Detail View: University Art Galleries (UMassD): Too Close to Home

A Conway and Pratt Project: Too Close to Home An Explanation of "Daddy's Little Girl"

Aprill 22 - May 6, 1994

1994

University Art Gallery (UMass Dartmouth Galleries)

Gregor Paslawsky

Merry Conway

Noni Pratt

TOO CLOSE TO HOME was first mounted (April - May 1994) in New Bedford, MA in conjunction with the City of New Bedford, MA and UMASS Dartmouth. Developed over three years, the piece was brought to completion by work with local people during our month's residency in New Bedford. It explored the complex relationships between daughters and fathers. It was housed in downtown New Bedford's bank deposit building, a 7,000 square foot space that had been abandoned for 10 years, and was then to be renovated to house an art museum for New Bedford. Not long ago, public art was seen as an alienating presence in urban neighborhoods. Now it's something people care about and participate in. Merry Conway and Noni Pratt have a keen understanding of art's unique power to communicate and engage; their highly sophisticated yet profoundly accessible performance/installations seem to hew to Oscar Wilde's maxim that "Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself more artistic." Their ability to engage people individually and personally produced astonishing results in Too Close To Home, a project about father-daughter relationships that was created in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1994. The performance took place in an abandoned savings bank, the planned site of a new museum. Conway and Pratt were invited to create a piece that would draw attention to the museum prior to its renovation, demonstrating to skeptical city officials that art could be relevant to the lives of residents of New Bedford, which Conway describes as a sometimes rough, largely working-class city. And, as Conway says, they "hustled". They made friends with people at the diner where they had lunch, at the hardware store, and on the street, asking any and all for contributions to the "highly eccentric personal museum" they were putting together. They didn't want money, they wanted stuff. They were more than willing: more than 100 people from the area loaned a wild variety of personal ephemera for the installation -- eyeglasses, prom photos, saw blades, dolls, golf clubs, boots, any kind of object that might evoke a memory. In addition to notions about what is public and private, Conway says they were working with the idea of the home as museum, "the value of a million little homes." By emphasizing the intimacy of the collected objects, the project became a physical manifestation of the inner life of the community and of commonalities that linked people's individual homes and lives.

installation

http://www.conwayandprattprojects.org/tcth-nbpages/tcth-nb.html

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ephemera - invitation

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UMass Dartmouth Art Galleries

Gregor Paslawsky

German-American

GREGOR PASLAWSKY has worked in New York as an actor, teacher, designer and fabricator since 1985. He has been the Fabricator for all the Conway & Pratt projects since 1988, and Co-Designer since 1991. He co-designs and constructs the structural and environmental elements of the work in a seemingly artless style, often using salvaged materials found near the site-specific locations. During construction of the projects, he also supervises interactions with local groups and volunteers on-site. In 1991 his work was nominated for a Theatre Wing Award for Set Design with Conway & Pratt. His design work also includes The Sadness of Others at LaMama Etc and Bad Science at Dance Theater Workshop, both with Mixed mess@ge, and If I Were You at The Kitchen with 3-legged dog. He has done architectural research for the Boulder Historical Society, documenting the history of early Colorado homes; decorative painting and cabinet making for a New York architect; and antique furniture restoration and trompe l'oeil for an International Antique Dealer. Gregor received an MFA in acting from Temple University and has studied at the Ecole Philippe Gaulier in London. He specializes in teaching acting styles such as Melodrama and Clown leading workshops at numerous universities and theater companies. He has been an Assistant Professor at: Columbia University, School of the Arts, in the MFA program; Barnard College; and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. During that time he worked with Peter Brook, Jacques Le Coq, Billie Whitelaw, Priscilla Smith, Anne Bogart, and Andrei Serban. He has acted with the London Shakespeare Company and at various regional theaters and New York venues such as Lincoln Center Institute, La Mama, Soho Rep, PS122, and with Bill Irwin on the workshop for his Broadway show Largely New York. Recent acting credits include: The Skin of Our Teeth, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Hot L Baltimore at the Williamstown Theatre Festival; Hotel Universe, Princess Turandot at the Blue Light Theatre.

http://www.conwayandprattprojects.org/bios/gregorbio.html

Merry Conway

American

In 1984 MERRY CONWAY received a Directing Fellowship from the NEA through Shakespeare & Company and began producing her own work with the creation of IN PRAISE OF FOLLY. In the following two years she created ELEMENTS OF RARE EARTH(1985) and TOWARDS TRICKSTER(1986). She taught movement and clown for fifteen years at university drama schools such as Carnegie-Mellon, Cal Arts, NYU, Brandeis, as well as drama schools in London. She was the Clown Master for Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox, Ma. for several years. She performed as a theatrical clown for seven years, and continues her ongoing research of female clown and fool with several seasons on tour with Circus Flora, the one-ring circus based in St. Louis, and The Friendship Company, a group of mentally challenged adult performers, directed by Rebecca Perrin. Since 1992, she has served as acting coach for Anna Deveare Smith, working on her acclaimed pieces, FIRES IN THE MIRROR, ,stage and movie versions of TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES 1992, and several versions of HOUSE ARREST. She has also served as the Comedy Consultant for LA Women's Shakespeare Company's Much Ado About Nothing, and Twelfth Night.

http://www.merryconway.com/

http://www.conwayandprattprojects.org/bios/merrybio.html

Noni Pratt

NONI PRATT helped found Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Ma. in 1978. In 1985 she started working with Ms. Conway; they began a full-time collaboration in 1986.

http://www.conwayandprattprojects.org/bios/nonibio.html

Too Close to Home

installation

performance

1994

10/09/13

jtrinh