[photo by Valerie Green.]
CentralTrak: The University of Texas at Dallas
Artist Residency
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Department of Communications
Event: It Came From CalArts
Date: August 22,2015 – September 19 2015
Opening Reception Saturday August 22, 2015 at 8:00 pm
Location:
CentralTrak
800 Exposition Ave
Dallas, Texas 75226
Description
CentralTrak is pleased to host Guest Curator Robin Myrick’s extraordinary vision of the blended world of CalArts in Texas. It Came From CalArts is an exhibition comprised of nine Texas artists who are also CalArts alumni, together representing three decades of this unique relationship. For a moment in time, Centraltrak will give this elusive intersection a name and a place, bringing artists in different mediums and cities (Austin, Dallas, Denton, El Paso, Houston, and San Antonio) together to examine the ways in which Calartians (as they are known), are navigating this common landscape.
Participating Artists
Justin Boyd (San Antonio)
Elaine Bradford (Houston)
Danielle Dean (Houston)
Adrian Esparza (El Paso)
Robin Myrick (Dallas)
Denise Prince (Austin)
Peter Bo Rappmund (Dallas)
Ariane Roesch (Houston)
David Stout (Denton)
Other Programming during It Came From CalArts
Artist talk with Denise Prince (8/29, 2:00 PM)
Literary event with Joe Milazzo, Robin Myrick and others (9/12, 2:00 PM)
Interactive music performance with David Stout (9/19, afternoon)
Film screening with Peter Bo Rappmund and others (TBA)
Curator’s statement
Whenever someone finds out that I went to California Institute of the Arts, I am often asked a version of the following question: “Isn’t that the Walt Disney school where all the students run around naked?” Those same people are often disappointed to hear that though the Disney legacy remains strong, the random nakedness is less a factor these days, and mostly limited to the annual Halloween party. Likewise, whenever I’m away from Texas, people will sometimes ask me whether we all ride horses to the store, or why anyone would eat a chicken fried steak. At times it feels like these are oddly similar conversations. My alma mater and my home state may share the dubious honor of inspiring provocative, cartoonish intrigue, but a more compelling question for me has always been how art that lives in the intersection of there and here, here and there, is the product of both experiences.
Since its inception in 1961, as a merger of the storied Chouinard Art Institute and Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, CalArts has blended the rigor of the professional conservatory with a bold devotion to experimentation, encouraging artists of all types to break traditional boundaries and find their own way. The intersection of CalArts and Texas surely encompasses the independent, mercurial nature of each place, but it’s not always so easy to pin down. More an idea than a venn diagram, less a point on a map than the influence of each physical and liminal space on the other, it’s ultimately the conversation and negotiation between there and here, here and there, that allows one to see its coordinates. In practice, it is reflected in the work of visual artists, writers, dancers, actors, musicians, designers, filmmakers, and others who carry this form of dual citizenship, so to speak. Some grew up here and headed west to CalArts for their education, returning with degrees and ideas that may have changed them in small or radical ways. Others migrated from CalArts to the major and minor and rural cities of Texas, in pursuit of additional degrees, new studies and projects, or a more budget-friendly place to live and work.
Whatever their stories or reasons, each takes and brings something to this long-form exchange.
Bio
Robin Myrick is a writer, visual artist, and educator based in Dallas, Texas. She holds an MFA in Writing and Critical Studies from California Institute of the Arts, and is currently pursuing her doctorate in Aesthetic Studies at UTDallas. She serves as Arts and Media Editor for Entropy magazine, among other endeavors, and is a member of the long lost art collective In Cooperation With Muscle Nation. She also curated the 2014 glitch exhibition Message (NOT) Received at UT-Dallas.
Press Contact:
Clinton Butler, (817) 944-3487
PRcentraltrak@gmail.com
ABOUT CENTRALTRAK
CentralTrak, The University of Texas at Dallas Artists Residency, established in 2008, is dedicated to the creation, presentation, and advancement of the contemporary arts. As a live/work space for eight artists, it serves as a community center in the North Texas area for broad intellectual discourse around the arts. While the residency promotes artistic experimentation through its support of production, the companion gallery encourages critical engagement in a local urban context through exhibitions and related programs. By building on the forward-thinking academic resources of the School of Arts & Humanities at The University of Texas at Dallas, CentralTrak unites artists from an expansive range of creative disciplines to extend and challenge contemporary notions of artistic practice, creative expression, and the role technology plays in these processes.
CentralTrak is supported in part by the generosity of numerous donors and partners from the North Texas area and The University of Texas at Dallas.
PUBLIC INFORMATION
CentralTrak
Address: 800 Exposition, Dallas, TX 75226
Hours: Saturday 12:00 – 5:00 during exhibitions, tours available by appointment call (469) 232-7298.
Admission: Free
Visit our Website at www.CentralTrak.com for more information
