An Armory Show (The Gypsum Clad)
This exhibition, comprising as it does the work of many artists in a salon within an installation, is the result of a series of fortuitous conversations and convenient incidents.
A conversation took place some years ago between The Opalka Gallery director Jim Richard Wilson and Michael Oatman regarding their shared desire that the gallery should, for the first time, house a space-altering installation which would recognize the unique qualities of its architecture, and expand the range of the types of artistic content and experience which it had previously hosted.
Not long after, Michael and I had a long discussion concerning this and also our enthusiasm for working together on a project which might be suitable. Jim seemed excited about our collaboration and told us the gallery's schedule was booked out for a couple of years but he would pencil us in if we came up with some good ideas.
All of my previous work had dealt with the malleable nature of my perceptions regarding memory, both personal and collective. Knowing that his interests ran parallel to mine, but having very different working methods, Michael suggested that we should concern ourselves with opposing views of the same thing.
I would make the outside and he the inside.
Of what, we didn't know.
I thought that was a fine idea.
Many months later, and not having come to any solvent solutions, we discovered that the gallery's parent, the Sage Colleges of Albany, had purchased a neighboring building, The New Scotland Armory. Old, grand, and vacant but sound of structure, it was an obvious inspiration for the forms and spaces of the design of the gallery itself. It seemed to say to us in no uncertain terms that if we didn't use its story as a blueprint for our ideas regarding the installation then we were fools.
The college allowed us several opportunities to walk through the Armory building. We were told that the intent was to rebuild and modernise most of the interior spaces, and that there were in fact many architectural remnants we could have if we wanted, as they were to be discarded.
This focused our direction substantially. We would use the old architectural remnants, reconfigure them in the gallery, and present a new perspective on our collective experience of the Armory itself in the context of the new space. An advance!
It was during one of our visits to the Armory that we found several blueprints of the building itself, and many other things besides. With a little research, we learned that it had been built in 1913, the same year as 'The Armory Show', which introduced Modern Art to America at large. 'The Armory Show' not only presented traditional subject matter in radically new artistic modes, but the exhibition itself proved to be a transition in the way that Art was meant to be experienced.
We re-focused. The narrative of the progression of our ideas seemed to mirror the story of what happened to art in America after that show, and what the artists then were trying to do in response to what had come before.
With little hope of replicating the level of change which that show effected, or a desire to present work with a comparably revolutionary content, I at least believe that what we have done is tell the story of where sculpture and drawing and painting have come in the past century.
Kenneth Ragsdale
7/23/2013