JURIED EXHIBITION PRESS DOSSIER · WASHINGTON, D.C. · 2008
DERIVATIVE COMPOSITION
Derivative Composition asked for work “inspired by the aesthetics of music, theater, and dance,” and Barbara had a painting made exactly that way: Hard Rain, six feet square, acrylic on unstretched canvas, painted to Bob Dylan. It hung in the Terrace Gallery of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts from June 19 to July 17, 2008, alongside installation, video, woodcut, sculpture and a performance piece done in push-ups over a torn-up dictionary.
The record is the organizer’s: the catalogue page on Barbara with her own words on visual music, the press release that Parenting Special Needs magazine printed in full, the e-vite with the dates, and the email VSA sent the artists after the opening with a link to the photographs and the text of the Washington Post’s blog report on the night. The Post did not name her. Two years earlier VSA had made her one of its first Teaching Artist Fellows; that is how she came to be in the room.
THE VENUE
Kennedy Center Terrace Gallery
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2700 F Street NW, Washington, D.C. Open 10 am to 10 pm, free; closed July 4. Presented by VSA arts, the Center’s affiliate founded by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith.
THE DATES
June 19 – July 17, 2008
Opening reception Thursday, June 26, 2008. Artists from across the United States, with two from New Zealand and Australia. Jury: Kristen Hileman, associate curator, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Astrid Persans, Powerhouse Projects; Lennox Campello, critic, artist and curator; Rody Douzoglou, Douz and Mille.
THE WORK
Hard Rain, to Bob Dylan
“Hard Rain is a response to the Bob Dylan song of the same name. Romain incorporates icons and symbols generated from original stencils that she also creates. Text becomes a gesture in these paintings, creating patterns, weavings, and layers of information.” — the exhibition catalogue. Listed in the release as “acrylic on unstretched canvas.”
WORKS FEATURED
Hard Rain, acrylic on unstretched canvas, 72 × 72 in., 2007
ARTIST STATEMENT
Barbara in the catalogue
Many texts are original writing, while others are found, and sometimes are in various languages. They reflect my interest in mythologies across cultures, dreams and the unconscious. They reveal a female sensibility based in the high energy and information overload of modern urban life.
Although the work contains formal structural elements, I strive to create a random casualness. My work is decidedly “low-tech” and reveals the presence of the human hand in the spontaneous processes of creation. Physical movements of my body must replace the precision of my eyes as the vehicle for placing marks. Improvisation in the moment has been inspired by collaborations with experimental theater artists, jazz musicians, and poets, as well as 10 years of teaching inner-city teenagers in the Art Options program, which I co-founded in 1992.
“My ‘visual music’ paintings are derived from listening to a particular song and transforming the experience into a field of moving shapes and colors.”
— Barbara Romain, quoted on her page of the Derivative Composition catalogue, VSA arts, June 2008
THE PRESS RECORD · 2008
What was written, printed and photographed
Filter by kind. Each box opens its source; grey boxes are held in the Estate archive and open on request.
2008
Kennedy Center Terrace Gallery · Washington, D.C. (June 19 – July 17, 2008 · opening June 26)
2008
Kennedy Center Terrace Gallery · Washington, D.C. (June 19 – July 17, 2008 · opening June 26)
2008
Kennedy Center Terrace Gallery · Washington, D.C. (June 19 – July 17, 2008 · opening June 26)
2008
Kennedy Center Terrace Gallery · Washington, D.C. (June 19 – July 17, 2008 · opening June 26)
2008
Kennedy Center Terrace Gallery · Washington, D.C. (June 19 – July 17, 2008 · opening June 26)
RELATED
Portfolio: Hard Rain · Related dossier: Destruction of the State: Writing on the Wall, 2007