Gavin writes:
IT WAS SO COOL THAT *DICK CLARK ENJOYED HOSTING SO MANY ROCKIN’ NEW YEARS EVES SPECIALS FROM NEW YEARS ROCKIN’ EVE ’75 TO NEW YEAR’S ROCKIN’ EVE ’13
(Note: Dick Clark actually hosted from ’76 to ’12, not from ’75 to ’13, but Gavin “fictionalizes” everything he likes as beginning a year earlier and ending a year later.)
(extended through Sat, July 19, 2014)
Turns and Returns presents a selection of ephemeral lists and photographs created by Gavin Christie, re-presented by his sister Leona Christie. Images and texts are printed on paper, silk, and plexiglass.
Above:
And Small Dark Trees #2, series of five panels, 32” x 24,” plexiglass and vinyl, 2014
Every day Gavin types and writes memories of dates, directions, stores, books, TV shows, snacks, and people. When typing directions from suburban Detroit to northern Michigan, Gavin recalls the stores and gas stations between each turn, as well as the traces of “dark woods” and “light woods,” and “small dark trees” and “large dark trees” remaining in between.
Above:
Series of archival digital prints on kitikata paper
Below:
Coolest stores & gas stations in Birmingham/Bloomfield, 20″ x 16,” 2014
Above:
More Places on Woodward Avenue, 20″ x 16,” 2014
Gavin makes lists of all the stores and malls that used to be in metro Detroit. He supplements his memory by reading old business directories at local libraries.
Below:
Gavin doing research at the Ann Arbor public library.
Also included in this exhibit are photographs of Gavin with his friends in the stores of Birmingham, Michigan. Although he now uses a digital camera, in the 1990’s Gavin took thousands of self-portrait polaroids, a sampling of which are presented here.
Above: Self-Portaits with Birmingham Friends, polaroids, late 1990’s
Above:
“It was so much fun looking,” Archival digital print on Somerset, 22″ x 30″ / 2014
Above:
Dark woods, light woods” (detail), from a series of 18 debossed engravings, 15″ x 12,” 2010-12
Above: Photograph of exhibition opening by Sam Sefton
On view through from June 5 – 30, 2014 (Extended through Sat, July 19)
PRESENTATION:
Ghost Sprawl, Thursday, June 5, 2014, 7 pm
Gavin Christie’s odes to closed stores and changed directions
Salt & Cedar
2448 Riopelle Street (at Fisher, in Eastern Market)
Detroit, MI 48207 I USA
June hours: Saturday | 10a-5p, and by appt.
email: info@saltandcedar.com | salt & cedar | map & parking | facebook
“Large Dark Trees & Small Dark Trees”, Vinyl on plexiglass, Five pieces: 32″ x 24″ each / 2014 / photo by Sam Sefton
“Large Dark Trees & Small Dark Trees #1,” Vinyl on plexiglass, 32″ x 24″ / 2014
“Large Dark Trees & Small Dark Trees #2,” Vinyl on plexiglass, 32″ x 24″ / 2014
“Large Dark Trees & Small Dark Trees #3,” Vinyl on plexiglass, 32″ x 24″ / 2014
“Large Dark Trees & Small Dark Trees #5″, Vinyl on plexiglass, 32″ x 24″ / 2014
“Large Dark Trees & Small Dark Trees #4″, Vinyl on plexiglass, 32″ x 24″ / 2014
Archival digital prints on Somerset, 30″ x 22″ / 2014 / Each print in an edition of 3
“It was so much fun,” (detail of text), Archival digital print on Somerset, 30″ x 22″ / 2014
“I really enjoyed hanging out,” (detail of text), Archival digital print on Somerset, 30″ x 22″ / 2014
“I read the first edition (it was so cool),” (detail of text), Archival digital print on Somerset, 30″ x 22″ / 2014
Archival digital prints on Kitikata, 20″ x 16″ / 2014 / Each print in an edition of 3
“Extra Birmingham friend pictures,” archival digital print on Kitikata, 20″ x 16″ / 2014
“More places on Woodward,” archival digital print on Kitikata, 20″ x 16″ / 2014
“Coolest retail stores in Birmingham Bloomfield”
“The coolest places on Old Woodward (that are no longer around)”
“The dates to wear shorts”
“The dates in the second half of wearing pants”
“Then curve left again”
“Here is more information about Gavin Christie”
“You took a Boat ride on a Boblo boat”
LISTEN Here
READ Artwork Tells The Story Autistic Man Creates In List Form by Laura Bonnell, CBS Radio Detroit – WWJ / June 30, 2014
“Dark Woods, Light Woods” debossed engravings on Stonehenge paper, 15″ x 12″ / 2010-12
“Dark woods, Light woods #9 (Two Miles to Kalkaska)”
“Dark woods, Light woods #2 (Alger-Rose City Interchange)”
“Dark woods, Light woods #6 (Then it is Hilly again)”
“Dark woods, Light woods #7 (Applebee’s)”
“Dark woods Light woods #3 (15 miles to Flint)”
“Dark Woods, Light Woods #16 (All of the New Year’s Eves that I have spent in Birmingham, Michigan)”
“Dark woods, Light woods #17 (All of the New Year’s Days that I have spent in Birmingham, Michigan)”
“Dark woods, Light woods #13 (All of the MTV New Year’s Eve Specials that I have watched)”
“Dark woods, Light woods #15 (All of the Dick Clark’s Rocking New Year’s Eve Specials that I have watched)”
“Dark woods, Light woods #14 (All of the New Year’s Rocking Specials that Dick Clark has done)”
LifeLoggers: Chronicling the Everyday
Curated by Rachel Seligman, Tang Museum at Skidmore College
and Nadine Wasserman, Independent Curator
Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, IL / May 11 – August 17, 2014
Chicago Tribune Review July 31 2014, by Lori Waxman Quote: “Artist Leona Christie takes cues from her brother Gavin, who is autistic and has an immense capacity for storing and organizing facts. He ritually hand writes and types blocky lists of MTV New Year specials watched, dates when shorts have been worn, travel details for driving 15 miles to Flint, Mich. She absorbs his intensity in a series of pristine, white-on-white prints that embed these inventories in the surface of heavy white paper, as if by sheer force.”
