This Is/Just That
Glabicki makes connections between geometric drawings in the gallery and the environment outside the gallery A cone shape in the installation for example corresponds...
Description
Glabicki makes connections between geometric drawings in the gallery and the environment outside the gallery. A cone shape in the installation, for example, corresponds to a Victorian roof outside. One window is frosted, but leaves tiny openings to reveal a view of the PPG (Pittsburgh Plate Glass) Tower.
The artist prepared for the installation by plotting lines on photographs.
For the geometric drawings within the space, the artist uses tape and text from acting theorist Stanislavski. The source of the material is Stanislavski’s “System” trilogy on acting technique that focused on observation, objective examination, and personal perception, memory, and response.
The circle around the cone reads: “The Circle: I found myself in the center of the medium light circle. In such a small space as in this circle, you can use your concentrated attention to examine various objects in their most intricate details, and also to carry on more complicated activities such as defining shades of feeling and thought.”
Text fragments appear on the walls: “The whole room was flooded with light.” “One was very quick and the other very slow.” “A word can arouse in him all five senses.” “First I worked out a manner of walking.” “This lighted space illustrates a small circle of attention.” “With this newly placed voice I had developed…” “You, yourself, saw or rather you heard…”
Text on the ceiling: “The open sounds of the vowels were all directed to the same spot.”
The text fragments on the frosted windows play off the shapes and diagrams in the room: “This That.” “That was just it.” “Then the…” “First.” “One 2.” “Here.” “Over there.” “In here.” “With this.”
Paul Glabicki career and creative work have been characterized by highly interdisciplinary activity centered in painting, drawing, and filmmaking, and extending into photography, installation art, video art, sound, and electronic media. His educational background includes a BFA in Painting from Carnegie Mellon University, and two MFA degrees (Painting, Filmmaking) at Ohio University. His exhibition career has included major film festivals, numerous individual and group screenings, and both national and international museum and gallery exhibitions. He has also taught and lectured as a visiting artist at institutions throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. He has taught at Ohio University (1975-76), and is now Professor Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh.
Much of his work has been involved with issues of time, motion (actual or implied), temporal experience, perception, analytical observation, thresholds of figurative and abstract representation, language systems and semiotics, methods of analysis and interpretation, and transformation of found images, thematic material or actual sites. His work has been exhibited internationally. A selection of exhibitions includes: the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center; Cannes Film Festival; Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Biennial; the Venice Biennale; the Image Forum, Tokyo; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; and The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna; The Canadian Center for Art & Architecture, Montreal; The Art Institute of Chicago; Los Angeles Film Forum; California Institute of the Arts; The Center for Contemporary Arts, Cincinnati; The Museum of Art Oviedo; Spain; American Museum of the Moving Image; Itoki Gallery, Japan; the Hiroshima International Animation Festival, Japan; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art, Germany; Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, Liverpool; Art Miami; National Gallery of Art, Vilnius, Lithuania; and the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. His work is included in the archives and collections of the IotaCenter and the Motion Picture Academy Archives in Los Angeles; the Motion Picture Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills; the International Animation Library of Japan; the ASIFA Animation Archive in Berlin; the Anthology Film Archives, New York, and in numerous museum and private collections. He is represented by Kim Foster Gallery, New York.
Throughout his career, Glabicki has received numerous awards, prizes, and honors for his work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, American Film Institute, and Pennsylvania Council for the Arts. He received the Ohio University Alumni Medal of Merit for Achievement in Film, Art, and Education. In 2001, he was honored as “Artist of the Year” by the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. His work is also cited in numerous books and publications on film, film history, art and solo/group exhibitions.