Art at University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

    Oring has shown her work at the O1SJ Biennial; Bryant Park in Manhattan; the Brooklyn Public Library; and the Jewish Museum Berlin. She has also presented work at Art in Odd Places in New York; the Art Prospect festival in St. Petersburg, Russia; Encuentro in São Paolo, Brazil; and the International Symposium on Electronic Art in Dubai. She has completed public art commissions at the San Diego and Tampa International Airports. Collecting institutions include the Library of Congress; Museum of Modern Art; Tate Britain; Bibliothèque nationale de Luxembourg; and many others.

    For more information, see: https://www.sheryloring.org/
    Or contact Dr. Corey Dzenko, cdzenko@monmouth.edu

    This exhibition was made possible with funding from the Edna Wright Andrade Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation and from the Diversity Innovation Grant Program coordinated by the Office of the Provost and Intercultural Center at Monmouth University. Thank you also to ArtNOW, the Helen Bennett McMurray Endowed Chair of Social Ethics, and Monmouth University’s Department of Art and Design and Department of Curriculum and Instruction.

  • I Wish That I Had Spoken Only of It All

    Sheryl Oring, Performance of I Wish to Say | 11am-1pm | Rebecca Stafford Student Center Patio

    Artist Talk | 4:30-5:30pm | Great Hall Auditorium
    Exhibition Opening Reception | 5:30-7:30pm | DiMattio Gallery, Rechnitz Hall

    With backgrounds in journalism and fine art, Sheryl Oring began her ongoing project I Wish to Say in 2004 from a concern that many people’s voices were not being heard. She started to take dictation from the public about what they wanted to say to the (next) President. Dressed as a 1960s secretary with a typewriter, she records whatever participants say onto a postcard, making copies with carbon paper. During larger events, a secretarial bank takes dictation. Oring mails the postcards to the White House and exhibits copies. To date she has typed over 4241 postcards. In this artist talk, Oring will discuss I Wish to Say, now in its 20th year, alongside her other socially engaged art projects.

    This talk is in connection with the exhibition I Wish That I Had Spoken Only of It All: 20 Years of Sheryl Oring’s I Wish to Say, which is on display in Rechnitz Hall’s DiMattio Gallery for the Fall 2024 semester. A reception and performance of I Wish to Say in the DiMattio Gallery will follow this talk.

    About the Artist

    Sheryl Oring examines critical social issues through projects that incorporate old and new media to tell stories, examine public opinion, and foster open exchange. Using tools typically employed by journalists (the camera, the typewriter, the pen, the interview, and the archive), she builds on her experience in her former profession to create installations, performances, artist books, and internet-based works that address themes of citizenship, free expression, first amendment rights, story-telling, and activism through art. Oring received her MFA from the University of California at San Diego. She is currently a board member for the National Coalition Against Censorship. She has held several academic positions, most recently serving as the Dean of the School of Art at University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

    Oring has shown her work at the O1SJ Biennial; Bryant Park in Manhattan; the Brooklyn Public Library; and the Jewish Museum Berlin. She has also presented work at Art in Odd Places in New York; the Art Prospect festival in St. Petersburg, Russia; Encuentro in São Paolo, Brazil; and the International Symposium on Electronic Art in Dubai. She has completed public art commissions at the San Diego and Tampa International Airports. Collecting institutions include the Library of Congress; Museum of Modern Art; Tate Britain; Bibliothèque nationale de Luxembourg; and many others.

    For more information, see: https://www.sheryloring.org/
    Or contact Dr. Corey Dzenko, cdzenko@monmouth.edu

    This exhibition was made possible with funding from the Edna Wright Andrade Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation and from the Diversity Innovation Grant Program coordinated by the Office of the Provost and Intercultural Center at Monmouth University. Thank you also to ArtNOW, the Helen Bennett McMurray Endowed Chair of Social Ethics, and Monmouth University’s Department of Art and Design and Department of Curriculum and Instruction.

