Exhibition Description

Zero-Craft Corp.
produceriZm
September 16 – September 30

View images in this exhibition

Simone DeSousa Gallery/EDITION is pleased to present produceriZm, an exhibition of new work by art and design collaborative Zero-Craft Corp (ZCC). Founded in 2015 by Mark Dineen and Michael Neville, ZCC is an experimental studio engaging with art and design as highly compatible disciplines.

In March of 2017, Zero-Craft Corp. collaborated with the entire 3rd grade class at Bennett Elementary School in southwest Detroit as Schara Artists/Designers in Residence. Through daily workshops, ZCC introduced Bennett Elementary students to the design process and contemporary modes of art making. ZCC and their young collaborators produced over a dozen sculptures during their week together.

The sculptures produced with Bennett Elementary students are composed of stacked construction materials. Borrowing production strategies from Detroit’s manufacturing industry, each class of students was split into small groups and challenged to build several iterations of a tower using a specific kit of parts. Each kit was identical, yet interchangeable, and was designed and prepared by ZCC. Each group reached a consensus as to what arrangement was the most visually interesting to them and then committed to this form by wrapping the object in plaster gauze. The objects were finally painted and “documented” through drawings.

produceriZm is a presentation of the complete body of work created in response to ZCC’s experience as Schara Artists/Designers in Residence, plus additional works produced by ZCC in the months following the residency, including editions of screenprints and small sculptures that observe a similar “identical, yet interchangeable” nod to manufacturing strategies used by the Bennett Elementary students.

Zero-Craft Corp. are:

MARK DINEEN
Mark Dineen is a Colorado based artist, designer, and educator. He is an Assistant Professor of Sculpture and the 3D Foundations Coordinator in the Department of Art and Art History at Colorado State University. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

MICHAEL NEVILLE
Michael Neville is a Detroit based artist, designer, and educator. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Painting at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Zero-Craft Corp. would like to thank the 3rd grade students at Bennett Elementary for their contributions to this project and the University of Michigan’s Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design for their generous support.