Exhibits: Graphic Art & Grand Text Auto

Two cool exhibits at the Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:

Vivid Lines in Graphic Times
May 21 to July 26, 2009

This selection of works, specifically paintings and works on paper from the museum’s permanent collection, shares a graphic quality. Whether these artists appropriated images from consumerist culture, took influence from comic books, or simply utilized graphic techniques in their creative process, their works illustrate how meaning and feeling can be conveyed differently through the graphic line. While clearly referencing the Pop Art movement, these works from the 1970s through the late 1990s incorporate the movement’s vibrant color and readymade images but deliver a more serious message. [Image: David Wojnarowicz]

Grand Text Auto
April 14 through July 26, 2009

Many blogs have spawned books over the last few years, but grandtextauto.org is the first to become an art exhibition. This blog about computer mediated and computer generated works of many forms—including net.art, hypertext fiction, and computer games—is collaboratively written by Mary Flanagan, Michael Mateas, Nick Montfort, Scott Rettberg, Andrew Stern, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. In this exhibition, the bloggers put their ideas into practice by displaying a variety of cutting edge works of digital art of their own creation.