Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont is pleased to announce our participation in War and Other Remnants, an installation by Jarod Charzewski, at the University of North Carolina Charlotte’s Storrs Gallery from Friday, October 7 – Thursday, December 1.
The gallery will host an opening reception and artist talk – free and open to the public – on Friday, October 7, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 pm. The installation is presented by the College of Arts & Architecture at UNC Charlotte.
Charzewski’s installations rearrange the recycled residual of mass consumption to show us who we are. War and Other Remnants sets “Military Carving by the Book,” Charzewski’s three soldiers made from recycled books on war, as guardians in front of a landscape of used clothing. The active stance of these soldiers will “protect” yesterday’s bright and colorful clothing purchases, as the rolling hills of wear and tear fill the Storrs Gallery behind them.
This recycled “used” landscape is a recurring theme in Charzewski’s work and is referred to by the artist as “the geology of the new earth.” The used clothing has been donated by Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont for the duration of the exhibit and will be returned after the show.
“My work investigates the transferring of animate sentiments to inanimate objects,” says the artist. “The value put on objects that we humanistically continue to collect give us pleasure. That pleasure gives comfort and that comfort lends itself to compulsion.”
A native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Charzewski’s graduate studies brought him to the United States to earn an MFA in sculpture from the University of Minnesota. He has served as a professor of sculpture at the College of Charleston since 2006. His creative pursuits, whether sculptural or installation-based, explore many contemporary environmental issues. He has maintained a rigorous exhibition record in the upper latitudes of the U.S. and Canada, with a recent concentration in the southeast and a residency at Kudztown University in Pennsylvania.
The College of Arts & Architecture at UNC Charlotte thanks Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont for our temporary donation of clothing for the cause of this educational exhibition. Thanks to material and financial donations from the community, Goodwill is able to provide job training and employment services free of charge to individuals in the region facing barriers to employment such as lack of skills, experience or education and criminal backgrounds.
All clothing used in this exhibition will be returned to Goodwill in continuance of our ongoing mission of changing lives through the power of work.
For more information about this exhibit, please visit the UNC Charlotte College of Arts & Architecture’s website here.
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