ALLEGRO UTOPIA ! Allegro School of Music ! M - F 12:00–8:00 pm Tu 12:00–8:00 Sa 10:00 am – 5:00 pm Su11:00 am – 3:00 pm ! 4641 N 1st Ave #5, Tucson ! 85718
Music is an important element of my practice. I like to
choose a certain song on iTunes, then hit shuffle. For this exhibit, I often chose Antony and
the Johnsons song, Another World,
which conveys a desperate love for the world, confounded by the knowledge that
it and we are ephemeral. The guiding principle for ALLEGRO UTOPIA is to
discover ANOTHER WORLD and make A LITTLE PEACE.
In contrast to a world where we hurt nature, each other, and ourselves,
ALLEGRO UTOPIA is a lively and bright world of clouds, rainbows, and
waterfalls.
The word utopia was borrowed from Greek by Sir Thomas
More for his 1516 book Utopia. Utopia
means "no place." The English homophone eutopia means "good
place." THE ROAD TO NOPLACE begins
and ends within us. Though we do harm,
we do love. We are kind. We desire connection and celebration. Let’s go to a
CLOUD PARTY AT THE RAINBOW. Let’s KEEP DANCING.
Reading, research, and visual arts are integral to my
process as well. They are my escape from making, but my inspiration to get back
to paintbrushes or sculpting tools. I had the opportunity to visit California
in the midst of production. At the LACMA, I saw Chris Burden's utopia,
Metropolis II, and Hans Richter: Encounters. Richter was involved w/ the
utopian groups Die Brƒcke (The
Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The
Blue Rider). I brought home a copy of Timothy Benson’s Expressionist Utopias.
The guiding principle behind many utopian movements is
the desire to make a better community, which creates the purity of a Garden of
Eden or the complexity of an architectural fantasy. For the Glashaus utopians,
a CRYSTAL CATHEDRAL is the center of their architectural ideal.
My cathedral is the rainbow, a WATERHOUSE. My utopia is a
community of works.
In Plato’s Symposium,
Sophocles posits that to love is to desire love. The minimalism of Sophocles’ notion of
love leaves room for interpretation and conversation. The figures and images in
ALLEGRO UTOPIA explore Sophocles’ position, and its opposite, to love without expectation.
KEEP DANCING +V
