For Immediate Release Contact: Becki Gervin, 408.961.

5814
August 16, 2010 bgervin@montalvoarts.org

Montalvo Arts Center Opens

New Project Space Gallery Exhibition
Human Nature
August 27 – October 17
Explores relationship between humans and animals and includes work by
Tim Hawkinson, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, Ariane Michel,
Misako Inaoka and Dana Harel

SARATOGA, Calif. –On August 27, Montalvo Arts Center will open Human
Nature, a new exhibition that examines the human condition through the
relationships humans have with animals. On view in the Project Space
Gallery and running through October 17, Human Nature features work by
internationally recognized artists Tim Hawkinson; Céleste Boursier-
Mougenot and Ariane Michel; and Lucas Artists Residency Program Fellow
Misako Inaoka and former Lucas Fellow Dana Harel. Human Nature,
organized and curated by Kelly Sicat, director of programs at Montalvo, is
part of Montalvo’s 18-month long thematic program Natural and Creative
Capital, which explores issues of sustainability in our natural and creative
environments. There will be a public opening reception for Human Nature on
Friday, August 27, at 7 p.m.

“As an investigation of Natural and Creative Capital, Human Nature examines

human beings’ relationships to the animals they share the planet with,” said
Sicat. “It seems we can better encourage sustainable actions by
understanding the human condition, and these works begin to reflect the
human-to-animal relationship, where humans influence, are entertained by,
or reject outright their relationship with the animal world.”

In the exploration of this ancient relationship, Human Nature brings humor

and whimsy to the roles humans play as they engage with animals or
completely disregard them. The artists depict domestic pets, livestock, wild
birds and other forms of animal life, in order to examine the enigmatic
distance between being human and being animal.

Tim Hawkinson is represented in the exhibition with two free-standing

sculptures. DOY, is a portrait of a nearly six-foot tall boy and his dog. In this
portrait, the boy clearly places dominance over the dog, with his exaggerated
hand fully engulfing the face and muzzle of the dog, who patiently sits at his
feet. Sweet Tweet is a lyrical depiction of a young girl with a flute, or perch,
extending from her lips, upon which sit five birds. A closer look reveals that
the birds are constructed of fingernail clippings, a subtle but characteristic
aspect of Hawkinson’s work, where he incorporates symbols of his own body
into the artwork.

Artist and composer, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, and film and

performance artist Ariane Michel, are represented in the exhibition with a
film that documents their collaborative installation titled Les oiseaux de
Céleste. The installation was comprised of a colony of finches housed in a
built environment that Boursier-Mougenot created within a gallery space in
Paris. The birds were provided with water, food, grass and an amplified
electric guitar as a perch. The layered sound created by the finches and the
guitar in Michel’s film will fill the Project Space Gallery with dissonant “music”
as the birds and a manmade instrument intersect.

Also featured in Human Nature are works by Lucas Artists Residency

Program, Irvine Fellow Misako Inaoka and former Fellow Dana Harel.
Inaoka’s small-scale sculptures depict a fantastical exploration of the natural
and artificial elements we find in the world around us. In her work Seahorse,
she blends the body parts of a sea horse and a bronco to create an unusual
and yet familiar creature, a visual word play— a curiosity. Inaoka also
explores food production through her modified farm animals (Food
Production) as well as alternative energy sources in works such as Solar Cow,
Whale Spill, and Connected. Her works are created primarily from
reassembled toys and contain very playful elements as they examine
profound issues of bioengineering, cloning, natural animal life and the
possibilities of our imagination.

Dana Harel, who explores an ambivalence that relates both to gender-based

conflicts and human battles with natural ecosystems, is represented in the
exhibition with two new large-scale drawings created during her residency at
Montalvo. In I Am Not An Animal I and I Am Not An Animal II Harel explores
the human portrait through an investigation of her own hands, resulting in
introspective images of soldiers who have possibly returned from a long-ago
battle. Cock Fight, a large-scale graphite drawing on paper, will also be on
view. This compelling drawing incorporates a finely drawn rooster with
Harel’s signature hand-puppets, depicting human hands that are positioned
to create a shadow puppet of another rooster – getting ready for the illicit
fight.

TIM HAWKINSON

Los Angeles-based artist Tim Hawkinson, a native San Franciscan, earned his
BA from San Jose State University, and received his MFA from the University
of California, Los Angeles. Hawkinson is renowned for creating complex
sculptural systems through surprisingly simple means. His work has been
exhibited in numerous international exhibitions, including the 1999 Venice
Biennale, as well as at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art; The
Power Plant, Toronto, Canada; the 2002 Whitney Biennial, New York, NY; the
2003 Corcoran Biennial, Washington, D.C.; and The Getty Center, Los
Angeles. In 2005, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art organized a
retrospective of his work.

