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A Marriage:1 Culturemart 2011

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Culturemart 2011 Highlights

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some images from scouting locations for a film shoot next fall!!!

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A Marriage: 1 20 hours of fox news in bags

Artist Bio

Jake Margolin and Nick Vaughan started collaborating as installation artists in 2007. We aimed to make pieces that were accessible on multiple levels, interactive and fun.

We met through our work with The TEAM, the collaborative devised theater company directed by Rachel Chavkin, in which Jake works as a creator/performer and Nick as a creator/ scenographer . . . then we decided to get married. We started our first project “Preparation for a Marriage” shortly after announcing our engagement.

“Preparation for a Marriage” gave equal weight to the visual work (the product) and to our new collaboration as artists (the process). Created in conjunction with S(even), a dance piece choreographed by Pavel Zustiak for which we designed sets and costumes, “Preparation for a Marriage” re-used and expanded upon the materials from the performance and placed them in a gallery setting.

“S(even)” involved a number of ice-works: clothing pressed and frozen into slabs and blocks of ice, three freezers and an antique ironing board, as well as 6 dancers. “Preparation” reused all of the elements and added several works in ice, ‘melt’ ink drawings, photographs, and task-element performance.

In November of 2009, we presented the first draft of the work that would become our current project, “A Marriage: 1” as part of Danspace Project’s ‘Food for Thought’ series, curated by Ursula Eagly. In “Study for ‘A Marriage: 1’: Vietnam Texas” we worked with writer Jessica Almasy, performer Jess Barbagallo, opera singer Angela Baade, photographer/lighting designer Rie Ono, and Poe Saegusa to present 20 minutes of a performance/installation that has developed to become one facet of “A Marriage: 1”. We became resident artists at the HERE Arts Center (HARP Artists) in 2010 where we are continuing to develop “A Marriage: 1”. We presented a work-in-progress showing of the piece in HERE’s Culturemart in January, 2011. We expect the piece to premier in Spring, 2013.

Our development has also been largely impacted by two projects outside of our collaboration. The first was Yoshiko Chuma’s “Page Out Of Order, Not About Romanian Cinema (POONARC) which we joined in early Spring 2009. Jake performed in the piece and worked as assistant director to Chuma which involved curating/assembling devised text from a team of 3 American and 4 Romanian performers. Nick worked as scenic and costume designer. The piece was developed at Kaatsbahn International Dance Center and several cities throughout Romania and premiered at Danspace Project in June of 2009. The discussions about the creation of work and the importance of process that the two of us had throughout POONARC, formalized much of what we are interested in pursuing as artists.

The second was “Breezy Pines” a performance installation we created with performance artist/director Chantal Pavageaux and sound designer Zachary Humes as part of the Mabou Mines Resident Artist Program in 2010. Through this project we articulated our desire to create long duration physical tasks/gestures and vast physical compositions.

Nick Vaughan
Nick is a New York based scenographer and artist. Recent projects include “The Lily’s Revenge” (Taylor Mac/HERE Arts Center) “Architecting” (Fringe First Award 2008) & “Particularly in the Heartland” (Best Production, Dublin Fringe) with the TEAM, “Il Tabaro”, “Soldiers Tale”, “El Retablo de Maese Pedro”, “The Turn of the Screw”, “Albert Herring”, “The Beggars Opera” and “The Rape of Lucretia” (Chateauville/Lorin Maazel) “The Marriage of Figaro” and “L’Ormindo” (Curtis Institute of Music) “POOM2” and “POONARC” (Yoshiko Chuma) “Painted Bird”, “HALT”, “Weddings and Beheadings”, “Blind Spot”, “Le Petit Mort” and “S(even)” (Palissimo). He received the 2005 USITT Oren Parker award and was selected for the US exhibit in the 2007 Prague Quadrennial. He’s a member of the TEAM and creates installation art with his husband Jake Margolin. nicholasvaughandesign.shutterfly.com

Jake Margolin
Jake is a New York based performer and artist. With his company the TEAM he has created and performed in three plays, “Architecting” (Fringe First Award 2008, Edinburgh Fringe), “Particularly In The Heartland” (Best Production Dublin Fringe 2007, Fringe First Award, Edinburgh Fringe, Best Male Performance Nom. Dublin Fringe) and “Howl”. Jake and Chantal Pavageaux co-founded Royal Lace Paper Works, a performance art collaboration which presented ”Breezy Pines” as part of the Mabou Mines Resident Artist Program, “The Political Party” in Minneapolis, and “The RV Party” in RV campgrounds and truck stops throughout the States. He performed in and assistant directed Yoshiko Chuma’s “POONARC”. He originated the role of the Writer in the World Premier of Linda Bouchard's opera “House of Words” (dir. Richard Armstrong) in New York City and recorded the opera in Banff, Canada. He creates installation art with his husband Nick Vaughan.
 

Artist Statement

Husbands Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin, create installation/performative artwork with a dedication to compelling theatricality: a theater of images you can literally walk into and experience on your own terms. We construct and extrapolate from a given point rather than attempting to present a unified thesis. We start with a central idea and explode outward. In this way our work is organic; connective fibers form naturally, and we don’t force metaphors to relate disparate compositions.

Taking our cue from the way audiences interact with visual art in galleries and museums, we create work that is interactive in that it invites viewers to observe/interact on their own terms, without demanding or forcing participation. By deliberately splitting the focus of an ‘event’ into concurrent and highly detailed actions and compositions, we create environments in which viewers choose whether or not they want to see any particular action or composition and for what duration. When you consume artwork on your own terms, we believe it becomes yours.

We are interested in time intensive tasks and evolving elements that take time not because they are slowed down (Robert Wilson) but because they are vast (Ann Hamilton). Viewers arrive and leave while an action or film or dance continues, complete in its execution not in its ‘finishing’.

We create each element to be capable of standing on its own, outside of the larger context of a piece. While 20 elements (drawings, performance, text, etc.) may be involved in a single presentation, each could be presented individually and would be complete in and of itself. No single element is dependent on any other for explanation.

We are committed to the ‘primacy of material’, or the ‘it-ness of the thing.’ Materials should be used for the properties and associations that are inherent in them. For example, plywood is plywood and behaves accordingly, it has weight and splinters at the edges and comes from manufacturers with ink-jetted lettering; each of these attributes is an asset and should be acknowledged.

Connect

• Contact Nick
• Contact Jake

• Sculpted Dogs
• Nick's Website
• Culturemart 2011 photos