A new show, In the House of the Mineral Spirits, by Dean Ebben, will kick off the final full season of Susan Hensel Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, before retirement, with performance, installation and works on paper. A reception for the artist will be held Friday, January 14, 6-10pm, with a performance that begins at 7pm.
In the House of the Mineral Spirits
Jan 14- Feb 28
(OPENPRESS) December 28, 2010 -- The Susan Hensel Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, has been quiet for the last six months, but that is about to change. On January 14, a new show In the House of the Mineral Spirits, by Dean Ebben, will kick off the final full season of Susan Hensel Gallery before retirement, with performance, installation and works on paper. A reception for the artist will be held Friday, January 14, 6-10pm, with a performance that begins at 7pm.
It will be a visually, aurally rich evening with a gift at the end. Much of the evening will be given over to a performance and series of video projections with live and recorded gamelan music. The central performer of the evening will interact with woven structures, symbolic ice, a starlit sky and sound. In the end, the pieces of the performance are ephemeral and will be transformed on site into free gifts. But the videos and the installation will remain, looping and interacting with the local environment for the duration of the show.
In The House of The Mineral Spirits is a play on words and meanings. The idea of the house is a metaphor of one's inner-self. "We all have spirits, ghosts, even demons that haunt us in our past, present, and future. The mineral spirits are poison, alcohol, things that evaporate. They are ethereal and clear."
Dean Ebben's work always begins as a biographical narrative, taking on a life of its own, building with the response of the viewers. He sees this show as a "wisdom work," seeking wisdom through the exploration of ideas, materials, mythology, and narrative. By using his own observations and experiences in a subtle visual context, he requires the viewers to look carefully and ask themselves what they find significant
Dean Ebben grew up in the Twin Cities, graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Pratt Institute. His media is drawing... but not in the way that most people think of drawing...as an elegant line of pen or pencil. He works with multi-media in a meditative manner akin to the discovery process inherent in drawing. In this show you will see video, performance, artists books, sculpture, gouache paintings, and cyanotype.
In a world of mass culture, which inflicts sensory overload, people tend to become desensitized to visual culture. Ebben asks the viewer to stop and look closely to find what is significant. Finding wisdom through observation and reflection.
As things in the show transform themselves, as videos loop to provide different glimpses into new realities, this show will be an exciting and apt beginning to a transitional year in the life of Susan Hensel Gallery.
WHAT: IN THE HOUSE OF THE MINERAL SPIRITS
Installation, performance and works on paper
By
Dean Ebben
WHEN: January 14-February 28, 2011
Reception: Friday, January 14, 6-10pm
Performance at @ 7pm, Jan 14
