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Ragtag Cinema supports emerging artists by offering the opportunity to exhibit work in the Ragtag/Uprise lobby space. Each month, Ragtag serves nearly 6,000 people, and Uprise serves thousands more, making our gallery space highly visible and well-trafficked by more than your typical art gallery patron. If you are interested in showing your work, please complete the inquiry form (PDF), save it (with your last name), and send it to artwork@ragtagfilm.com.
For more information and photos, please visit the Community Gallery blog.
The Community Gallery opens the New Year with an exciting new exhibit of work by the multimedia artist Xander Marro from Providence, Rhode Island. The exhibit features hand-silkscreened prints and textile work. An opening reception will take place on Tuesday, January 17, 5:30–7:30pm. Please stop by! While the artist will not be present (she lives far away!), the opening is a chance to purchase artwork ahead of the crowds and talk to the new gallery curator, Polina Malikin. Purchases can be made at the opening (cash or check, please) or afterwards, via email (polinamalikin@gmail.com). The exhibit will be up until mid-February when it will be replaced with work curated to coincide with the 2012 True/False Film Fest.
Xander Marro calls herself "a fake scientist and olde style tinker." The Providence Phoenix describes her as a "puppet-maker and projectionist steeped in the underground." She makes films, puppet shows, prints, and phone calls, working out of her base at the Dirt Palace — what she describes as "a feminist, cupcake-encrusted netherworld located along the dioxin-filled banks of the Woonasquatucket River, which is to say, in Providence, Rhode Island, USA." Her adventures underground have included founding the Dirt Palace (a women's art collective), curating the "Movies with Live Soundtracks" film series, and performing in various shows as one of a variety of alter egos (Madame Von Temper Tantrum, Lady Long Arms, Lil Blood-n-Guts, Madame Von Malt Liquor, and more). Until recently, she was the Managing Director of AS220 — a nonprofit arts organization in Providence — where she says she "crafted endless spreadsheets and reports documenting the possibility of an organized, egalitarian approach to art-making as a tool in generating beauty, achieving equality, next level human consciousness, and putting an end to humanity’s terrible habit of ceaseless war-making." Xander's work has been shown in many galleries, homes, and festivals the world over — from the Rotterdam Film Festival in the Netherlands to P.S.1 in NY, while she has also hosted and organized hundreds of performances and exhibits as well.
designed by Willy Wilson; constructed by Marty Riback and David Wilson
In 1920 the Russian artist and architect Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin drew up plans for a huge tower constructed of iron, steel and glass as a monument to the Communist International movement. Its intended height was 1,200 feet — a third taller than the Eiffel Tower — with a cube, pyramid, cylinder and hemisphere rotating inside. The visionary work was never constructed; it would have taken more steel than Russia was capable of producing. The interpretation of Tatlin's tower that anchors our box office reflects the daring spirit of the original design, which is also evident in the films you will enjoy at Ragtag Cinema.
Lee Elementary 5th graders and Dr. Ann Mehr; screenprinting on clay
The mural in the north courtyard displays the history of motion pictures and of Columbia's movie houses, all in 36 square feet. Constructed by Lee Expressive Arts School's 2007 5th grade class, this clay mural started with the silkscreening of historic Columbia theater photos onto clay (with special thanks to Diggit Printing and the Missouri Historical Society). 3-D tiles created by the children brought the ghosts of Alfred Hitchcock, King Kong, Buster Keaton, and others vividly into life.
Bob Bussabarger; ceramic
The Horn Player, with his mischievious pout, feels right at home on our outdoor patio after years at various other locations. One of Bussabarger's many music-themed sculptures, Horn Player was inspired by the comic marching Fufu bands of India. Bussabarger says "The material is clay — earth— a basic element that is centered in the world," which, according to him, makes Ragtag an appropriate display site because he believes it is "the physical and mental center of the community."
Helen Hawley; celluloid film
Representing a blend of form and function that typifies Ragtag philosophy, this blind was constructed from individual strips of 35mm film, culled from miles of old movie trailers. Once selected, the strips were organized by color and detail and then hand-sewn to create a single large sheet. The blind represents a visual history of Ragtag, as well as repurposing the frames and footage. As is always the case with film, light plays an integral role in bringing the piece to life Hawley, who lives in a cabin in rural Moniteau County, is a 2002 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. Hawley's work is primarily in printmaking and lithography.
Susie Fiegel of Village Glass Works
Susie Fiege, who makes reproduction glass shades for historic fixtures all over the country, created molds to form the glass wall sconces that illuminate Ragtag's halls. The molten glass for the sconces is poured onto a table, fed through rollers to produce thin sheets, which are cut to size and then bent in the kiln at 1170 degrees. The black-and-white glass was swirled by hand and then sandblasted. The dark red/orange glass in the big theater comes to us from the longest operating opalescent glass factory in the world.
