Katie Tuss on Mark Cameron Boyd at the Katzen

Logocentric Playground at the Katzen

By Katie Tuss

Washington area based artist Mark Cameron Boyd has been using his own deconstructed, re-contextualized sentences as the subject of his current body of work since 2003. Boyd’s thoughtful, challenging pieces utilize “text as a language for painting” while questioning the accepted systems of meaning and conventional constructs of art and communication.

In the installation Logocentric Playground, currently on view at the Katzen Arts Center, Boyd encourages visitors to engage him in an unspoken conversation using any of the three blackboards in the first floor gallery space. The boards display handwritten, original text by Boyd in red and white chalk.

Employing painter’s tape in his signature erasure method, Boyd obscures either the top or bottom of the upper case letters in each sentence. Crisp black lines alternate horizontally between truncated peaks of the letter “A” and severed curves of the letter “P.” Bisected red words meet bisected white letters, one on top of the other, altering the artist’s initial transcription.

A piece of chalk, but no eraser, can be found underneath each blackboard. Seemingly without hesitation Katzen Center visitors have picked up the artist’s discourse.

Viewers have interpreted the inconclusive text by completing interrupted letters and adding words and original symbols above, on top of, and around Boyd’s phrases.

Despite the interactive component of the piece, it doesn’t require any contribution to the installation to appreciate the original enigmatic markings and the development of Boyd’s relationship with the viewer and the piece over time.

Boyd plans on returning to Logocentric Playground at least once a week to remove, restore, and respond to his conversation partners. The installation's progress can be tracked on the artist’s Web site.

Logocentric Playground is on view through December 15, 2006.

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Disclaimer: I (Lenny not Katie), in the past, have curated Boyd's work into several shows focused on "text."

Art Deals

Wanna get a Colby Caldwell for a $100 bucks? How about a Tim Tate for $100 Samolians? or an Amy Lin? or Melissa Ichiuji? Susan Jamison? Joshua Levine? Akemi Maegawa? Linn Meyers? Marianela de la Hoz?

Those blue chip artists and a ton more artists' works will be on display at the Corcoran first ever Art Anonymous fundraiser, benefiting the Corcoran College of Art + Design’s BFA Scholarship Fund.

Leading DMV contemporary artists will offer for sale original works alongside the creations of students, faculty, and staff of the Corcoran College of Art + Design and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. All works are only $100 —- the catch: all artwork is signed on the back, so the identity of the artist will remain a mystery until after the purchase.

Hard to disguise a Tim Tate or a Linn Meyers though...

Saturday, May 10, 2008 - 6 p.m. Preview and Raffle, 7 p.m. Bidding Opens; Drinks and dancing until 11 p.m.

You have to RSVP for this event by May 1, 2008. For more information and to register, please click here or call (202) 639-1753.

Participating artists include: Irene Abdou, John M. Adams, Dana Aldis, Geoffrey Aldridge, Shahdeh Ammadi, Alida Anderson, Tim Anderson, Sondra N. Arkin, John Aquilino, Geoff Ault, Patricia Autenrieth, Jennifer Axner, Malena Barnhart, Jessica Grace Bechtel, Diane Blackwell, Lisa Blas, Raya Bodnarchuk, Tanya Bos, Richard Boswell, Mark Cameron Boyd, Joseph Bradley, James Brantley, Courtney Bratun, Lindsay Bratun, Julia Braun, Jean Brinton- Jaecks, Andrew Brown, Jason Bulluck, Renee Butler, Craig Cahoon, Colby Caldwell, F. Lennox Campello, Julie Carrasco, Stevens Jay Carter, Julie Casey, Gloria Cesal, Sarah Chamberlain, Amy Chan , Natalie Cheung, Nannette A. Clark, Lauren Clay, Michael Clements, Genevieve Cocco, Cindy Ann Coldiron, Tim Conlon, Bryan Conner, Sarah Coombs, Ellen Cornett, Patricia Correa, Adger W. Cowans, Robert Creamer, Christopher Cunetto, Emily Cunetto, Christopher Cunningham, Jasmine Daraie, John Deamond, Adam de Boer, Marianela de la Hoz, Rosetta DeBerardinis, Francks F. Deceus, Kate Demong, Jennifer DePalma, Rosanna Dixon, Nancy D. Donnelly, Joel D’Orazio, Katie Drenga, Nekisha Durrett, Steven Eson, Lori Esposito, Steven E. Frost, Lee Gainer, Lacey Gentry, Casey Goldman, Janis Goodman, Pat Goslee, Liz Gordon & Anna (Na Kyung) Ahn, Melissa Green, Tom Green, Lauri Hafvenstein, Mohamed A. Hamo, Rion Harmon, Carol Harrison, Jonathan Hartshorn, Stephen Hay, Sean Hennessey, Dayan Herrara, Randall C. Holloway, Jackie Hoysted, Michal Hunter, Melissa Ichiuji, Megan Irving, Ema Ishii, Harry L. Jaecks, Chris Jamison, Susan Jamison, Ian Jehle, Ryan Carr Johnson, Sue Johnson, David Jolkovski, Adam Jones, Coty Jones, Benjamin Gray Jones, Courtney Jordan, Mila Kagan, Margaret Kepner, Amy Kincaid, Marti Deppa Kirkpatrick , Nick Kirkpatrick, Katherine Kisa, William Knipscher, Steve Lakatos, Nick Lamia, Joshua Levine, Gina Marie Lewis, Katie Lewis , Amy Lin, Heidi Lippman, Carol Lukitsch, Raymond MacDonald, Akemi Maegawa , Dana Maier, Susan Makara, Isaac Maiselman, Isabel Manalo, Joey P. Manlapaz, Katherine Mann, Nathan Manuel, Anne Marchand, James Marshall (Dalek), Madeline Marshall, Myra Maslowsky, Leah Matthews, Cory May, Lisa McCarty, John McDaniel, Joseph McSpadden, Robert Mellor, Ashleigh Nicole Meusel, Trace Miller, Adrienne Mills, Elizabeth Lundberg Morisette, Camille Mosley-Pasley, Marci Nadler, Otto Neals, Emilia Olsen, Kerry O’Neil, Jonathan Ottke, David Page, Paulette Palacios, Chul Beom Park, Annie Peters, Brian Petro, Pamela Phillips, Ryan Pierce, Michael B. Platt, Nick Popovici ,Antonio Puri, Carole Rabel Nicoteri, Camden M. Richards, Marcel Richter, Charlotte Riley-Webb, Emily Rockwell, Andrew Roda, Lisa Rosenstein, Michael Knud Ross, Ron Rumford, Anna Samaha, Nancy Scheinman, Kahn & Selesnick, Mike Shaffer, Joanna Silver, Kristy Simmons, John Simpkins-Camp, Kerry Skarbakka, Paul So, Judy Southerland, Ashley A.. Sullivan, Lynn Sures, Zach Storm, Erik Swanson, Jordan Swartz, Tim Tate, Steve Taylor, James Stephen Terrell, Katurah L. Thomas, Kevin Tierney, Erwin Timmers, Susan Powell Tolbert, Patricia Truitt, Alexia Tryfon, Nicholas Tryfon, Katie Tuss, Linn Meyers and Bert Ulrich, Jessica van Brakle, Izel Vargas , Oliver Vernon, Ivi Volanska, Christopher Walker, Cheryl Warrick, Ellyn Weiss, Moon Young Wohn, Sharon Wolpoff, Antoinette Wysocki, Thomas Xenakis, Lindsey Nicole Yancich, Michelle Yo, Trevor Young, and Toopy Zerotree.