Picture
of
the
Day - www.zverina.com A "blog" before blog was a word,
this online
photo journal has been continually
updated since January 1998. Unlike
blogs, each installment is hand-coded
in HTML with custom layouts
designed to integrate text and image
into a harmonious whole.
57
Short
Films
about Bicycles is included
on a bicycling
advocacy DVD compilation published by
Shake Edizioni in Italy: "Senza
retorica, con ironia, fantasia, molto
coraggio e una forte dose di
pazzia, un movimento si è
diffuso a macchia d’olio, conquistando
centinaia di città e spronando
un numero sempre più ampio
di attivisti, corridori o acrobati a
invadere le strade."
Flattened
Can
Spiral
#6, September &
October 2008
As an advocate of public
transportation, I was delighted
to
be included in Sound
Transit's STart
on Broadway group show.
The sixth incarnation of the
Flattened Can
Spiral was the largest and most
durable to date--1,300+ cans,
each
nailed to the asphalt with a
galvanized roofing nail,
displayed for 60
days. Read
full account.
memory
(w)hole, August 1 - September 27
2008 McLeod Residence,
Seattle
In George Orwell's Nineteen
Eighty-Four, history is
constantly
rewritten, with the old versions being
tossed into the "memory
hole"--an incinerator. memory
(w)hole is a play on words that
implies we inhabit a space between total
recall and utter amnesia. This
exhibit presents the largest compilation
of Robert
Zverina Short Films to date, with
24 hours of non-repeating
microdocumentaries cycling
chronologically in a comfortable cinema
setting. In an adjacent gallery, 572 Picture of the Day
web page printouts line
the walls from floor to ceiling to form
an "exploded book," a grand
gesture in the futile struggle against
forgetting.
Flattened
Can
Spiral, June 18 2007, Seattle
1,044 traffic-smashed can arranged
into a spiral. Fourth in a series of
temporary deployments.
Trash
Cycle-Own, April 2008, Seattle
Most recent attempt to keep
discarded materials from going to
waste.
Shown at Recycled Art Show.
AUTOBIOANTHROPOLOGRAPHY,
DVD + 28p. booklet, 2007
On March 29, 2007 I gave a slidetalk at
Henry Art Gallery called AUTOBIOANTHROPOLOGRAPHY--a
combination of the
words autobiography and anthropology
which I use to
describe the subjective history of our
rapidly evolving culture
recorded via my microdocumentary video
vignettes. The DVD is a
50-minute Robert
Zverina Short Films
sampler with accompanying 28-page color
booklet which reproduces the
lecture notes embellished with the same
illustrations used during the
slidetalk.
[ Download
the
booklet ]
439 Flattened Can
Spiral
June
18,
2005, Seattle
Second in series, this
spiral was constructed in
the now defunct
Priceless Works Gallery
parking lot.
This piece is documented
also at www.zverina.com/2005/0618.htm
1,000
Flattened
Can
Spiral
September 8, 2005, Seattle
Third in series, assembled for
RE
Store
Recycled
Art Show. If you stand
close to the spiral, you
might notice a curving of your
vision at the periphery.
Through this
optical effect, the piece
literally changes the way one
sees.
This piece is documented
also at zverina.com/2005/0908.htm
Inside
Out, spring 2005
In early 2005, I started saving
packaging--mostly the boxes processed
food comes in. I'd find the glued
overlapping seam, pull it apart, then
hot glue the box back together inside
out. I didn't know what to do
with these boxes as they piled up, but
I kept making more anyway. It
finally occured to me that the only
decent thing to do would be to
return the boxes to their natural
environments. So, like wounded
animals rehabilitated in captivity,
they are being reintroduced to the
herd. The idea is to invert the
purpose of commercial packaging which
vies for the consumer's attention to
induce a purchase. The blank
nonmessage outdraws the competing
messages and provides an oasis of
calm amid the tumult of signs and
colors, offering an empty box and
blank canvas on which to reflect.
