What appeals to Nari Ward might appear anomic to artists of past centuries. He layers his projects, utilizing both audio and visual components, introducing what he calls "dialogue between one medium and the other."
This conversation between media is regimented in tight, decisive purpose, never changing subject from the statements Ward strives to achieve. And to help his ends, in this case, he's unleashed the means of an oversized puppet parrot.
Nari Ward is UConn's current Raymond and Beverly Sackler Artist in Residence, which doesn't mean he's living here. He's been commuting from his home in Harlem for the past few weeks, finalizing his current project in the Contemporary Art Gallery.
Ward is a past recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts, a Bessie Award and a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Grant, according to a recent School of Fine Arts press release. The publication also notes that his works "have been included in two Whitney Biennials, a Venice Biennial, Documenta XI and commissions for the United Nations and the World Health Organization."
His exceedingly proficient resume paired with the locations he's traveled to for art (he's done Artist in Residences throughout Europe) make it somewhat baffling as to how provocative an atmosphere Storrs seemed to Ward. But being readily enthused at the prospect of injecting canny social commentary in his work made what he stumbled across shimmer.
Visiting Storrs for the first time, Ward noticed the Mansfield Training School next to the Depot Campus - the site of UConn's Masters of Fine Arts Program.
"I was inspired by this particular haunting set of buildings that were here, and this history that was boarded up in them. And the campus was pretty much left barren. There was nobody there but just such a presence that I wanted to in some way excavate."
Mansfield Training School "was operated by the Connecticut Department of Mental Retardation until its closure, after legal challenges, in 1993. The school, with its eery, overturned wheelchairs and neo-classical hospital, remains a magnet for adventurous locals," according to wikipedia.com.
Primarily a professional sculptor in the past, Ward began to incorporate a multitude of art's facets in his projects to rivet his audiences.
Ward explained, "For me, it was frustration out of demanding more from an audience in terms of making an object. When I'd make an object or environment, people would just walk in and maybe spend two minutes [looking at it]. So I decided OK, I wanted to layer it more. To have a narrative in it, or time-based medium like video would allow the opportunity for somebody to have to invest more time, perhaps."
His presentation is called Salvage Research Soul Training Project, apropos his ferreting of information for the work. It consists of raised wheelchairs surrounded by wooden structures draped with candles, two televisions displaying puppeteers performing with sculptures he created, and the parrot before mentioned.
The Salvage Research Soul Training exhibit is located in the School of Fine Arts building next to von der Mehden Recital Hall. Visiting hours are weekdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
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