The spring 2010 UTC Cress Gallery of Art exhibition Kahn & Selesnick: Work from the “Apollo Prophesies” and “Eisbergfreistadt” Projects has received a review in a major arts periodical. This is the fifth review Cress exhibitions have received since 2008.
Written by artist and arts writer Jean Hess of Knoxville, Tennessee, the review appears in the July/ August issue of Art Papers, a publication read internationally and based in Atlanta, Georgia.
Hess writes: “Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick’s exhibition follows a trajectory familiar in contemporary art, combining history, myth, and artifacts (Cress Gallery, University of Chattanooga; February 2 – March 16, 2010). Beautifully crafted and wildly absorbing, their work includes live performance, theatre scripts, props and costumes, sculpture, drawing and printmaking, and panoramic photographs. Kahn and Selesnick inspire us to think about important issues: the extent to which fine art can transform as well as inform; the relationship between art and entertainment; history’s verifiability and the exactitude of memory; museums’ power to legitimize points of view; and whether any of this matters. While their work stands alone aesthetically, its narrative dimension generates a thing of wonder.”
The acclaimed collaborative duo Nicholas Kahn (Hudson, New York) and Richard Selesnick (Rhinebeck, New York) appeared on campus and in the community for various activities as part of the UTC John and Diane Marek Visiting Artist Series, and lectured to a standing-room-only audience that drew visitors from Atlanta, Nashville, and Knoxville.
While they were in Chattanooga, the artists took opportunity to visit area caverns and cave attractions to conduct photographic research for their current project about a trip to the planet Mars. The artists remarked “a part of Chattanooga will soon appear on Mars!”
