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environmental issues such as
AIDS, cultural identity and
Northwest salmon habitat.
He creates the feeling
and pretense of museum
artifacts in his trademark use
o
f vitrines, which allow con
by S usan D etroy
tents to be viewed from the
top and sides. These Plexi
glas display cabinets are put
to good use in Bridges: Frag -
ile Circle (Australian Series),
which takes over Rogue
Community College’s FireHouse Gallery in
Grants Pass through Dec. 13.
Composed o f a wide array o f materials, his
latest installation symbolically documents the
cultural conflict between contemporary Aus
tralian white and aboriginal cultures. Aborigi
nal, native painting fragments are paired with
occidental, white culture objects, creating con
ceptual maps.
O n top o f this exhibit, Walsh has been
commissioned to install Works: Fragments o f the
Material Age for the
Mike Walsh’s installations explore
Eugene Public Library’s
environmental and social issues
mm
grand opening next
ranging from cultural identity to
month. The building is
forest practices. Center: the first
an example o f a new
AID S installation, Preparing for
millennium dominated
War. Left: Bridges: Fragile Circle
by computer tools such
(Australian Series) is on display at
as the Polaris online card
Rogue Community College’s
catalog; reminding us o f
FireHouse Gallery.
those original little
. ¿¿o
■ s .
index cards, Walsh is
creating 50 cards symbolically representing the
historic monument on Salisbury Plain in W ilt
This exhibit contrasts with Walsh’s first
cultural transition from paper to electronic
shire, England. In 1999’s Paper Prayers at Mel
installation dealing with AIDS, Preparing for War,
communication.
bourne, Australia’s Herring Island Environ
which was at Eugene’s New Zone Gallery in
Viewing these will preserve the memory o f
mental Sculpture Park, Walsh recognized
1985. More invested in the physical body and in
the accidental associations users o f the old sys
artists with HIV, living and dead. House
danger, the juxtaposition o f objects in the instal
lation “suggests purity and contamination as well
tem experienced while thumbing through the
shaped placards hung from chains on a time
paper cards. Walsh invited adults, teens and
as safety and vulnerability. [TheJ nude outline of
line documenting more than 100 people—
my body suggests my own vulnerability.”
children to select a favorite book, quote and
including famous New York subway artist Keith
Haring, New York fumiture/sculpture artist
comment, which is incorporated into the
9- by 7-inch wall placards.
alsh considers himself an AID S activist.
Scott Burton and Los Angeles architect Frank
As an artist, a gay man and a survivor
By involving the community, Works
Israel— whose elegant designs were coveted by
o f the Vietnam War, he believes he’s in
becomes a collage record o f Eugene’s love o f
the Hollywood celebrity set.
the midst o f another war— remaining HIV
the written word and is a powerful, quiet rever
That same year Lest We Forget: A Dialogue
negative in a world in which the alternative is
ence for the past— an act o f mourning the
on AIDS opened at Portland State University’s
sense o f spirit and history that vanishes with
likely fatal.
Littman Gallery. The site-specific installation
outdated systems. Walsh feels it’s a reminder o f
In July 2000 Walsh completed a Web-based
explored AID S through transient ritual, talis
forgoing slower, more scenic routes, the green
project sponsored by the New York City non
mans and icons embodying concerns related to
valleys, for the sterile speed o f cyberspace. JH
profit
Creative
Time
titled
Structuring
Fear,
mortality, loss o f innocence and temporality.
which featured a new image and text each day.
Focusing on biographies o f 20 Northwest
International artists, activists and writers corre
Bridges: Fragile Circle (Australian Series) by
artists who died o f AIDS, the exhibition
sponded for a month, telling the story o f how
MlKE W alsh is on display through Dec. 13 at
included bowls filled with blood-red liquid,
AIDS affected their communities.
Rogue Community College’s FireHouse Gallery,
which formed layers o f mold as it evaporated.
3345 Redwood Highway m Grants Pass.
Walsh’s undergraduate history background
He describes the scene as a “battlefield o f mor
remains a strong influence in all his work. Box
tality” and characterizes the entire work as
ing in objects underscores his interest in map
SUSAN D etroy is a Eugene free-lance writer and
memorializing and humanizing the disease,
artist.
ping, framing and archiving diverse social and
“ making visible the invisible.”
Fragile circles
Eugene artist documents history-
lest we forget
éj
&T,~.
______________ _
I
f you live in Oregon, you w on’t
miss the art o f Mike Walsh.
Renowned in local art circles
for his site-specific installations,
particularly around AID S activism,
he is a conceptual artist and fifth-
generation Oregonian. For 30 years,
he has made one-of-a-kind creations
horn from personal politics and pre
sented in intricate constructions and
assemblages o f everyday materials.
Walshs artistic concerns include
the environment, native people,
American life, history, AIDS and gay
culture. A n impressive list o f educa
tional achievements has helped him
structure the personal into the politi
cal into the artistic.
Bom in 1943 in Dallas and raised
both in Falls City and Newport,
Walsh earned a bachelors degree in history at
Western Oregon University before attending
New York’s prestigious Columbia University.
He entered the Navy, served in Vietnam and
was awarded the Vietnam Combat A ction Rib
bon and Vietnam Campaign Medal.
Then hack to his home state, where he
studied art history at University o f Oregon,
earning a bachelor o f fine arts in fibers in 1972.
He’s been in Eugene ever since.
The artist’s first site-specific installation was
Capacity, in which viewers rearranged hundreds
o f ropes filling the U o f O art department
gallery. The hands-on project initiated a series
o f similar exhibits, including the solo show
Rope Chains, which traveled throughout the
United States and Canada.
Walsh himself is a traveler: Japan, Hong
Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore,
Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, New
Zealand and Africa with future plans for Egypt
and Peru. His travels function as his inspira
tion, particularly when creating outdoor
installations.
1978’s Stonehenge Burial was a systematic
documentation o f a ritual burial at the pre-
m
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360 o f l]l)aterfroni I)in in (j
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