  • Senior Exhibition 2024

    Featuring the work of Monmouth University graduating seniors who will receive their degrees from the Department of Art & Design.

    Closing Reception: April 28 from 1 to 4 p.m.

  • The Cardboard Show

    Monmouth University, in conjunction with Parlor Gallery is thrilled to kick off the year with a captivating art exhibition that transcends traditional boundaries. Prepare to immerse yourself in a world of limitless imagination at the much-anticipated Cardboard Show, an extraordinary celebration of free-form and experimental creativity.

    The Cardboard Show is the result: a collection of large-scale sculptures and forms in three distinct voices, united by medium, friendship, and a commitment to a playful approach to creating art for its own sake. These three artists sequestered themselves in Parlor Gallery last January and opened the doors to the public a month later to share their fantastical and unique cardboard creations in an immersive type of presentation. For the continuation of this project, the artists will follow the same practice of collaborating in the same space at the same time, building these wonderous creations on site starting January 16th, 2024, and will continue to construct and design the exhibition until the opening night on February 9th, 2024.

    Demo and Meet & Greet:
    Thursday, March 21st. Demo from 3-4 and continuation of the Meet & Greet from 4 – 6.

    Opening Night Reception: Friday, February 9th from 6-9pm. In addition to the opening reception, there will also be an artist meet & greet and informal artist talk during the exhibition.

    Unveiling the Magic:
    The Cardboard Show is a testament to the power of collaboration. Three visionary artists—Porkchop, Bradley Hoffer, and Jason Stumpf—invite you to witness the evolution of their fantastical creations. Having sequestered themselves in Parlor Gallery last January, the artists opened their doors to the public a month later, sharing the enchantment of their unique cardboard world.

    Creating Wonders in Real-Time:
    As part of the ongoing project, these artists will once again unite under one roof, infusing life into their cardboard wonders starting January 16th, 2024. Witness the magic unfold as they construct and design this extraordinary exhibition, culminating in the grand opening on February 9th, 2024. Join us on a journey where art transcends boundaries, fueled by the collaborative spirit of three local artists and friends. In addition to the cardboard sculptures, each artist will also be exhibiting a selection of each of their respective work.

    About the Artists:

    Bradley Hoffer is a multi-disciplinary artist, designer, carpenter, and maker of original and preconceived concepts. Living and working most of his life in NJ; he received a BFA in sculpture from Mason Gross school of Visual Art at Rutgers. Bradley’s distinct style/work is recognizable using continuous line along with a balance of colors. For this show at Monmouth University, he is exploring a new complex level of layers in three dimensions. Cardboard is the medium that is being used to accomplish the new sculptures. Bradley is also revealing a collection of paintings that have been in the works for the past 6 years.

    Jason Stumpf is multidisciplinary artist based in Asbury Park, NJ. A woodworker for over 30 years, his work ranges from sculpture and furniture to cabinetry and wooden boats. His work is influenced by a fascination with structure, minimalism, and materiality.  Jason furniture designs often take inspiration from archaic forms and techniques. Those influences are expressed through a minimalist, modern design ethos. His sculptures stretch that practical design aesthetic into abstracted forms and ideas.

    Porkchop is a multi-disciplinary artist from New Jersey. He has an MFA in Sculpture from VCU and a BFA in Fine Arts from University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Porkchop has established a great presence through his magnificently scaled murals, including the extensively documented scenes he composed along the Asbury Park Boardwalk in conversation with the sea. Narrative is a prevalent theme in his work. Denizens and visitors to Monmouth County have been enjoying Porkchop’s vibrant and colorful artwork and murals for years, but in most recent manifestation, the artist strips his works of his normally vivid palette and instead employs intentionally ritualistic and graphic monochromatic designs and symbols accented with Gold. Influenced by ancient history, mythology, religion and literature, the artist Porkchop sources out, manipulates, and casts familiar objects. He then painstakingly recreates their surfaces giving them a new existence into a dark and curious storyline. The application of paint into his intentional ritualistic designs followed by flawless coats of glossy resin is an act of pure precision and care, like the work of a surgeon or mortician. There are often unexpected but pleasant marriages of imagery and object. By stripping these pieces of his usual vibrant palette, Porkchop’s choice of black & white emphasizes the narrative in the works, which becomes difficult to ignore. Presenting these pieces in symmetry creates an alter that pulls the stories altogether.

