Exhibition Features Community-Based Projects
New York-based artists Eric Chan and Heather Schatz, who incorporate a wide variety of media into their works, open a new season at the Westmont Museum of Art. “Eric and Heather ChanSchatz: Universal Platform” will be on display from Sept. 2 to Nov. 19. The public is invited to a free, opening reception Friday, Sept. 2, from 4-6 p.m. A conversation with the artists is scheduled for 5 p.m.
Eric and Heather, a husband-and-wife team, work as one artist: ChanSchatz. Their artwork, which includes painting, sculpture and video, incorporates input from guests they invite to select specially developed images to serve as the basis of the artwork. Guests have included soldiers, coal miners and college students. Their works explore communal relationships, structures of individuality and the mapping of socio-political networks.
The exhibition marks the 25th anniversary of Westmont’s art museum, which moved to Adams Center last year. “The museum is a dynamic new venue for presenting contemporary art,” says Judy Larson, director of the Westmont Museum of Art. “There’s no better way to celebrate a quarter century of arts programming than by featuring two young, entrepreneurial artists who are emerging in a global arena as noted conceptual artists.”
Projects in “Universal Platform” will define 10 years of events from Sept. 11, 2001, to Sept. 11, 2011. “PTG.228 Revolution: Egypt (Cairo)” is a large-scale painting based on ChanSchatz’s interaction with artists, students and the people of Cairo. “PTG.137 APUS (2009-2010)” is another large painting based on their meetings with American soldiers and military personnel based in Iraq. Works also created for the exhibition are based on the global youth generation known as Millennials and the artists' interaction with stateless individuals rescued from human trafficking in Thailand.
The artists say their projects and artworks are human exchanges that serve as markers of their interactions with global societies.
“From our studio in Manhattan, we witnessed the World Trade Center collapse 10 years ago and have experienced how the order of the world changed from that day,” ChanSchatz says.
This exhibition includes ChanSchatz’s large-scale sculpture, architecture and high-definition video works.
“The installation is an architectonic structure created specifically for the Adams Center main gallery, serving as the backdrop for the projects and artworks,” ChanSchatz says.
The Westmont Museum of Art is open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturdays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, please call (805) 565-6162.