(When exhibited at Crawl Space in
Seattle, a sample box was tacked to
the wall beside a printout of www.zverina.com/2005/0525.htm)
163 Flattened Can
Spiral
May 4, 2005, Seattle
The can spiral series arose from the
persistent urge to repurpose
discarded material in a practical
manner. If this result is not
practical, it is at least aesthetic. The
cans were collected from the
streets of Seattle. The collection and
subsequent spiral constructions
continue to grow. Spirals are fragile
and temporary, displayed always
in vulnerable public settings which
invariably lead to cans' return to
entropy. #1 in series.
Boycott
100 (poster) was created for the group
show One Hundred Ways to
Remove a President from Power
at CoCA Seattle, curated by Greg Lundgren, August
2004. One hundred corporate
logos downloaded
from internet arranged to spell BOYCOTT; 100
posters printed and
distributed for free.
These
two
pieces from spring/summer 2004
owe a debt for inspiration to
the
work of Czech collage artist Jiri
Kolar (whose last name,
properly pronounced, sounds a
bit like collage).
Stretched Dollar appears
in the book 24
Hours in the Life of Seattle's
Contemporary Arts,
ConWorks Press, May 2004 and is
available for
purchase. It consists of two
one-dollar bills sliced apart
and
interleaved, bound by packing
tape.
Organically Grown was
created for the group show Urban
Dwellers
at Priceless Works Gallery in
Seattle, curated by Ragan Peck,
July
2004. It was a temporary
sculpture lasting until the
apple rotted.
Perhaps if it hadn't been
organic the preservatives would
have helped
it last longer. Stickers
courtesy of Fremont PCC, a local
food co-op.
Import/Export,May 2004 Consolidated Works, Seattle
A smaller and potentially portable
version of Everything &nd
More (see below) installed in an
8'x8'x8' shipping container and
presented as part of Frozen Moments
group show curated by Dylan
Neuwirth. Sadly, the effect wasn't as
powerful in such a confined space
and the entire piece self-destructed
about 5 weeks into the
exhibition--which in an odd way made it
better. If the box represented
a skull full of memories, its collapse
symbolized the inevitability of
forgetting and being forgotten.
Everything
&nd More,
February 2004 Priceless
Works
Gallery, Seattle
"This installation
gives play to the
casual snapshot, free,
for the
most part, of the
usual earmarks of arty
aspiration....The
"everything"
of the title is all
that's contained in
approximately 5,000
snapshots
lining the walls,
ceiling and floor of a
small irregular
gallery niche;
the "more" is what
happens when you crowd
5,000 snapshots—bits
of life,
throwaway moments,
accidents—together.
The point is the
accumulation,
but it's an
accumulation that
refuses to be subsumed
into a whole; the
tension of the
discrete part and the
engulfing whole keep
this
installation lively
and disturbing."
[ Read
Full
Review | click
pix to enlarge ]
Key
Entrance
Floor
to Ceiling
Floor
A Sense of Scale
Ceiling
792
Short
Films, December 2003
Howard House, Seattle
"It is precisely the opposite of Andy
Warhol's eight-hour film of a
single view of the Empire State
Building; instead of scoping in to
notice tiny shifts in light or
circumstance, your perception opens out
like a lens. You are never bored, only
longing for a few more seconds
here or there, to know what becomes of
something, to hear the end of
the sentence. It makes you aware of your
capacity for seeing and taking
in and interpreting. It is all
generosity...."
[ Read Full Review
]
Art
Bikes, June 2002
Left: Liberated Stationary Bicycle
(really a tricycle) pokes
fun at the way some people pedal and
pedal without ever getting
anywhere. Exercise bicycle with front
stand chopped and shopping cart
wheels added in back. It steers from
the rear with a little butt
scooching. I'd like to see more of
these made and then race them in
view of a health club's window. Thanks
to Bill Vaegemast for his
mechanical assistance.
Right: Three-Wheeled Articulated
Tandem is two dumpster bikes
with front fork of rear bike hooked
onto rear hub of front bike. Front
bike has drive train removed; only
back person pedals. Riding requires
good balance and cooperation as bike
pivots in the middle. Nate Everson
provided mechanical assistance.