Above: All the MTV New Year’s Eve Specials, 15″ x 12,” debossed engraving, 2010-12
Chicago Sun-times, Western Springs edition
“Lifeloggers” was first exhibited at the Perlman Teaching Museum, Carleton College, Northfield, MN / January 10 – March 16, 2014
Selected works will be available through Salt & Cedar online in late summer, 2014.
Email leonachri (at) gmail.com — or fill out the form below — to be added to the announcement mailing list.
PRESS: Albany Times-Union
From article: “In her book, Leona Christie notes that Gavin read (and reread) the biography of Scarry who, as a child, made lists in the form of drawings. What Gavin does is an inversion of this — processing images into words and, by presenting them on a large scale, his sister-collaborator effectively makes images of his words.”
“So to Speak,” curated by Emily Berçir Zimmerman, EMPAC
January 25 – March 29, 2013
Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy, NY
“An exhibition devoted to the reiteration of images in words, in which friction emerges in the process of translation, through a jarring of verbal and visual accounts.”
Gavin Christie still remembers the exact day, August 23, 1981, when he first saw the second edition of Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever. He was at a bookstore in suburban Detroit, and ever since then, Gavin has been regularly recording all the differences between the first edition (1963), which he memorized as a small child in the early 1970′s, and the second edition (1980). Gavin meticulously describes the changes between the editions of the picture book every few weeks, even though the changes never change.
Above:
Best Word Book Ever: Contents Changes, archival digital print, 44″ x 50,” 2013
A book, The Richard Scarry Projects, was produced in conjunction with the exhibition
PREVIEW / ORDER BOOK: The Richard Scarry Projects
PRESS: Albany Times-Union
From article: “In her book, Leona Christie notes that Gavin read (and reread) the biography of Scarry who, as a child, made lists in the form of drawings. What Gavin does is an inversion of this — processing images into words and, by presenting them on a large scale, his sister-collaborator effectively makes images of his words.”
MORE INFO: http://www.museumofmonday.com/post/41345175243/so-to-speak-at-the-arts-center
“Lists and Projects” by Claudia Norton, College Hill Independent
The “Dark Woods, Light Woods” project in the RISD / Brown University student newspaper:
“She (Leona) didn’t see Gavin’s lists as artistically significant until she studied art in college and was introduced to Ed Ruscha’s “Every Building on the Sunset Strip” (1966), a comprehensive photo documentation of every building on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. Leona explained, “Ruscha’s piece taught me that deadpan delivery of visual information—when it carried social, poetic, or emotional content—could be art.” Leona told the Independent that she has taken on the task of translating Gavin’s projects “from an ephemeral medium (word processor ink on copy paper) to an archival medium (fine art printmaking).”
Gavin is something of an archivist, and Leona considers herself an archivist of his archives. His lists are repetitive and sometimes fictionalized. In a video documenting the pair’s road trip to Chicago, posted on their blog darkwoodslightwoods.wordpress.com, Gavin records the business hours of a bakery as opening one hour earlier and closing one hour later than stated on the sign. In a talk that Leona gave at Brown on October 25th, she pointed out that Gavin, in documenting dates of births and marriages, always records them as one year earlier—retroactively extending their duration, if only in his archive. He calls this time “extra bonus days.” When the Independent asked him when he began considering his lists ‘projects’ he said, “The real life version answer is June 30, 1990. The fictionalized version answer is July 1st, 1989.”
Dark woods, Light woods 