Ryan Parra, "Rock and Caulk," Archival Pigment Print, 36" x 24", 2014. Image courtesy of the artist.A small photographic get-together lands under the roof of the Combine Studios, located at 821 N. 3rd St. in Phoenix.
No more than stone's throw and a few steps away from the Downtown campus are the 821 Combine Studios — a quiet, yet stand-out stone building that also works as a live and work space for artists, both local and visiting.
Currently housed here is "Convergence/PHX-BG,"a small and interesting display of photographs taken in both Belgrade, Serbia and Phoenix, featuring 12 photographers from those areas: six local, six from overseas. While the gallery may not seem like much at first, the message behind it is present, and its thememakes it worth a visit.
"Convergence" first started to grow when curator Maia Gruden, a native of Serbia, had a chance to meet with Phoenix-area artists and photographers (both students and professionals) during a five-week stay at ASU's Art Museum International Artist Residency Program, who houses artists at the Combine. Gruden is a Fellow of CEC ArtsLink,a group designed to bring international artists together.
Edgar Cardenas, "Untitled," Inkjet Print, 30" x 20" in each, 2012. Image courtesy of the artist.Estrella Payton, an MFA student, graduate research assistant and operations manager at Combine, said that the gallery began to take shape during conversations between Gruden and the photographers.
"She was meeting with them, learning about their process and their work — all of them are very different — and immediately found this sort of parallel that was happening with photographers she was familiar working with in Belgrade," Payton said.
Gruden came up with the idea for the gallery and developed it over a three-week period so the artists could "converge" into the space of the Combine. Payton said this was so the photographers could show their practices and perspectives through the art form.
"Whatever narrative or imagery they were working with somehow was speaking with each other without even knowing each other, without even knowing the same language," she said. "And so, it was her idea of bringing six from the Phoenix area and six artists from Belgrade, Serbia, together to physically exhibit side by side."
It was easy to realize that "Convergence" extends beyond the name to the theme behind the gallery. One image portrays a pairof men looking into what appeared to be a music shop. Another features a sunset colored cloud and a chair among shadows.
The point among these and the other photographs is that they do not readily show where the images come from. The men look as if they could be in a hot day in Arizona. The chair and cloud could've been located in Belgrade. The mesh of variances as to where these could come from is the idea of the show.
William LeGoullon, Untitled from "(Un)Intended Targets," Archival Pigment Print, 31.5" x18.8", 2014. Image courtesy of the artist.
"It was even deliberate that the labels next to each photo doesn't say their nationality so that you don't pay attention to the fact that, 'Oh, this is a Serbian artist,' or this is an artist that's based out of Phoenix," Payton said."So you can just see what's really going on through the work without that getting in the way. "
That said, the images taken don't all follow the same muses. A collage of bullet-ridden containers is a stark contrast to a woman sunbathing on a rooftop, for example.
As she described the gallery, Payton made a point of Serbia's war torn environment. The country was a part of the separation from Yugoslavia and gained its independence in 2008. The Serbian artists were born in Yugoslavia.
"It's a world that I think is very hard for Americans to understand," she said, "Where, maybe people who are the same age or maybe even in the same place in their artistic career, they're still coming from a very different perspective."
The theme of the gallery shows the similar styles, but the differences seem larger than life.
"It's blending these two perspectives together. Sometimes, there's shared experiences no matter where you're located," Payton said.
"Convergence/PHX-BG" is located in the 821 Combine Studios near the Downtown campus, on the corner of North 3rd and East Garfield streets. The show is open 2 – 6 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, and 6 – 9 p.m. every first and third Friday. Admission is free.
"Convergence" runs from Nov. 2 to Dec. 22.
Tell the reporter about your favorite convergence at Damion.Julien-Rohman@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @legendpenguin
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