  • Inviting Motion (Sabbatical project Wobbe F. Koning)

    Inviting Motion
    Be invited by motion. What will you give up by giving in?

    Inviting Motion is an interactive Virtual Reality (VR) experience with themes of enticing, luring, attention grabbing, and having to give something up when we give into attractions.

    Talk: 11:45am-12:30pm | The Great Hall Auditorium
    Demo: Experience Inviting Motion – 12:35pm-1:30pm & 2:50pm-4:30pm | Demo: IDM Lab (Plangere 135)

    The Experience

    After going through a simple onboarding process to calibrate and tweak the experience, you, the user, are initially tasked with finding a human form in the noise of particles that surround you. After your attention is grabbed, you will be invited, and then teased a little. You can enjoy exploring the interactions, but what are you giving away? Are you being scrutinized?

    The experience generally last about 5 to 10 minutes

    About the Project

    As part of his Sabbatical from Monmouth University, Wobbe F. Koning returned to his alma mater The Ohio State University and worked with the community at the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD) to produce this VR experience. Motion Capture was used to create the attention grabbing and inviting motions, which are sparsely represented (using a limited amount of points) but are still instantly recognizable as human.

    The project was a collaboration, and took shape as a result of the interactions with the ACCAD community.

    Bios:
    Wobbe F. Koning     is an award winning animator and digital artist often combining 3D Computer Animation and video with audio to create mostly linear single channel works. Next to creating 3D printed stop motion animations, he has been exploring Virtual Reality (VR) as a medium, experimenting with different approaches while relying on his experience as filmmaker. Though not in his nature, he has been letting go of the total control the creator has over linear storytelling, and in stead embraced the interactive nature of VR.

    Earlier work includes on-stage videos for dance performances, and multi screen installations. At Monmouth University he teaches animation in the Department of Art & Design.

    Raven Serenity Glover received their bachelors degree in Simulation, Animation, and Gaming at Eastern Michigan University. There, they gained skills in 3D animation and character modeling. In their undergraduate research symposium project, Dynamic Storytelling with Animation, Raven Serenity explored the potential advantages animation has over traditional filmmaking in telling dynamic narratives. As part of the MFA program in Digital Animation and Interactive Media at The Ohio State University, Raven Serenity hopes to further expand the utilization of animation to promote self-awareness and self-expression.

  • PAT CRESSON – Taking a Leap –The Power of the Natural World – 45 Years of Creative Work

    Closing Reception and lecture/walking tour: Thursday December 7 – Tour begins at 4pm; Reception (light refreshments) from 5-6pm

    This retrospective show, PAT CRESSON Taking a Leap –The Power of the Natural World 45 Years of Creative Work is a combined visual statement of over 45 years of artmaking. It covers 21 different categories ranging from painting, drawing, collage, printmaking, and digital imaging to sculpture. CRESSON have always been interested in a broad range of art topics, styles and techniques and has followed her heart and not limited herself to just one or two topics, series or styles.

    Ancient cultures and architecture, botanicals, maps & ephemera, the landscape, weather systems and climate, insects, birds, Asian culture, kimonos, bonsai design, endangered species, marine life and the seashore – these are all topics that have interested her for many years and she returns again and again to them for inspiration. Using these as inspiration and metaphor her interest is also in the exploration of human interaction and the natural world – the navigation between what is hidden and what is revealed.

