AARON HAUCK visual artist

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The Art 365 exhibition was created by the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition to give Oklahoma artists an opportunity to create innovative artwork in collaboration with a national curator. The selected five artists will each receive a $12,000 honorarium. The exhibition will debut in March 2011 at Untitled [ArtSpace] in Oklahoma City.

Transmutations of the Stone Age and “I Generation”

This multidisciplinary project will explore the transmutability of Stone Age and “I Generation” artifacts and their roles in the expression of human social identity. While the earliest human settlement of Oklahoma is evidenced primarily from the presence of a single artifact type called the Clovis Point, the “I Generation” signifies the largest growth of different media for the creation and expression of self-identity in human history. The exhibition will express the complex and rather confusing transmutations of the fixation on self-identity in the “I Generation”. I will explore the fine line between human cultural evolution, the banalities of modern consumerism, and their relationship with the environment.

The relevance of our tools as adaptively significant has come into question in recent years due to the threats we pose to the exacerbation of climate change. This question transcends human history, as the Clovis hunters that once inhabited Oklahoma were challenged to adapt to a warming post-glacial world which challenged their tools for working and expressing their identities.

The first series of sculptures will be large replicas of Clovis Points found in Oklahoma made from brightly colored plastic similar to that used to make portable electronic devices. The tool that enabled the earliest human settlement of Oklahoma will be juxtaposed with the duality of portable electronic devices as one of the most important tools for both working and expressing self-identity in our contemporary world.  While consulting with an archaeologist, I also plan to recreate a Clovis knapping floor in the gallery that will be the result of “experimental archaeology” and will explore the intersection of Stone Age and I Generation consumption practices.

Another series of sculptures will depict some of the staple objects from our culture of convenience, such as portable media and communication devices, automobiles, and fast food containers produced from natural materials like antlers, bones, leaves, stone, and wood.  Complementing all of the sculptures will be digital photo montages and animated videos projected onto gallery walls that depict similar themes.

Guest Curator
Shannon Fitzgerald is an independent curator and writer. She recently curated the exhibitions Brandon Anschultz: Transmission/Destination for the Center of Creative Arts and Our Commodity: Juan William Chávez, Sarah Frost, Leslie Mutchler for the Regional Arts Commission, both in St. Louis. Fitzgerald was Chief Curator at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis where she curated the exhibitions Staging: Janieta Eyre, Julie Moos, Zwelethu Mthethwa and co-curated with Tumelo Mosaka the Contemporary's inaugural and traveling exhibition A Fiction of Authenticity: Contemporary Africa Abroad. Additionally, she curated solo exhibitions of new work by international artists: Polly Apfelbaum, Michael Paul Britto, Dzine, Yun-Fei Ji, Larry Krone, Michael Lin, Ruby Osorio, Keith Piper, and William Pope.L, along with accompanying publications, among others. Fitzgerald was Adjunct Faculty in the department of Art and Art History at Webster University, St. Louis. She has published many essays on contemporary artists and has contributed to the art journals Bootprint and Review Magazine. She received a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and a MA in Art History and Museum Studies from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. Prior to moving to St. Louis, Fitzgerald worked at the Institute of Visual Arts (inova), University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. Fitzgerald recently relocated to Oklahoma City and was just accepted as a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA).