![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"Face to Face" is a retrospective gallery show currently running through August 31st at the Carrboro Artcenter in Carrboro, NC. The exhibit features masks and puppets from the productions of the Paperhand Puppet Intervention, a Triangle-based performance collective headed by activist-artists Donovan Zimmerman and Jan Burger.
An excerpt from their mission statement:
Paperhand Puppet intervention is dedicated to bringing many styles of puppetry and artistic expression to the Triangle area and the world.
These styles include: Giant puppets, masks, stilt dancing, rod puppets, shadows or silhouettes, and anything else we might make at any time.
Our vision is inspired by our love for the earth and its creatures (including humans) as well as our belief in justice, equality, and peace.
The exhibit is free to the public and displayed in the main hall of the Carrboro Artcenter. Masks are displayed in a couple of different ways--some of the full-head masks sit atop pedestals in the middle of the room, while others are hung on the walls. The puppets on display range in size from small handpuppets to enormous multiple-puppeteer macropuppets suspended from the ceiling or hung across enormous expanses of wallspace. There are no barriers between audience and artwork, so you can get right up close to the puppets and masks and really look at how they were made. Most all appeared to be made with a mache surface sealed and painted with acrylics.
Unfortunately when i went to the gallery, there was a birthday party of small children in the adjacent space whose boisterous enthusiasm made it difficult to concentrate on the artwork, and the gallery smelled of pee where a couple of little kids had not made it to the restrooms in time. Neither kept me from appreciating the exhibit, but i'll probably go back again later where i can check everything out a second time minus the screaming, giggling, and pee-smelling.
( If you go, you'll see things like this... )
Seeing this exhibit made me even more excited about the upcoming puppetry convention, of which Paperhand is one of the sponsors and primary "host company." I can't wait to see their production, As the Crow Flies...and of course, write all about it here.
An excerpt from their mission statement:
Paperhand Puppet intervention is dedicated to bringing many styles of puppetry and artistic expression to the Triangle area and the world.
These styles include: Giant puppets, masks, stilt dancing, rod puppets, shadows or silhouettes, and anything else we might make at any time.
Our vision is inspired by our love for the earth and its creatures (including humans) as well as our belief in justice, equality, and peace.
The exhibit is free to the public and displayed in the main hall of the Carrboro Artcenter. Masks are displayed in a couple of different ways--some of the full-head masks sit atop pedestals in the middle of the room, while others are hung on the walls. The puppets on display range in size from small handpuppets to enormous multiple-puppeteer macropuppets suspended from the ceiling or hung across enormous expanses of wallspace. There are no barriers between audience and artwork, so you can get right up close to the puppets and masks and really look at how they were made. Most all appeared to be made with a mache surface sealed and painted with acrylics.
Unfortunately when i went to the gallery, there was a birthday party of small children in the adjacent space whose boisterous enthusiasm made it difficult to concentrate on the artwork, and the gallery smelled of pee where a couple of little kids had not made it to the restrooms in time. Neither kept me from appreciating the exhibit, but i'll probably go back again later where i can check everything out a second time minus the screaming, giggling, and pee-smelling.
( If you go, you'll see things like this... )
Seeing this exhibit made me even more excited about the upcoming puppetry convention, of which Paperhand is one of the sponsors and primary "host company." I can't wait to see their production, As the Crow Flies...and of course, write all about it here.