CÉLESTE BOURSIER-MOUGENOT

French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s work merges the realms of the

musical and the visual, mining unexpected sources for musical potential and
creating situations or devices in which sonic events are expressed visually or
visual informational is expressed sonically. Boursier-Mougenot’s work is in
major public and private collections around the world, including Centre
Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart,
Tasmania; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; the Museum of Contemporary Art,
San Diego, Calif.; the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris; and Fonds
Régional d’Art Contemporain, Reims, France. He lives and works in Sète,
France.

ARIANE MICHELE

Paris-based artist Ariane Michele makes installations, performances or simple

screenings, in which video and film recur with the intention of creating
perceptive experiences. A graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des
Arts Décoratifs in Paris, Michele’s work has been shown internationally at
such venues as Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain, Reims, France, and the
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. Her films have been shown at the
International Film Festivals in Locarno, Switzerland and Rotterdam,
Netherlands; the International Documentary Film Festival in Marseilles,
France, and Art Basel 38. Her film LES HOMMES was a 2006 grand prize
winner at FID in Marseilles.

MISAKO INAOKA
Born in Kyoto, Japan, Misako Inaoka, received her BFA in printmaking from
the Rhode Island School of Design, where she participated in the school’s
European Honors Program and spent a year in Rome, Italy. She received her
MFA from Mills College in Oakland, Calif. With a focus on mixed media
sculpture and site-specific installation, the Bay Area-based artist’s work has
been shown at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; the de Young Museum;
and the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art. She has exhibited in
galleries in San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Texas, Japan, England, China
and Italy. She is a recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts for
MacDowell Colony residency and S & R Foundation’s Washington Award.

DANA HAREL

Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, Dana Harel currently lives in the Bay Area, where she
received a BA in architecture from the California College for the Arts. Harel
creates large-scale graphite on paper drawings that evolve organically, fusing
themes of man and environment. She has exhibited her work at the Viewing
Program at the Drawing Center, New York, NY; the Napa Valley Museum of
Art, CA; the Palo Alto Art Center, CA; Nebraska Wesleyan University, NE; and
the Herzelia Museum of Contemporary Art in Israel.

The Project Space Gallery is located next to the Box Office at Montalvo
Arts Center. The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday through
Sunday, or by appointment.

About Montalvo’s Natural and Creative Capital theme:

Natural and Creative Capital, Montalvo Arts Center’s 2010-11
multidisciplinary thematic arts program, explores concepts of
sustainability in our natural and cultural environments. This 18-month
program features visual and performing arts coupled with
conversations and literary arts programs that invite audiences of all
ages to contemplate a sustainable future. Visual artworks feature
renewed thinking by artists about the use of cast-off materials, new
works that reflect the many wonders of the natural world, the
possibilities of a sustainable future, and works that capture the
challenges facing our planet. The performing arts challenge and ignite
passion for change; featuring new works of dance and music that will
both inspire and engage. Education and public programs encourage
exploration and engagement with the environment – particularly the
175 acres that comprise Montalvo’s extraordinary grounds and rustic
hiking trails.

About Montalvo Arts Center

Montalvo Arts Center is a nonprofit organization that fosters community
engagement through the creation and presentation of multidisciplinary art.
By uniting the broadest possible audiences with a global community of
artists, Montalvo expands the role of arts and culture as an essential
community resource. Montalvo’s programming includes: an annual theme-
based arts program; music and performance; education and public
programs; new media and visual arts; and the Sally and Don Lucas Artists
Residency. Located in the Saratoga foothills in the midst of Silicon Valley,
Montalvo Arts Center occupies a Mediterranean-style villa on 175 stunning
acres, which Senator James Phelan left to the people of California for the
encouragement of promising students in the areas of art, music, literature
and architecture. In January 2005, the organization changed its name from
"Villa Montalvo" to "Montalvo Arts Center" to better communicate its mission
to increasing local, national and international audiences. Montalvo celebrates
its centennial in 2012. For more information about Montalvo Arts Center, call
408.961.5800 or visit www.montalvoarts.org.

About the Sally & Don Lucas Artists Residency Program

The Lucas Artists Residency Program offers selected artists private housing, a
professional staff that is supportive of the creative process, and an
environment conducive to both individual practice, community engagement,
and the energetic exchange of ideas among international and culturally
diverse Fellows.