Exhibition

  • Buoyancy
    Jay Atherton & Cy Keener
    Artists
    Sep 19, 2011 to Dec 16, 2011
  • GRANTEE
    Space.City/Suyama Space
    GRANT YEAR
    2011

Jay Atherton and Cy Keener, Buoyancy (30'x47'x12': reflective film, fishing weight, pulley, wire), 2011, rendering view looking north; Seattle, Washington, USA, rendering credit Atherton/Keener.

Jay Atherton and Cy Keener, Phoenix artists and architects have come together to create a project in response to the Suyama exhibition Space entitled Buoyancy, a reflective surface capable of reacting to the air flow within the room. Numerous air-motion events that occur unnoticed in the gallery's daily life will be highlighted. The evolution of the project will be fully documented in a sixteen-page, full-color publication which features a scholarly essay discussing the project and the artists by Max Underwood, President's Professor at Arizona State University's School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Tempe, Arizona.

Jay Atherton and Cy Keener are architectural colleagues and artists who met in graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. Their partnership Atherton/Keener has completed projects such as a house in Phoenix (Meadowbrook Residence, which chronicles seasonal changes in desert light); an installation at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (90 Days Over 100 Degrees, which orchestrates frozen water andchanneled sunlight as massive lenses to phase change); an installation at the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at the University of Texas, El Paso (Light Lines, which explores the geopolitical implications of reflected light near the U.S.–Mexican border). Atherton evolved from the solitude of a Korean monastery. His degrees come from Arizona State University and the University of California, Berkeley; he has worked under Daniel Libeskind, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, and Will Bruder Partners. Keener has a degree in classics and philosophy from Colorado College and an MArch from the University of California, Berkeley.

Beth Sellars's curatorial role includes direct coordination of all aspects of project preparation, installation construction, media, and overview of catalogue production. Sellars cofounded Suyama Space with George Suyama ( FAIA) in 1998. Sellars has curated for museums and galleries, as well as the City of Seatle Public Arts Collection, since 1975.In total, he has curated over one-hundred and fity exhibitions, published more than forty exhibition catalogues, and written and managed more than seventy-five local, regional, national, and international grants.

Max Underwood is an architect and President's Professor in the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University, Tempe. His scholarship and creative activities intertwine the art of teaching with the realities of exemplary design and architectural practice. Building upon his experience working with the visionary designers Charles and Ray Eames, and subsequent graduate work at Princeton University, he has pursued the synthesis of art and architecture in his research and writing.

Space.City, incorporated August 22, 1997 is an independent, not-for-profit organization dedicated to stimulating spirited public discussion of art, architecture, urbanism, and culture in terms of current issues facing the city and its citizens.  Space.City is Seattle's art and architecture forum that attracts a wide spectrum of people involved with the arts, design, and cultural issues related to space and form.  Space.City facilitates and focuses an exchange of ideas about people and the city through a variety of public programs including lectures, changing exhibition installations at Suyama Space, symposia, and collaborative projects.  These events are intended to deepen and enrich the discussion out of which the future of metropolitan Seattle and this region will grow.

Located in Seattle, Washington, Suyama Space is an installation-based gallery that partners with Space.City. Suyama Space invites regional, national, and international artists and architects to create new work by responding directly to the distinctive architectural characteristics of the gallery rather than introducing independently fabricated work. Featured artists are encouraged to be adventurous, to test the boundaries of their practice, and to contribute to audience discourse, awareness, and inquiry into their investigations.