mnartists.org: Curt Lund

Graphic Design

Curt Lund — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:42:32 GMT

Aside from visual and performing arts, Curt's professional practice in graphic design spans more than ten years, serving for-profit and non-profit clients, in-house and freelance. To view more of his design work, visit Curt's portfolio site, [url=http://www.trueenough.com]trueenough.com[/url].

Screenprinting

Curt Lund — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:02:28 GMT

In teaching screenprinting at Minnesota Center for Book Arts and other venues around the Twin Cities, my focus is to show how basic tools and low-tech techniques can be used from home to explore screenprinting, without the need for tons of expensive equipment or fancy facilities. Typical curriculum includes basic stencil work (serigraphy) on and off screen; hand-drawn screen work; and photo emulsion screen work. - - - - - production shots from [i]East Fremont Project [/i](2010-2011) Hand-pulled screenprints on paper Las Vegas is a surreal place, and its glittering facades provide no end of inspiration for many. I'm a graphic designer by trade, so naturally I'm drawn to signage and spectacle. But my interest isn’t limited to the glitzy tourist traps; it also lies in areas that reveal the city’s lesser-known history, areas that are not concerned with the sanitized, tourist-friendly image. This series of hand-pulled screenprints, based on photographs I took in 2009, document one such neighborhood. East Fremont Street was, in its heyday, the gateway to downtown Las Vegas or travelers, and is home to an amazing collection of Atomic-Age-era motels and vintage signage. Far from the better-known “Fremont Street Experience” part of downtown, East Fremont remains out of reach of the rehab and gentrification push, and these architectural gems make do as hourly red-light motels and low-rent flophouses -- some revealing their connections to crime, drugs and prostitution more outwardly than others. The buildings and signage have lost their sparkle, but now stand as a testament to a different aspect of Vegas culture. As recently as May 2010, the Las Vegas City Council has approved development plans that call for the razing of many of these motels; in testimony to the Council, development consultants have called the stretch of motels “a blight” and declared that they “would rather see vacant lots there.” Other concerned individuals and organizations have spoken up in opposition, favoring plans to rehabilitate the historic buildings, or at least to save and relocate some of the most heralded architectural treasures. - - - - - [i]Atlas[/i] (2006/2009) Screenprint on acrylic The title of this work references both bodybuilder Charles Atlas (made infamous by comic book classified advertisements) as well as a set of maps or guides. This work appropriates advertisements and imagery found in the back of 1950s-1970s comic books appealing to the reader's desire for stereotypical masculinity, reproduced in the original black-and-white and in manly pink. The transparency of the acrylic panels allows for one print to be read normally and the second to be viewed illegibly backwards, hinting at perhaps an alternative way of reading the advertisements' messaging and imagery. - - - - -

image: production shots from East Fremont (Par-A-Dice)

image: production shots from East Fremont (Desert Moon)

image: production shots from East Fremont (Ambassador East)

image: East Fremont Project (compilation)

image: Atlas

Spoken Word Storytelling

Curt Lund — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 03:58:41 GMT

For more information on storytelling and spoken word stage productions, visit [i][b][url=http://www.curtandlaura.com]http://www.curtandlaura.com[/url][/b][/i].

image: Boys Don't Make Passes At Girls Who Wear Glasses

image: Take a Left at the Giant Cow: A Beginner's Guide to North Dakota

image: Take a Left at the Giant Cow: A Beginner's Guide to North Dakota

image: Take a Left at the Giant Cow: A Beginner's Guide to North Dakota

image: Two Queers and a Chubby

image: The Pope Stole My Pretzel [And Other Brushes With Celebrity]

