The international project CROSSOVER [KC-Bs As] was exhibited from October 17th until November 14th, 2014 at the Mallin Gallery, Kansas City Artists Coalition, Kansas City, USA. Organized

ALEJANDRO THORNTON I WRITE / I DRAW

PLACE AND MEMORY – Kansas City Art Institute students participated in the Foreign Travel Led Program to Buenos Aires. Upon their return they created a series of works made in response to their experiences in Argentina and Uruguay. These visual sources, or tokens are being adapted and processed around notions of the found print and memory recollection.

CROSSOVER [KC-Bs As] is an in-progress international collaborative printmaking project between artists questioning the established norms of the original production and authorship of artistic works. In this project one’s work, property and egos became irrelevant, as artists have to trust each other allowing themselves and their counterparts to place their hand-marks, images and matrixes on one’s previous works. In April 2015 the project will be received by the Western Gallery at Western Washington University in Washington States, United States, completing a successful project carried out as an initiative of ‘ace in 2013.

Check pictures of the exhibition here
Check catalogue on line at issuu

CROSSOVER [KC – Bs As] is the 4th edition of an in-progress international collaborative printmaking project between artists questioning the established norms of the original production and authorship of artistic works. In this project one’s work, property and egos became irrelevant, as artists have to trust each other allowing themselves and their counterparts to place their hand-marks, images and matrices on one’s previous works.

Adriana Moracci, ´ace‘s Master Printer, inspired by a set of woodcuts matrixes that artist Miguel Rivera left behind during his residency with us in 2011, launched the ideas that initiated this CROSSOVER session.  The international project was completed at Proyecto ’ace/Artist-in-Residence International Program in Buenos Aires Argentina, and directed by Alicia Candiani, from February to June 2013.

Crossover has been designed as a collaborative project between artists questioning the established norms of the original production and authorship of artistic work ,leading to the collaborative work between artists from around the world.One’s work, property and egos became irrelevant, as artists have to trust each other allowing themselves and their counterparts to place their hand-marks, images and matrices on one’s previous works. Each piece made in this series is unique, these works are not editions, as individual pieces are worked on and circulated among its participants. All artists aimed to evolve in their own practice by finding common points of view and theoretical discourse. CROSSOVER [KC – Bs As] re-semantized 15 woodcut plates carved with digital techniques by artist Miguel Rivera at KCAI workshops in the USA. During three different sessions, participants joined to create new works based in Rivera’s matrixes.

Last but not least, Rivera himself participated in the different sessions in Buenos Aires given talks and delivering critiques via video-conference. Later on, he travelled for the opening of the exhibition at Sala Políglota in ‘ace on May 15th, 2013. The exhibition travelled to the USA and was exhibited at Maller Gallery, Kansas City Artist Coalition, Kansas City and Western Gallery, Western Washington University in Bellingham.

Click HERE to see pictures of the three sessions @ ´ace

ABOUT CROSSOVER

Crossover is an ongoing art project started by artists Cara Jaye and Miguel Rivera. It began as goal oriented project in 2006 in the US and in Mexico, with Cara Jaye working in Bellingham, Washington and Miguel Angel Rivera in the historic city of Guanajuato, Mexico. Both artists traveled between their home countries to create these layered works on paper, which use various printmaking and photography techniques, Vandyke brown print, digital imagery, collage, fur, drawing and painting.

After having two successful shows in Guanajuato and Seattle, a continuation of that initial project became necessary after Rivera moved to Kansas City. This new body of work included a broader range of artistic practices using the immediate dialogue among artists.The project continued in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2011, during the residency that Miguel Rivera did in Proyecto´ace where he started some pieces in collaboration with artist and ´ace director Alicia Candiani. The pieces was overtaken later while Alicia was in the Kansas City Art Institute as a visiting artist, where it was finished and exhibited as part of the Candiani solo show in Maller Gallery in the Kansas City Art Coalition in October 2011.

In 2012 a new group included its two initial artists in addition to Patricia Villalobos Echeverria, a Nicaraguan-American artist working in Kalamazoo, Missouri; Melanie Yazzie, a Navajo artist working in Boulder, Colorado, and Michael Schonhoff, artist and curator from Kansas City, Missouri in the USA. Crossover at the Kansas City Artists Coalition residency required artists to trade “half finished” works at the beginning of the residency and allowing their counterparts to intervene their pieces and finishing them. One’s work, property and egos became irrelevant, as they had to trust each other allowing ourselves and our counterparts to place their hand-marks, images and matrices on one’s previous works. Each piece made in this series is unique, these works are not editions, as individual pieces are worked on and circulated among its participants. All artists aimed to evolve in their own practice by finding common points of view and theoretical discourse. Jaye addressed issues of migration and adaptation to harsh environments while Yazzie used a trickster approach to bring attention to Native American political unsolved issues. Villalobos, Schonhoff and Rivera shared similar opinions about place, borders, language, conflict and fear towards unknown entities such as violence, viral threats and identity.