October Double Feature at Ice Box

Bethany Taylor@John Erickson Museum of Art

Eugene Parnell: 81 Things on a Stick

Monday October 16th through Sunday November 12, 2006
Artists' Reception:Thursday October 19th from 7-9 pm

Open Hours
Thursday October 19, 7-9 pm
Saturday Nov 4, 11 am - 4 pm
Saturday, Nov 11, 12 - 5
Sunday Nov 12, 12 - 5
By Appointment: 206.856.7114 or icebox@iceboxcontemporaryart.com

Ice Box Contemporary Art is pleased to present two concurrent art experiences for the month of October/November: 81 Things on a Stick, an installation by Eugene Parnell, and a visitation by the John Erickson Museum of Art, currently featuring Emissions and Remission, new work by Bethany Taylor.

An Object Lesson in Desire and its Consequences

81 Things on a Stick is first a set of drawings, then an installation, then fnally a book to be published in 2007. For its ice box incarnation, the 81 things will inhabit a forest of actual sticks overgrown into (what's left of) the exhibition space.

Who among us hasn't appreciated the delicious convenience of a hot dog on a stick, or perhaps a popsicle or an ice cream: immediate sensory gratification without silverware or plates to get in the way! Wouldn't it be nice if other things came on sticks as wellñ your favorite food, perhaps? But why stop there? Why not have everything you've ever wanted, on a stick, right now? Where will it end? Thus begins Parnell's object lesson in desire and its consequences.

The installation will be on view through the windows of ice box continuously through November 12. In addition, the gallery will open for walk-through on Sat Nov 4 from 11AM - 4 PM, and also during Tacoma Culture's Art At Work Studio Tours on November 11 and 12, from 12-5 PM. For more information, click here.

Eugene Parnell creates installations and interactive works that navigate the mental geographies of childhood and the politics of Natural History displays. He holds an MFA from the University of Hawaii. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle, Bellevue Art Museum, Soil Gallery in Seattle, and the University of Wisconsin. More information on the artist is available at www.eugeneparnell.com

A New Museum Space Opens, Closes, and Opens in Tacoma

View the John Erickson Museum of Art at www.jema.us

The John Erickson Museum of Art (JEMA) is a location variable museum space. It is housed in a sturdy, stylish 16"x12"x9" aluminum carrying case. JEMAís design allows it to perform and embody numerous aspects of art and art practice in a simultaneous manner. JEMA is a museum, display case, sculpture, photographic series, performance, installation, site-specific project, collaboration and web-based project. In its operation JEMA simultaneously exhibits and demonstrates almost all media associated with visual art. It seeks to exhibit vital contemporary art while revitalizing the roles of curators, artists, and viewers by dematerializing the art institution and re-envisioning it as a multifunctional tool (capable of being transported as carry-on luggage).

By moving with stealth and agility, JEMA carries out its functions in a portable and thrifty manner. JEMAís design allows for a greater focus on exhibition planning and a stronger intercommunication between the institution, exhibiting artists, and you (the viewing public). JEMA brings the art to you!

The John Erickson Museum of Art is pleased to announce Bethany Taylorís exhibition ìEmissions and Remissionsî. Exploring metaphors of unraveling and suggesting the perpetual nature of cause and effect, Taylor draws and weaves delicate, transient drawings made from thread on to the walls of JEMA. Taylorís string imagery includes vapors, water, gases, floods, humans, plants, and animals struggling to adapt to climate change. The drawings will scatter throughout JEMA, only to escape and wander beyond the museum space. The drawings literally become uncontainable transmissions as they migrate outside of JEMA, disperse on to the walls of Icebox Gallery and dissipate onto the main streets of downtown Tacoma.

Taylorís installation mimics the incessant human activities that can leave a lasting mark on the environment. But instead of simply emitting water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, HFCs, PFCs and SF6, she releases fleeting images of gradual effect and change making visible the ways unchecked greenhouse gases will create a devastating irreversible condition for the environment, drastically changing and in many cases creating an extinction of various forms of life on earth.

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