Ingrid von Sydow

b. 1975, New York, NY

lives and works in Los Angeles, CA

Education

MFA, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA

BFA, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA

Solo Exhibitions

2010

"The Road to Hell is Paved", LA, CA (upcoming)

"Tumbleweeds and Other Histories", Gallery 533, LA, CA

"Diversions", EPMoA, (Elysian Park Museum of Art), LA, CA

"Hybrid 2", Ave 50 Studio, Highland Park, CA

LACE Art Auction, LA, CA (upcoming)

2009

California African American Museum, (2009-2010), LA, CA

“Man”, Diamondhead Gallery, LA, CA

“Black Mirror”, D301, Valencia, CA

2008

“Black Space Residency”, D301, CalArts, Valencia, CA.

“Black Box Recordings”, Bliss Gallery, Queens, NY

Group Shows

2009

“An Idea Called Tomorrow”, Skirball Cultural Center, LA, CA (upcoming)

"Guadalajara International", Regional Museum of Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico

"MFA Conversations Part II", I-5 Gallery, LA, CA

“Why Theory?”, Spring Arts Tower, LA, CA

“Back in the Discourse”, Main Gallery, CalArts, Valencia, CA

2008 "Staybite", an Artists for Social Justice show, Mint and Lime Galleries, CalArts, Valencia, CA

“Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder”, Mint Gallery, CalArts, Valencia, CA

“Alt_Cph”, at the Kunst og Kultur Fabrikken, Copenhagen, Denmark

2007 “A Study in Reversal”, L-Shape, CalArts, Valencia, CA

2006 “Bling”, curated by Mark Steven Greenfield, Palos Verdes Art Center, Palos Verdes, CA

"Action Speaks Louder", at Råhuset, Copenhagen, Denmark

2005 “What”, A402, CalArts, Valencia, CA

2004 “Benefit”, Rowayton Art Center, Rowayton, CT

Conferences/Panel Discussions

2008 "The Other" in contemporary art discourse: Owning, Speaking and Being “The Other”

Awards

2008 Lovelace Scholarship to attend CalArts, Valencia, CA

2007 CalArts Grant, Valencia, CA

2006 Dean’s Grant, CalArts, Valencia, CA

CalArts Grant, Valencia, CA

2005 Ahmanson Grant to attend CalArts, Valencia, CA

Alpert Grant to attend CalArts, Valencia, CA

Black Mirror

"hand mirror"

carved burned cork

spring 2009
installation view
installation view
installation view
installation view

Drawings

Reflection Study, 2008

graphite on paper

5' by 3'

Video Work

Stills from a series of analog video art work entitled, Black Box Recordings

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos

Title: Mapping the Invisible
Media: Video , (please see youtube link for excerpts) with sound
shown on portable b/w, tv/radio, (the last photo of the series above is an installation view from the Artists for Social Justice Show

Journal entry 02/14/08, Observations from the Black Space Residency

In a field 
I am the absence 
of field. 
This is 
always the case. 
Wherever I am 
I am what is missing. 

When I walk 
I part the air 
and always 
the air moves in 
to fill the spaces 
where my body's been. 

We all have reasons 
for moving. 
I move 
to keep things whole. 

-Mark Strand. from the poem, Keeping Things Whole

During time spent taking part in The Black Space Residency Program I collected this footage. I lost track of the storms, all I have to document my time there is this artifact, everything else is immaterial. In that black space, the environment or atmosphere appears in reverse, with light space dark and dark, light...the air swallows everything.

How many times has there been a fire and not a drop to put it out?

Black plastic used in gardens to warm seeds, cover and carry garbage and on the corner of Comel and Willow it dries up memories of sweltering summers. The tape that binds the familiar, leaves a limbless stump, requires a pause when walking past for the mind to identify the possibilities . With each encounter imagine what the hydrant could have turned into now that it can’t be relied on. Is it such an eyesore to have a non-functioning object on the corner that it must be rendered nearly formless. Who did this? Could it have been a forlorn flame? A spurned lick of heat left with nothing to quench its thirst.

Inside
Each time the pilot provided the spark the blue beau would bellow, flinch and burn.

Outside 

There were promises made by the mass that had to be covered, hidden…everything ends sometime. 

This wanton shroud shields the volatile ardor that lies in wait just beyond the panes.

Long time...

How to Look Like an Art Student

The following list should be made available at the Student Affairs and Housing offices of your local Art school to help new and returning students adjust. It should accompany literature on the subject of hygiene and self-expression.



1. Bathing
• Get to know “your” smell
How?
Don’t shower more than 2x a week, at most. For example: Monday and Friday.
Switch to an all-natural deodorant or don’t use any at all if you’re not ready to skip or switch…try to see how many days a single application can take you…
remember, less could be more!

2. Hair
• Wake up in the morning (or afternoon) and fight the urge (passively) to run your fingers through your hair or comb, pick, brush, etc. it. Your hair will take care of itself and eventually take on a remarkable sculptural form
• Girls/Guys, shave your head, wear a wig. Throw everyone off! Do the opposite of what you do normally- a wonderful opportunity for you to explore notions of normalcy, conformity and convention.
• Dye your hair using harsh chemicals, (like Peroxide) or just Manic Panic. Who cares what your natural color is?
• Getting a haircut is only acceptable if the stylist is either still in beauty school, a friend of yours or if you’ve done it yourself.
• Body Hair is welcome!

