Calamity and Ruin!!!!

A sneak peak at some work from Calamity & Ruin which... opens this coming saturday!

Get there early (6:00 - 7:00) to make sure you catch some of the performance... and consequently the food!

Oh Nancy's Kitchen

Here's a peek at the postcard for Calamity & Ruin - our upcoming show at Projekt 722 in March. All the vitamins and minerals a growing collective needs! Along with our old friends we've invited a bunch of great new artists to the project and this show is shaping up to be a killer.  There's still time to get involved - check out the previous post for more information - and we're currently accepting proposals for the site-specific installation.

Call for Work - Spring 2013

Hey all!

We're gearing up for the next Oh Nancy gig - it's happening in March at Projekt 722. Projekt 722 is a sweet little space in Williamsburg run by wonderful folks and they've asked us put together a show. So in keeping with Oh Nancy tradition we decided to take over their unused outdoor space (it's kinda like a courtyard) and rock a massive installation - and we want your help!

Here's a quick look at what we were thinking;

Story;

When we last saw the Corn Team they were running from the Preacher and his goons and in that time we wondered what would be happening back in the mysterious town these characters came from.  We imagine that without the Preacher and their beloved footballers the townsfolk are probably tearing the place up. The Preacher and the Corn Team embodied faith and order but now they've all gone and the villagers left behind feel abandoned.  They don't know where to turn and they're searching for new purpose. 

Installation;

In the outdoor space we like to build a "busted monument" with you guys.  We imagine this as the classic town square statue that's been torn down and repurposed by the people with a new vision. We're going to build the statue base, which will be about 5 ft. tall, 4ft. wide, and 6. long,  framed and skinned with plywood and then skimm coated with cement - so it appears to be solid concrete.  This base is there to be used and abused as you see fit - install competing icons, vandalise it, kick in a corner (but in a...y'know..artful way), hang effigies - whatever you can come up with - the base is meant only as an armature for what you guys could do. We'll be building this thing March 2nd-4th and invite anyone who wants to make something to come down and create this beast together - an Oh Nancy sculpture-jam!

In addition to the "busted monument" we're also going to finally tailgate! We got our hands on a 50 gallon oil drum that we've cleaned up and turned into a functional grill. We've nicknamed it the "Gril-lapolypse."  We'll hire an actor for opening night, dress 'em up like Nancy, and have him/her serve hot dogs and burgers "communion" style.  Reflecting the community nature of a cookout we've made multiple legs for the grill that we'd send to anyone who's interested to dress up and make unique and then reattach back onto the grill intime for the party.  We'll send you the steel, and (except for the very ends - which need to be untouched so we can weld it) you can paint, add material and alter in any way you see fit.

Important !

The entire installation will be outside and exposed to the elements for the entire run of the show - March 2nd - 31st. So please make sure and plan on the weather being a factor if you decide to make something for the installation.  March in New England can be all kinds crazy - snow, rain, freezing rain - so design your contribution to be able to deal with what mother nature throws at it.  That being said you could use this to your advantage and make a piece that will decay overtime which is cool also.  

That's the quick and short of it. We've put together a package explaining and illustrating in detail what's up with this show. Give it a look through when you get a chance. It contains important dates relavent to the deadlines for parts of the installation. 

Contact Arthur at arthur.henderson@gmail.com for the full open call package - and to get answers to any questions you might have.

Always the best,

Fionn, Nate & Arthur

Oh Nancy

Blank Land

Blank Land is going to be epic.

Oh Nancy - Blank Land from kenny riches on Vimeo.

"Blank Land" June 30th at the Torrance Art Museum

Oh Nancy presents, "Blank Land" at the Torrance Art Museum!

Opening on Saturday June 30th, from 6:00pm to 9:00pm

"Blank Land" is collaborative show exploring urban identity crises, sacrifice, and heroism through the lens of mythology and American values.