    Recently she has concentrated her explorations into the connection between geometry and Nature. She has explored this by juxtaposing hard edge geometric design form, scientific illustrations, and pattern against organic landscape shapes, portions of sketches, and textured paint.

    Many of the artist’s pieces combine drawing, type, painting, graphic design, digital imagery, and original photography. A majority of her prints and images over the years have reflected interests in nature and landscape, legend, myth, storytelling, and spirituality. They complement a 35-year interest in anthropology and archaeology with particular interest in the cultures of Egypt, Japan, China, South American Mayan and the Anastazi.

    “Cresson has often taken a collage approach in her creative work and this is clear in both paintings and prints. In painting, the artist’s use of oils, wax, and mixed media enhances both the collage look of her work and her atmospheric approach to color. In printmaking, her use of chine-collé and the collograph process heightens the variety of textures and colors in her work. Whether one looks at the paintings and the prints on display here, or the drawings and digital images available on the artist’s website, there are opposing areas of abstract color, a wide array of textures and transparencies, and recognizable images (or in some cases, the vague suggestion of images). Color is one of the artist’s strengths, and her use of it ranges from the poetic to the dramatic. The paintings, which tend to be more abstract than the prints, contain some of her most ethereal color combinations. Line is another strength, especially in the prints that utilize the inherently linear process of intaglio etching.”

    Dr. Kate Ogden, Professor of Art History, Stockton State University, NJ

    This work was supported, in part, by several Grant-in-Aid-for-Creativity awards and the Urban Coast Institute at Monmouth University.

  • 2023 Senior Exhibition

    Featuring the work of Monmouth University graduating seniors who will receive their degrees from the Department of Art & Design.

    Closing Reception: April 23 from 1 to 4 p.m.

  • Jacob Landau: The Prophetic Quest

    An art exhibition that explores a range of works over a long career, created by the American artist, humanist, and teacher Jacob Landau. The exhibition features a selection of some eighteen works. All are from Monmouth University’s extensive collection of Jacob Landau’s work, comprising over 300 prints, drawings, and paintings. The collection was gifted to Monmouth University in 2008 by the Jacob Landau Institute of Roosevelt, NJ.

    Reception: Thursday, April 13, from 4– 6 pm

    About Jacob Landau:
    Born in Philadelphia in 1917, Landau launched his career as an illustrator, winning national prizes at age 16 and a scholarship to the Philadelphia College of Art. He went on to have over sixty one-person shows, featuring a wide range of drawings and paintings. The recipient of numerous awards, including Guggenheim and National Arts Council grants, many of his works are featured in permanent collections, such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A master teacher, he retired as professor emeritus at New York’s Pratt Institute. In 1996, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts by Monmouth University.

    For Jacob Landau “art enables us to see the world whole and undivided.” And at its center lies the artist’s desire for justice in this world. The current exhibit reveals that his entire career was driven by such a quest from an early work with conte crayon, “Two Women in Market” and his “Mine Strike at Auchel” through an “Einstein” portrait, as well as watercolor pochoirs of “Malachi” and “Isaiah” who call for justice and whose bold colors and sinuous lines derive from their respective stained-glass windows that Landau created for the Keneseth Israel Synagogue in Elkins Park, PA (just outside Philadelphia), two of ten windows, each towering 5’x20’, that flank the prayer hall.

    Landau’s Isaiah and Malachi watercolors exhilarate, even as they confront the viewer. We realize that the prophet does not predict the future but reveals the present, witnessing injustice, condemning it, and proclaiming alternatives—actions. Clearly, Isaiah’s words pierced the artist’s heart: “Seek justice, relieve the oppressed.”

     And we see Landau’s struggle in his quest as a citizen of our world and as an artist in a series of sketches and preparatory drawings for his portrait of Malachi as well as those of Amos, Hosea, and Jeremiah. We are also given an image of a world without justice, Ezekiel’s Vison of Dry Bones, and a glimpse of a promised new world to come, New Jerusalem.