Cut Me Up: Souvenir
Albany International Airport, Albany, NY
Cut Me Up: Souvenir
Albany International Airport, Albany, NY
June 30 through December 27, 2023
Website: Souvenir Exhibition
Albany International Airport is thrilled to host Souvenir, an exhibition that celebrates and expands upon a partnership with Cut Me Up magazine, and its unique collage-centered directive, through December 27, 2023 in its post-security Concourse A Gallery.
Cut Me Up is a participatory magazine of visual call and response. Each issue presents a call - a curated selection of original collage images that will become the raw material for reader-artists to respond to by cutting, reconfiguring and transforming into new artworks. The newly created responses will form the content of the next issue.
Souvenir was conceived and curated by Albany Airport Art & Culture Program Director Kathy Greenwood upon an invitation from Cut Me Up’s Andrea Burgay, and this is the first in-person exhibition of the magazine’s entries. The exhibition includes the 18 artists selected for the print edition of Issue 11, as well as six additional artists from the call’s pool of submissions. In the spirit of offering a more expansive view of souvenirs, this exhibition also includes some specially invited guests. The artists Katharine Umsted and Cut Me Up’s founder, Andrea Burgay, both independently created a series of works based upon postcards that they called Wish You Were Here.
Michael Oatman produced Stella by Starlight out of two seemingly unrelated souvenirs, Frank Stella’s 1971 MoMA retrospective catalog, and Astronomy, a British astronomy textbook from 1966. Oatman’s compositions and their relationship to his life-long interest in space travel serve as potent companions to the souvenir collection of Albany Airport’s very own Virgil Sager. Since he was a boy, Sager has been compiling news articles and memorabilia about space travel, and a portion of his vast and interesting collection is on view here.
A souvenir is something that is kept as a reminder of a person, place or event. While travel is often a reason for collecting such mementos, objects and images can signify all sorts of occasions and connections. Souvenirs can represent deeply personal experiences, or tokens of some shared public happening. They can even mark a fictional occurrence, or something that is wished for.
As the Airport marks the 25th Anniversary of its Art & Culture Program in 2023, it seems fitting to reflect upon the way that objects and images can remind us of the places we’ve been as well as those we long to see.
Participating artists: Patty Armstrong, Todd Bartel, Sharon Bates, Jac Batey, Andrea Burgay, Dan Cameron, Laura Cannamela, Cheryl Chudyk, Monica Church, Sandra D. Dwileski, Susan Graham, Everest Hood, Tim Janchar, Stephenie Knight, Iain Machell, Emily Marbach, Anthony Naimo, Michael Oatman (individually and in collaboration) with Tom Roland, Bradley Parsons, Lori Petchers, Gaetano Rizzi, Lydia Selk, Lisa Sheets, Amy Talluto, Katharine Umsted, Stephanie Statham Witchger
About Albany Airport’s Art & Culture Program
Since 1998, the Albany International Airport’s Art & Culture Program has sought to showcase the cultural vitality of New York’s Capital Region through exhibitions and installations within the Airport’s terminal. Such presentations enhance the experience of airport travelers and foster the advancement of a thriving creative community. The Program has become a cornerstone for demonstrating the breadth and quality of the arts throughout the Region as well as a resource for learning about local culture. Through exhibitions presented in the Albany International Airport Gallery and Concourse A Gallery, the Exhibition Case Program, large-scale installations, free public programs and tours, the Art & Culture Program has extended the reach of area artists and museums to an audience of more than three million people each year.