3. Skin
• Always carry a sharpie with you to write notes or create patterns on your hands and forearms. This is a surefire way to keep from forgetting to turn in that paper next week.
• Make sure to pierce several parts of your body, consider getting a tattoo. Design your own! Your body is a canvas, work on it!

4. Clothes
• Disregard the decomposition of your wardrobe
Ie. Moth holes (or any holes for that matter especially ones in the posterior), fading, presumably due to washing, bleach spots, paint, food or sweat stains, holes in your shoes, (Or don’t wear shoes at all!)
• Don’t worry about washing your clothes, those stains add character and make your look unique. You might have bought your shirt at Abercrombie like the next guy but yours has burns and stains from that camping trip you took where you sat too close to the fire and drew on yourself with charred wood. So cool, display your individuality.
• Add accents to your ensemble for example: a headband, legwarmers, old hat, and/or Mr T. like gold chains.
• Wear bright colors, dazzling patterns, play with proportion: Expansion or Contraction. Baggy or tight to emphasize your relationship to the spaces you traverse.
• Think about what pieces of clothing to wear, or take away and in what order
For example: wearing a bathrobe belt on the backside of your velour leggings or cutting off the butterfly collar from your “interview” shirt and attaching it to a headband with some Velcro to your head.
Above All
Whether you deliberately slouch or walk tall know that you’re a Very Special Person, part of a countercultural movement, a rebel, if you will. Live hard! And true to you!
…and make sure to document it somehow with a/v.

Betwixt

Don't you want to encounter a virtual space where there are other people like you?
Yeah, me too.
That's what I envisioned this whole blog-business would be about.
I suppose because I've been overly concerned with what people who know me in the real world might think, I haven't been able to divulge my true thoughts.

So I've deduced that no one reads my occasional blog.
That's fine. I haven't written anything that hasn't been read before.

Saw the new Spike Lee documentary, "When the Levees Broke" on HBO last night. I wish that I had something to say...not about the movie itself but about the delayed response to the Hurricane.
I don't feel for everyone who lost a home due to Katrina.
I understand that natural disasters are called such for a reason.
There is nothing amusing or ironic about that old white couple who were vacationing in Tuscany and had just visited Pompei. When they heard the news, (on a tv in a cafe) about the horrors that people who couldn't afford to get out of town were suffering. It seems that they were searching for a connection to the city/people. The trouble is if they found themselves dirt poor, living from paycheck to paycheck they wouldn't be searching for irony.

You know who owns that city?
The people who waded through the sewage Bush was blind to.
The people who stayed.
Spike Lee may not always hit the mark with his films.
Parenthetically: Can anyone clue me into what the message/idea was behind She Hate Me?
He does phenomenal work based on real events. I can't say I'd thought about him as a documentarian in the past but after Levees I felt a swell of respect and admiration for him.
The last half of the "Requiem in Four Parts" is tonight.
The Man and I are expected two friends to join us, (as they did last night).
These two friends speak really freely about the political climate in which we steep. In response to their outspokenness I get quieter than the church mouse who hasn't been to church since he started questioning his belief in god.
Why?
I AM interested in politics.
I read about the news online.
I listen to NPR.
I vote and feel really good about myself afterwards.
Sometimes I just don't feel that I need to add "my two cents" if I agree with what people are saying. Commenting on current affairs is an activity that I feel is best done by reporters and journalists...people who can find the words to speak about something that is often impossible to speak of.


So I'm ending the Getty sponsored summer internship in about a week. I made a friend during the events held for the interns at the Getty who was far more ambitious that I see myself. She networks at every opportunity and doesn't seem to experience an ounce of insecurity in her critical thinking skills. She asked some of the presenters questions that I thought were somewhat awkward. Like, "Do you ever miss working creatively since you've been an art history professor?" to a male professor who majored in studio art during his undergrad and then art history for grad school and then became an art history professor. He seemed slightly unnerved with her questions and for that reason answered them carefully.
I think that I'll miss the old 9-5...well, it's really 8:30-5:30.
So I won't miss waking up early, interrupting my dreams. I live for them.

One hopes that they are good at what they love to do. Or that what they love yields good work.

Untitled

I had a terrible dream around 5:30 this morning about my fish...named 'Untitled'. In the dream Untitled was swimming about unaware of Mr. IS Stark's, (another fish of mine) longing gaze. Mr. had grown to the size of a small whale and the shape of his eyes had changed. I suppose that this was an indication of a change in his character. As I was watching Mr. just took a deep breath in and sucked Untitled up whole. I tried to force Mr. to cough Untitled back up but by the time he finally did, Untitled was dead.
When I woke up I went to the tank to make sure that Untitled was okay and he was.
I couldn't fall back to sleep so I stayed up reading and slowly waking up.
Less than an hour later on my way to the shower I went to feed my aquatic friends. Untitled was gasping for air floating belly up at the top of the tank. I pulled him out and filled a vase with treated water. He just kept gasping. Once in a while he would swim around and try to act normal. But I couldn't stay with him. I had to go to work.
When I left he was floating at the top of the vase mouthing messages.