2018
2018
JAMIE ALVAREZ
‘DISPOSABLE INDESPENSIBLE’
‘DISPOSABLE INDESPENSIBLE’ @ Taller Puertorriqueño
Photographing found and discarded objects, Jaime Alvarez’s Consumption explores intimacy, sentimentality, and loss. The show stems from his 2016 residency at RAIR (Recycled Artist in Residency) which operates out of a recycling center in North Philadelphia. There, by the process of manipulation and composition, he continued his investigation into the resonance of abandoned objects that were begun in Memento, an earlier series of work.
Alvarez shapes these discarded items by painting them either white or black, creating a uniformity among them that helps the viewer to focus on each object’s weight, contours, and the emotions evoked. Although many of these objects are small enough to fit into the palm of your hand, his photographs are monumental in size.
The exhibition also includes an installation comprised of the objects that appear in the photographs on the walls, creating a dialogue between the objects themselves and their photographic representations. By focusing on discarded objects, Alvarez calls attention to what gets lost in our increasingly throwaway society
JEFF WILLIAMS “17,000 FT2 OF SHADE”
“17,000 ft2 of Shade”
September 29- October 7, 2018
RAIR, Philadelphia, PA
A site-based project by Jeff Williams. Located within Revolution Recovery – a construction waste recycling facility– Williams’ large scale installation was the first artwork exhibited in the Metal Bank Superfund site.
RAIR X UPENN 2018
RAIR generally offers two types of residencies: A Standard program of 6 weeks, and a shorter one that is carried out over 2-4 weekends, which it calls the Biggie Shortie. The RAIR ft UPENN program, a partnership between RAIR and Upenn’s Department of Fine Art, offered 7 MFA students and 12 undergraduates a one day “mini-mini-residency” or “Biggie Super Shortie”. The full workday included a tour of the RAIR facility, a slide presentation and both individual and collaborative projects. For a lot of the students this was an introduction into working with found materials, to working instinctively with a given set of resources, and to working site specifically.