Altered Books

Curt Lund — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 23:04:59 GMT

Field Guide (2010) Altered book This "specimen cabinet" was created by systematically cutting away the interior pages of the source book, a 1950s-era field guide, but leaving selected illustrations. By pure luck, I received two vintage copies of this same book, so this one-of-a-kind work was actually created in an edition of two. My work in this style is inspired by the work of artist Brian Dettmer: http://www.flickr.com/photos/briandettmer/ http://www.briandettmer.com/ - - - Stones from the River (2010) Altered book, found objects The title of this found book inspired the alterations made to it. The artist grew up in Bismarck, North Dakota, on the banks of the Missouri River; a topographic view of this river as it winds through his hometown is carved into the cover of the book. The inset stones were collected along the river at the Fox Island public boat launch, a significant location in two regards: first, it was the site where the artist spent the very last night he lived in Bismarck, already packed up to move away the following morning. Second, Fox Island is one terminus of a bike trail which, as a child, the artist would often travel with his father; the stones were collected when the artist returned to Bismarck on the occasion of his father's death. - - - The West (2007-08) Altered books, found materials These Zane Grey westerns from the 1940s and '50s present a romanticized image of life in the American Wild West. My alterations create space for the other side of the story on topics including the treatment of Native Americans, the eradication of the American Bison, gender roles in the new West, and the pop culture legacies of The Cowboy, from the Marlboro Man to the Village People. - - - Chemistry (2010) Altered book This work was created by systematically cutting away the interior pages of the source book, a c.1920 chemistry textbook, but leaving selected illustrations. - - - Mystery of the Burning Ocean (2007) Altered book, aquarium, plastic tubing Alterations to this book included waterproofing and connection to the aquarium's aerator, which caused bubbles to issue from the Power Boys' scuba gear on the book cover. - - - global news fluxdigest (2009) Found materials, stamped metal type Produced in an edition of 125 for the assembling-publication "None Of The Above" by Minnesota Center for Book Arts A call to contribute to a Fluxus-inspired "assembling" project inspired this work. A dadaist version of an actual news digest or aggregator, this project is a random assembling of found materials. "Reading" the digest begins with a playing card from The Ungame, a mid-1970s board game which posed to its players open-ended philosophical questions like "How would you define joy?" or "What makes you cry?", intended to encourage family bonding and interpersonal communications. (It is hard in today's world to imagine such a game void of irony or sarcasm.) To answer each question, I turned to the three great schools of philosophy and their modern-day media equivalents: ancient China (represented by a Chinese newspaper), ancient Greece (likewise represented by a Greek newspaper), and modern Western thought (represented by an American supermarket tabloid). Clippings from each of these sources are randomly combined and packaged into news digests. Whether the random snippets of news articles, sports coverage and advertisements offer any Confucian, Socratic or Freudian insight into the posed question depends entirely on the perspective of the viewer. (Well, their perspective, and their ability to translate Chinese and Greek.)

image: Stones from the River

image: The West

image: Chemistry

image: Mystery of the Burning Ocean

image: global news fluxdigest

image: global news fluxdigest (contents)

image: Tools

image: A Farewell to Arms

image: Wild Fire

Context (2005-present)

Curt Lund — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 01:44:29 GMT

A new iteration of found image and found text collages, mounted on glass and set in random found and thrift-shopped frames, installed in ever-rearranging clusters. The randomness of the sizes, shapes and materials of the frames give each installation, as one gallery-goer described it, a "Lutheran church basement" look. Each work includes images (often technical drawings, diagrams or illustrations) and text taken out of their intended contexts; elements from different sources are paired to put both into a new and fantastical context. The ability to rearrange and juxtapose individual works within the cluster add to this effect. Works from the "Context" series have been exhibited at juried exhibitions including "55408" (Intermedia Arts), "GLBTA Perspectives" (Larson Art Gallery) and "One of Each" and "Secret Handshake" (Stevens Square Center for the Arts).

image: untitled (pressure)

image: untitled (electronic eyes and ears)

image: untitled (women)

image: untitled (let off anger)

image: untitled (unmoved)

image: untitled (commerce)

image: untitled (forbidden atmosphere)

Found: Diarrhea

Curt Lund — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 23:00:58 GMT

Found image & text collage, 2004

Seven Deadly Sins (2000-2001)

Curt Lund — Thu, 19 Feb 2004 15:35:00 GMT

"Seven Deadly Sins": Seven photo- and found-object-based works of art and social commentary produced in Rome, Italy in 2000 and exhibited in Ames, Iowa in 2001 as part of my Honors thesis.

image: Gluttony

image: Lust

Found (2002-2003)

Curt Lund — Thu, 21 Aug 2003 01:39:31 GMT

Additional works from [i]Found[/i], a series of found image and found text collages on paper, created in 2002-03. Works from this series have been exhibited in galleries across Minneapolis, including in juried exhibitions "The Art of Sin" (Altered Esthetics) and "per-ver-sion two" (Artrujillo Gallery), as well as at the Red Hot Art Fair.

image: A Little Off the Top

image: Stroke

image: Natural Habitat

image: Not Rocket Science

Found: Cheerleaders Never Change

Curt Lund — Thu, 21 Aug 2003 01:31:43 GMT

From Found, a series of found-image/found-text montages created in 2002-03.