The show features the work of over fifty artists, including: Michelle Matson, Aili Schmeltz, Emily Link, Bill Dunlap, Brian Willmont, Jenny Morgan, Sam Gibbons, Catherine Phillips, Trent Call, Erin M Riley, Kenny Riches, Cara Despain, Todd Ryan White, Morganne Wakefield, Alex Demaria, Michael Ryan Handley, Jorge Rojas, Mary Toscano, Andrew Shaw, Courtney Moy, Annelie McKenzie, Jessamy Shay Kilcollins, Tina Linville, Nick Rodrigues Tory Fair, Bradford Hastings,Dana Costello, Alison layton, Abby Webster, Alex Tsocanos, Joe keinberger, Alan Betts, Peter Moulthrop, Natalie LaChall, Christopher Brown, Leslie Shershow, Daniel Szymanowski, Liz Miller, Vanessa Iryzk, Ashley Perez, Sri Whipple, Jared Lindsay Clark, Arthur Henderson, Nathan Wellman, Fionn McCabe, Katie James, Brian Butler, Tony Bevilacqua, Lyndsey Lesh, Robert Lorie, Corrie Siegel, TJ Nelson, Allison Barr and more.

Facebook event can be found here!

Oh Nancy is an national art collective that provides a vehicle for artists -- presenting them with a narrative structure that facilitates collaboration and multiple-authorship. Using contradiction, symbolism, and coincidence histories are created and layered-- anchored in this narrative blueprint. The story is a mythical and satirical portrait of Americana that examines fanaticism and the complexities of the American hero. Artists respond to different facets of the story, organically building it along the way, each exhibition the latest chapter in an ever growing epic.

Oh Nancy was created and is directed by Arthur Henderson, Nathan Wellman and Fionn McCabe.

The "Blank Land" is also open for viewing on Tuesday, from 11:00am to 5:00pm

Torrance Art Museum 

3320 Civic Center Drive 

Torrance, CA 90503 

Such amazing people involved and we just... couldn't help ourselves. Here is a preview of some of the latest work appearing in "Blank Land".

Erin M Riley's "Alone Again" 

Jenny Morgan's "Untitled, Claire"

Michelle Matson's "Permanent Nancy"

Sam Gibbson's "In the Garden with Nancy."

Michael Ryan Handley

Bill Dunlap's zealots

Raul Gonzalez

Raul is an artist working in Boston. This is the first piece he has made for the Oh Nancy show "Blank Land" opening June 30th in LA.  As you can can plainly see this guy kicks ass and we're lucky to be working with him.  Check out the June issue of Juxtapose featuring his work and see more at his blog Cerebot, and website.

Oh Nancy - The History

The Heavens Chorus

She was proud, perfect then…

Pathetic…

It should be said that radiance is here. A queen adrift in massacre.

She hunts. 

Tides lie and steal. 

Tides lie and moan.

Time has fallen. 

With desire comes pain and weightlessness.

Every dark possibility and indulgence being born again and again.

Strangled valleys swelling with water,

 The shattering pitch tuned to a harmony

 And the final chime of loneliness.

What is their abuse but guidance?

Another moment of defeat. Of bliss

Of the world’s designs recollected in a tomb.

New inscriptions emerge to ruin.

Released to the descendants slain

Find the lives remain inhuman

And build a desert grain by grain

The dethroned then awake

In dim kingdoms fouling

Do their bodies shudder and quake

 Forfeited to twilight?

Withdrawn victories, command and law

Spiraling lust and decades dawned

 Prince and princess rehearse games

Rook and bishop

Knight and pawn.

A lion roaring licking wounded

Sweet nature does not explain

To ousted kings a warning

That she and he united bring.

He shudders again.

And on the desert aforementioned

Death suspends its loud ascension

Birthing being unto itself

Oozing fluid out eye and mouth.

Urgent breath.

Urgent heave

A gift unto the world received

Undoing life for deathly gains

The unknowing mother reads

 In cryptic and suspicious ways

Passages in bloody script.

Why the hollering young?

To debt the human deed?

Abandoned to abandoned beach

What is made by sight and speech, 

By God, then beast and man

Venerated the warring won?

Children wrestle burdens deep

 On the bleak abandoned beach.

Elsewhere, a mind beats with the newborn’s heart.

 The appearances of past and what is yet to come rise like some harmless decoration.

Only for a moment.

The lovers-power and deletion-braided a poisoned courtship.  

A tribute to the failure of everything ancient

That has lived and prevailed in some form always

So we have seen.

End.

Video number three from Garfo!

In which the beach scene is explained, Fionn talks to much and the students at the Visual Art Institute enjoy drawing on a big ole rock.


Oh Nancy take three from VAI GARFO on Vimeo.

"The Hideout" opening at GARFO

Such a fun opening. Morganne Blair Witchfield, Micol Hebron and our man Clyde Ashby performed for four hours straight! They were (and I'm sure still are) amazing. We had a great turnout and a dance party with beer and mixtapes afterward.