On Friday, September 27, Ruby Lerner presents at the IdeaFestival in Louisville with four amazing Creative Capital grantees: Eric Dyer (2012 Film/Video), Paul Rucker (2012 Visual Arts), Jesse Sugarmann (2012 Film/Video) and Elaine Tin Nyo (2013 Emerging Fields). This marks the fourth year that we have been invited to present “Art at the Edge” at this celebration of innovation and intellectual curiosity.
This year’s IdeaFestival artists are a truly interdisciplinary group of makers and thinkers, and we’re thrilled that 21c Museum will exhibit photographic and video work by the Creative Capital artists in conjunction with the Fest. 
In the September 22 edition of the Louisville Courier-Journal, Elizabeth Kramer shared a preview of the 2013 IdeaFestival artists. Below is an excerpt from her article:

Eric Dyer, The Bellows March, 2009

Eric Dyer, an installation, film and technology artist, works with zoetropes, cylinders with illustration that when spinning create the illusion of motion, akin to animated cartoons.

“His work is stunningly beautiful and inventive,” Ruby Lerner said. “Some of it gives audiences the chance to walk through animated tunnel space.”

Dyer, who is also a Guggenheim Fellow, has received commissions from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the animation festival Animasivo in Mexico City.

Elaine Tin Nyo was invited in part, Lerner said, because of Louisville’s growing reputation as a food town. It caused Creative Capital to look at including a food artist. Tin Nyo fits the bill with work that explores the origins of food and our perceptions about it. Her current project, “This Little Piggy,” involves chronicling the lives of five little pigs in different parts of the country, following them from stable to table.

“I don’t think a whole lot about the process,” said Lerner. “And I think this, like projects of a lot of artists today, is addressing how we are detached from the sources of our food.”

Seattle-based Paul Rucker, who hails from South Carolina and is also an accomplished cellist, creates work that straddles the worlds of visual art and music. His work has focused on exploring the parallels between slavery and the proliferation of American’s prison system using data visualization and setting it to music he has composed. He’s also created sound art for a municipal bridge in Seattle and an interactive sound and video installation that allows viewers to manipulate a cello performance by waving a hand over an infrared beam.

“His data visualizations are beautiful but have startling stories,” Lerner said.

Lerner likens Jesse Sugarmann to a stand-up comic, in part because of the interesting observations of American culture he presents. Sugarmann, who works in video, animation, sculpture and fibers, has several projects that consider American car culture and how the decline of the auto industry has impacted our cultural identity.

“You are falling on the floor laughing,” Lerner said about some of his work, while emphasizing that it is also thoughtful. “It has a lot of dimensions to it.”

You can read the full article on the artists of IdeaFestival here. Thank you, Elizabeth for the great coverage!
Ruby Lerner, Eric Dyer, Paul Rucker, Jesse Sugarmann and Elaine Tin Nyo present Art @ The Edge at the Kentucky Center in Louisville on Friday, September 27 at 10:30am. During IdeaFestival, the artists’ work will be on display at 21c Museum.