Good Mourning Tis of Thee

Good Mourning Tis of Thee, an expansive group art installation directed and curated by the multimedia artist Alyssa Taylor Wendt and Co-Lab Projects’ Executive Director and Curator Sean Gaulager, will show work from over 65 artists and performers from Texas, New York, Detroit and Seattle. This interactive exhibition will address topical issues such as grief, loss, death, architecture and urban development. Staged in an old building shell in downtown Austin currently being used by Co-Lab Projects as their gallery space, visitors will be able to move through areas devoted to themes of mourning, darkness and transformation and occasionally interact with durational performances both during gallery hours and at designated events throughout the run of the show. The show is especially relevant as the building is slated for subsequent demolition to make room for a planned development on this site.

The concept behind this show, conceived of by Miss Wendt, looks at death as a positive agent and component of change. American culture has few rituals around or processing death and she hopes that the artists involved will bring their own ideas, superstitions and rituals about mortality, but also those of different cultures and belief systems. We all have the capacity to use such markers of change as vehicles for new beginnings and transformative magic. Visitors to the exhibition will be guided to move freely in between the curated areas of the building in no particular order, ending with the message implied by the title, that each one of us is a source of beneficial change through cycles of ending and new beginnings. A unique project for Austin, this exhibition explores both issues of urban redevelopment and those surrounding death and grieving. Our fear of death and the lack of concern for history and preservation in an age of rapid development and gentrification will be addressed through photography, video, sculpture, sound, painting, installation, drawing and performance.

Wendt and Gaulager chose a specific group of installation artists and performers to create the immersive environment including: Jon Brumit; Chris Carlone; Gail Chovan; Maggie Douglas; Michael Anthony Garcia; Oren Goldenberg; Joshua Goode; Frank Haines; Hollis Hammonds; Ryan Hawk; Geoff Hippenstiel; Scott Hocking; Jules Buck Jones; Joseph Keckler; Jardine Libaire; Marne Lucas; Colin McIntyre; Angelbert Metoyer;  Landon O’Brien; Matt Rebholz; Cristin Richard; Benjy Russell; Seth Orion Schwaiger; Julia Solis; Michael Stephen; Terri Thomas; Bruce Lee Webb; Alyssa Taylor Wendt; Steve Wiman; Matt Winters; Rachel Wolfson-Smith and many others. The curators have also dedicated a large salon style space in the main gallery called the Bardo Salon.  Comprised of 2D works by over 40 artists that illustrate death and sorrow in various presentations, they hope to create a space for contemplation and conversation. In addition to additional work from some of the aforementioned artists, contributors include: Michael Abelman; Toni Ardizzone; Shawn Camp; Livia Cocchi; Erin Cunningham; Alex Diamond; Rachelle Diaz; Dan Estabrook; Stefany Anne Golberg; Amy Guidry; Katy Horan; Lindsay Hutchens; Madeline Irvine; Tlisza Jaurigue; Rebecca Marino; Robert Melton; Cynthia Mitchell; Christos Pathiakis; Lacey Richter; Beth Schindler; Lauren Silberman; Brad Walton; Jason Webb; and Marcus Zilliox.

This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.