Kartz Ucci
{{short description|American contemporary artist}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2020}}
{{Infobox artist
| birth_date = 1961
| death_date = 2013
| alma_mater = York University
| known_for = Contemporary artist
| image = Kartzucci.jpg
}}
Kartz Ucci (1961 – 2013) was a multidisciplinary contemporary artist and educator working with sculpture, installation, text, and expanded media.{{Cite book|last=Lamb|first=E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yf0WABYkvUcC|title=Attracting 21st Century Arts Audiences|date=2010-01-01|work=20under40: Re-inventing the Arts and Arts Education for the 21st Century|publisher=AuthorHouse|isbn=9781452067391|editor-last=Clapp|editor-first=Edward P.|location=|pages=159|language=en}}
Early life and education
Kartz Ucci earned a BFA and an MFA, as well as an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies from York University in Toronto.{{Cite web |date=15 October 2013 |title=Kartz Ucci leaves a final artwork and a song with her passing |url=https://artdesign.uoregon.edu/kartz-ucci-leaves-final-artwork-and-song-her-passing |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190520234918/https://artdesign.uoregon.edu/kartz-ucci-leaves-final-artwork-and-song-her-passing |archive-date=20 May 2019 |access-date=5 March 2016 |website=University of Oregon - College of Design - School of Art + Design}} After teaching at York University, McMaster University and Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) in Canada,{{Cite web|title=Kartz Ucci|url=http://www.redheadgallery.org/kartz-ucci|website=Red Head Gallery|language=en-CA|access-date=2019-03-08}} she joined the University of Oregon faculty in 2004 and was tenured in 2010.{{Cite web|url=https://around.uoregon.edu/content/uo-arts-professor-kartz-ucci-leaves-artwork-and-song-her-passing|title=UO arts professor Kartz Ucci leaves artwork and a song with her passing|date=2013-10-20|website=Around the O|language=en|access-date=2019-03-08}}
Critical reception
Greg Kook-Anderson said Ucci was "a digital artist who worked in text, neon, vinyl and film...In her work, Ucci would translate sound into color. She was deeply interested in the ideas of synesthesia -- the sensory disorder in which perception in one sense evokes an involuntary response in another."{{Cite web |last=Kook-Anderson |first=Grace |date=2015-09-29 |title=Kartz Ucci show at the Art Gym honors Oregon talent who died too soon |url=https://www.oregonlive.com/art/2015/09/kartz_ucci_retrospective_at_ma.html |access-date=2019-03-08 |website=The Oregonian |language=en-US}}
The Toronto National Post review said of Ucci's 203 installation, "Sad But True centres on a vinyl LP recording of 368 songs that have the word 'sad' in their titles, which she has layered into one stream of sound. Each song begins at the same time, so the sound that fills the gallery... is a lot of nerve-crunching noise." The review also said, "This is hardly an exhibition you want to hang around in. It's a stressful and impersonal space, even with the hint of playful commentary on the inexhaustible supply of sad songs. It's a lot better to think about this show than to experience it."
Jeff Jahn wrote that she was "one of Oregon's biggest proponents of new media pioneers".{{Cite web |last=Jahn |first=Jeff |date=4 October 2015 |title=Kartz Ucci, new media stalwart revisited |url=http://www.portlandart.net/archives/2015/10/kartz_ucci_new.html |access-date=8 March 2019 |website=Portland Art}} Edward P. Clapp said, "Ucci is an installation artist working with relationships of theory, material, and concept within an expanded field of visual exploitation."{{Cite book|last=Clapp|first=Edward P.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yf0WABYkvUcC&q=Kartz+Ucci|title=20under40: Re-inventing the Arts and Arts Education for the 21st Century|date=2010|publisher=AuthorHouse|isbn=978-1-4520-6739-1|language=en}} E. Lamb said Ucci's "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair" as a "project based video and sound installation, a non-sales form, becoming increasingly significant in contemporary art practice".
Exhibitions
- "Sad But True", Red Head Gallery, Toronto, 2003.{{Cite news|date=2003-09-13|title=Soundscapes : Cry us a river|pages=95|work=National Post|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51237418/soundscapes-cry-us-a-river/|access-date=2020-05-16}}
- Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, Tilt Export, Helzer Gallery, Portland, 2009.{{Cite web|title=Kartz Ucci|url=https://tiltpdx.com/section/407685_Kartz_Ucci.html|date=2009|website=tiltpdx.com|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2019-03-08}}
- An Opera of One, in "The Long Now", University of Oregon, 2012.
- "256 Shades of Grey", High Desert Test Sites 2013, Joshua Tree, California, 2013.
See also
References
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Category:21st-century American women artists
Category:American contemporary artists
Category:American women academics
Category:Canadian contemporary artists
Category:Canadian women artists
Category:Academic staff of McMaster University
Category:Academic staff of Toronto Metropolitan University