USUFRUCT
curated by Seth Nehil

Linfield College Fine Art Gallery, McMinnville, OR
November 7 - 30, 2007

“...the freedom of individuals in a community to appropriate resources merely by virtue of the fact that they are using them.”
-Murray Bookchin, The Ecology Of Freedom

Usufruct brings together artists from Portland, New York, Finland and Germany who engage trans-sculptural practices, taking inspiration from everyday objects and experiences. Working in collage, sculpture, installation, video and sound, these artists construct a material body from the formerly common, finding extraordinary ambiguities and producing work as a series of questions.
How do we engage the haphazard and informal while maintaining delicacy and precision? How do we invite structural vulnerability while fortifying the energy that animates our work? Do we accumulate beauty through simple labors? Can we poise craft on the edge of failure? How might we utilize the available and incorporate the everyday? How can we pay attention to the overlooked? In appropriating resources (either physical or intellectual), how are they transformed?

The artists are:
Jan Anderzen (Finland),
Rebecca Davis (NYC),
Helki Frantzen (NYC),
Josh Hart (NYC),
Harvest Henderson (PDX),
Linda Hutchins (PDX),
Diana Lang (PDX),
Dirk Lange (Germany),
Rhoda London (PDX),
Melody Owen (PDX/NYC),
Sreshta Premnath (NYC),
Dan Senn (PDX),
Jonathan VanDyke (NYC),
Bethany Wright (PDX).

Accompanying this exhibition is the booklet Tools of Mind, edited by Matt Marble and published by FO A RM magazine. A mosaic of creative processes and imaginal maps, this book explores various means of structuring and materializing ideas in the world. It engages perspectives from sound art, music, book arts, human physiology, arachnid architecture, village design, and a myriad of other sources.

review by TJ Norris at tjnorris.net, November 9, 2007

Inspired by the Ordinary
review by David Bates at the McMinnville News-Register, November 15, 2007

(L - R) Melody Owen, Dan Senn, Jan Anderzen

(L - R) Helki Frantzen, Harvest Henderson, Joshua Hart, Dirk Lange

Harvest Henderson's Specimens i-vi: Starla's Garden (Document of Abandoned Narrative)

Jonathan VanDyke's Some Were Caught Up, & Some Were Not

(L - R) Linda Hutchinson, Rhoda London

(L - R) Diana Lang, Rebecca Davis