"Camptown Dada" with Joe Barrington and Carter Ernst, December 2010 - on view weekends noon to 5 PM until Jan 1, 2011 or by appointment - 281-615-4148

According to its proponents, Dada was not art, it was "anti-art". Everything for which art stood, Dada represented the opposite. Where art was concerned with traditional aesthetics, Dada ignored aesthetics. If art was to appeal to sensibilities, Dada was intended to offend. Through their rejection of traditional culture and aesthetics, the Dadaists hoped to destroy traditional culture and aesthetics.

What Camp Town Dada looks like: Carter Ernst and Joe Barrington take the stage at the Nau-haus with Barrington taking most of the floor space in the central gallery installing a painted fabricated metal and found object campsite, complete with 1/2 scale campers, tent, pickup truck and campfire while Ernst will surround the installation on the walls with her Fuzzy Bugs, recycled coat dogs, soft stalactites, and soft pine tree limbs.

As Hugo Ball expressed it, "For us, art is not an end in itself ... but it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in."

Joe Barrington's signature piece and central installation for the show at the Nau-haus is  Hunting Camp, circa 1960 and about a simpler time.  It is not about hunting, but about the the days not so long ago when the artist remembers pitching a tent without all the cell phones, GPS, and high tech gear that have recently become part of the must have outdoor experience, and begs the question, "where do we go when we want to get away?"

Carter Ernst, long know for her original thinking and public works with artist and husband Paul Kittelson, fashions her soft sculptures from feathers, old coats, bits of mica, and other non art materials into works with ironic attitude. By incorporating these marginalized materials into works presented as  fine art, challenging the status-quo, Ernst is having big fun at the expense of the predominant fine art culture.

camp  - noun, often attributive \kamp\ -
1. a place usually in the country for recreation or instruction often during the summer ; also : a program offering access to recreational or educational facilities for a limited period of time

2. a style or mode of personal or creative expression that is absurdly exaggerated and often fuses elements of high and popular culture
 
 

Carter Ernst, Bug Installation, 2010   Carter Ernst, Mixed Media, 2008

Joe Barrington,  Lil Joe, welded steel

Joe Barrington, Float Plane, welded steel and found objects