Tag Archives: extraction

Extraction Exhibition Schedule

28 Jun

macphee_forestJosh MacPhee. Forest, 2011. Woodblock print, 10 x 15 in.

As curator, I invite you to this year’s LaborFest exhibition Extraction.  It will actually be spread out between two institutions: International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 34 Hall and Unitarian Universalist Society.

LaborFest participates in the 100th year commemoration of the Ludlow mining strike in Colorado, better known as the Ludlow Massacre.  This strike in the Southern Colorado coal fields lasted from September 1913 to April 1914 and represents one of the bloodiest strikes in U.S. history.  To help commemorate this important moment in labor history, LaborFest and ILWU Local 34 host an exhibition of art works on the broader theme of Extraction.

Man’s relentless extraction of the earth’s resources for the purpose of creating fuel, without environmental stewardship, is a strong focus in this show.  Likewise, the human body viewed as the site for extraction, whether in terms of energy, strength, endurance, or will, receives similar focus.  Works countering the destructive mandate of the extractive processes transforming the world with visions of just relationship between human consumption and human and earth integrity are also present.  Artists include Marlene Aron, Philippe Barnoud, Sherri Cavan, Mike Conner, Louise Gilbert, Graphic Arts Workshop (San Francisco), Justseeds Artists’ Collective, Josh MacPhee, Emmy Lou Packard and Diego Marcial Rios.

Viewing dates and times: July 1 through July 12, 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on weekdays and 12:00 noon to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, ILWU Local 34 Hall, 801 2nd Street; next to AT&T Ball Park. The ILWU parking lot is at the intersection of 2nd and King Streets. Free.

poole_minerdiptychMarcia Poole. Miner, 2014. Diptych.

A smaller group of works on the theme of Extraction will be shown at First Unitarian Universalist Church, 1187 Franklin Street at Geary Street, from July 2nd to July 31st.  Artists include Attila Cziglenyi, Marcia Poole and Diego Marcial Rios.    Besides hosting the Extraction exhibition works, the Church has organized a group of works by artists who are members of unions.  A reception for the artists will be on July 20th, Sunday, 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m.

For other viewing times in the Martin Luther King, Jr. and Thomas Starr King Rooms, call the Front Desk, (415) 776-4580, Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

For further information about these LaborFest events and many other LaborFest events for the month of July, please visit: http://www.laborfest.net.

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Extraction

4 Oct

Call for Work for an Exhibition on the Theme of Extraction

Next year LaborFest will participate in the 100th year commemoration of the Ludlow mining strike in Colorado, better known as the Ludlow Massacre.  This strike in Southern Colorado coal fields lasted from September 1913 to April 1914 and represents one of the bloodiest strikes in American history.  To help commemorate this important moment in labor history, LaborFest will host an exhibition of art works on the broader theme of Extraction.  Submission of art is sought for a possible exhibition at The Emerald Tablet in North Beach, San Francisco during the month of July 2014.

From earliest man’s extensive deforestation of the world for the purpose of creating fuel, extraction of the earth’s resources without environmental stewardship characterizes man’s efforts still today.  Witness mountaintop removal and fracking, or ocean trawling, processes which leave in extraction’s wake widespread environmental destruction and no thought for earth cycles of replenishment.  Likewise, the human body can be viewed as the site for extraction, whether in terms of energy, strength, endurance, or will, as today’s governmental and global corporate entities seek to extinguish workplace health and safety standards and workers’ unions or seek out human populations willing to perform labor who cannot rely on safeguards for health and safety nor compensation for a living wage.

Work is sought which addresses Extraction in any of its features: systemic, historically continuous, unsustainable, destructive, and/or dehumanizing.  Work is also sought that counters a negative view of the extractive processes transforming the world with visions of a just relationship between human consumption and human and earth integrity.  Please send three to four digital images in .jpg format and a short biographical statement to David Duckworth via duckdiva@yahoo.com.  Include textual information for the following: title of work, medium, date of execution, dimensions.  All submissions must be received by November 15, 2013.

For more information on the Ludlow Strike, please visit the post “Tents I”, dated January 13, 2012, at the blog dpduckworth.com.  Or refer to either Scott Martelle’s Blood Passion: The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West (Rutgers University Press, 2007) or Zeese Papanikolas’s Buried Unsung: Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre (University of Utah Press, 1982).  For information on LaborFest, please visit laborfest.net.  For information on David Duckworth’s background in curating exhibitions, please visit the Curriculum Vitae page at dpduckworth.com.

duckworth_short_tales04_negDavid Duckworth. Untitled, from the series Short Tales from the American Landscape, 2008. Scanned pen-and-ink drawing, 9 x 12 in., with digitally manipulated positive-negative reverse.

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